Apple Just Sank To Microsoft's Level And I Want To Weep

I never thought it'd come to this.

These are desperate times.

But should that be an excuse to exercise desperately poor judgment?

Oh, perhaps.

Many have looked around recently and reached for a bottle of something unwise.

Or bought a piece of technology they simply didn’t need.

Yes, like rudimentary, piffle-headed AI.

But we’re here today to discuss Apple’s latest foray into being down with the kids.

Down with the kidding, too.

Funny You Should Say That

Last week, the company released a video that purported to persuade college-bound kids to persuade their parents to buy them a Mac.

The video featured an evidently incompetent presenter on a stage, offering reasons for a Mac’s superiority.

This was psychologically dubious in so many ways.

There was the humor part, for example.

Its main problem was that it wasn’t humorous. Instead, it was the sort of unfunny that makes your sphincter pucker and your lips disappear into your mouth for succor.

Someone at Apple must have noticed this and, within 24 hours, the video had disappeared like your manageable credit card balance when you buy a Mac.

Sliding Towards Ignominy

What remained, however, was a slide presentation on Apple’s website.

This is a slide presentation that Apple wants you, kids, to use for parental persuasion.

Again, this drifts dangerously toward putridity. Psychologically speaking, that is.

Doesn’t Apple know that all these kids have parents who constantly hovered over them like bees over delicate flowers, ready to make sure their honies were so very happy all the time?

These kids don’t neeed PowerPoints when they already have all the power.

This wasn’t, however, the part that disturbed me to paroxysms of pulmonary dysfunction.

You see, I downloaded this PowerPoint presentation to see what it contained.

Again, it was garlanded with (attempted) humor.

I indulged it as best I could.

I tried to laugh.

Sliding Into Oblivion

Along, though, came slide 39.

(Did I mention this Apple PowerPoint is 81-slide glorious?)

Slide 39 reads: ‘Mac has Apple Intelligence built in that can help me improve my writing, proofreed my werk, and even adjust my tone.’ (All sic, thank you for asking)

There was that word again.

Improve.

This is precisely the arrogant, self-regarding word Microsoft uses every time I write an email.

Microsoft is desperate for me to use its crashingly dull Copilot to ‘improve’ my emails.

I am desperate for its Copilot to disappear in a haze of effluent.

Indeed, this rankles me so much that I had to express my sentiments on LinkedIn, for the sole reason that Microsoft owns it.

Sliding Past Halfwittedness

Microsoft’s precise wording on every one of my emails is: ‘Coach can rewrite this email to improve it for you. Try Coach to get a rewritten message!’

Oh, do please go away without procreating, Coach.

As I mused on LinkedIn: ‘It could have just said: “Coach can rewrite this email to improve it for you.”

But no, they had to add: ‘Try Coach to get a rewritten message!’

That second part is not merely repetitive, but doesn’t offer any kind of promise. Anyone can rewrite anything I write, but does this mean it’ll be better?

How, actually, will my email be improved? Will it be wittier? More mellifluent? More meaningful?

Or will it merely be as bland as a rich old person’s wardrobe?

Apple used to consider words carefully.

It used to at least try to sound different, as if its words came from different thinking.

Now Tim Cook and his aging cabalsters are peddling a Microsoftian swelling of detrital moronism-mongering.

And, worse, attempting to infect the coddled, privileged young with its spirit.

Oh, Apple. I’d so like to improve you, but I fear it’s far too late.

I fear that now you’re just Microsoft with a better logo.