What will Apple ruin this time?

Today, at ten o'clock PDT (five o'clock this afternoon), Apple will host a 'Keynote' event on their website.  I suppose I ought to be excited – after all, I use Apple products, and I love them.  Instead, I feel an impending sense of doom.

Ever since Apple killed off the iPod Classic (the only real iPod) in 2014, I have suspected that Apple CEO Tim Cook treats these events as some sort of social experiment, to see just how much Apple can inconvenience and irritate their consumers before they abandon the tech giant altogether and switch to another brand.  So, instead of launching exciting, innovative, cool new products – like they used to – Apple now focus on making people's lives harder by (for example) changing the shape of the chargers for their laptops and phones, so you constantly have to buy new ones, and it's harder to lend one to your friends.

The latest rumours about the next iPhone suggest that Apple will ditch the standard 3.5mm headphone socket, meaning everybody in the world will have to buy a new set of headphones in a non-standard size – because obviously, that's what consumers really want.  (Not.)  Y'know, the same way everyone was crying out for a computer which couldn't play DVDs.

So, what pointless and inconvenient change will Apple foist on us in their event later today?  Maybe they're going to launch a computer without a screen – and announce that they are ceasing support for screens within twelve months, and that soon no computers will have screens…

The Apple Watch will no longer have an actual strap, you'll just have to balance it on your wrist and keep very still; but at least it will now come with a set of Apple Cufflinks (for £179 extra), which will be WiFi enabled, for some reason…

And the new iOS for iPhone and iPad will change the direction you 'swipe' across the screen to unlock your device from left-to-right, to right-to-left.  Just because.

And we'll still all just nod along with it all, and queue up at their weird shiny stores to buy the stupid things.

Who watches the Apple Watch men?

No, I shan't be buying an Apple Watch – the latest offering from Apple, which is available in the UK today.  I may have a MacBook Pro, an iPhone, an iPad and an iPod Classic, but I really can't see myself investing in Apple's latest output.

'Wearable tech' is not a good look.  No matter how classy Apple try to make the Apple Watch, ultimately it is still a gadget, and a watch should not be a gadget – it should be a classic, timeless (ironically!) piece of jewellery.

My own watch was a twenty-first birthday present from my Grandmother.  It is a square-faced analogue Armani watch with a black leather strap, and I wear it every day.  I don't need apps and other techery on my watch – I already have that stuff on my laptop, and on my phone – and I'd rather wear a timepiece which is simple, elegant and beautiful, and which won't be obsolete within five years.

What's next?  Touch-screen brogues?  Cufflinks with Bluetooth?  (No, don't tell me that already exists…?!)

I didn't know about the classic ten-to-ten 'happy' face for
photographing watches when I took this in 2011.