The ghost of Steve Jobs is very angry with Apple. How do we know? People who didn’t know him say so. Who? People who write for the now-ironically named Boy Genius Report.
“Here’s why Apple’s upcoming ‘iPad Pro’ will be a failure, according to Steve Jobs”
Stick with the Macalope here because we’re about to take a mystical journey from the headline through the dark carnival that is the Boy Genius Report‘s twisted soul. Hang on to his hoof, dear reader, for this house of mirrors can try the mind and leave you questioning your sanity.
OK, really what happened is that the people responsible for this kind of thing wrote a salacious, jerktastic headline that is belied by the body of the article in a desperate attempt to make something out of nothing.
Jobs was never afraid to speak his mind of course, and he would regularly make bold statements that promoted Apple’s products while belittling the competition. Of course, he was also known for his epic 180s, when Apple would go on to release a product that completely went against Jobs’s earlier statements.
So, does Boy Genius Report believe its own headline? Seem like it doesn’t. Strange that it’s the headline, then. The page title is “iPad Pro Specs Leak: 12.9-inch iPad may have a stylus accessory.” Which is less salacious and therefore completely useless. No one’s reading that! Put the ghost of Steve Jobs in the title and now you’ve got something baby! Something wrong on many, many levels, sure, but something.
In 2010 following the launch of the iPad, Steve Jobs famously said “if you see a stylus, they blew it.” His comment targeted earlier tablet products that relied on styluses for input as opposed to focusing on finger input.
True! And guess what? He was right. If you need a stylus for the general operation of a tablet, it’s junk. Is a stylus good to have in certain use cases? Oh, guess what again, that’s a different question.
Now, according to the world’s most accurate Apple analyst, Apple plans to launch a special stylus accessory alongside the 12.9-inch iPad Pro that is rumored to be launching later this year.
So, it doesn’t exist yet, but it’s a failure according to Steve Jobs, who is no longer alive and could not have seen it.
Is it time to burn the Internet to the ground yet?
Details are slim, but Kuo believes the stylus will be an optional accessory and will not ship with the iPad Pro.
Aaaand it doesn’t even ship with the device but would be a separate purchase.
Has anyone seen the Macalope’s lighter? Never mind, he’ll just spend the rest of the day rubbing these sticks together.
Let us not be remiss in noting the greatest hits of the author, Zach Epstein, yet again. Long time readers of the Macalope (or, well, anyone who’s read him for three weeks) might remember him as the author of the seminal work “Sorry Apple, Windows 8 ushers in the post-post-PC era”. No, the Macalope will never stop bringing that article up because it’s a glorious ode to the magic of being catastrophically wrong. Late-breaking news, though: While it took Epstein almost three weeks to correct that piece claiming the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus affected a study from May of 2014, he finally did. So, the system works! Just really, really slowly.
Trying to throw Jobs’ words in Apple’s face is a cottage industry these days. It’s just a shame it’s not a cottage on the coast that doesn’t have WiFi.
Writing for CNNMoney, David Goldman details “5 things Steve Jobs said Apple would never do – and Apple is doing” (tip o‘ the antlers to @JonyIveParody).
Not one of which is actually a thing that Steve Jobs said Apple would “never do.” Well, look on the bright side. At least it’s not a slide show.