By John Moltz

This Week in Apple: The red shirt diaries

An Apple event may be nigh as the company shakes up its organization. Apple’s so busy, no wonder it needs to lie down!

One day in October

The calendar on the wall says it’s October which means it is or it could be or it might be or maybe even isn’t time for a less exciting Apple event! Aren’t you less excited? I know I am.

Rumors indicated Apple could be set to announce a blockluster (sic) lineup including the following:

• M5-based iPad Pros. WARNING: standing between them and the power outlet could void the warranty. Your warranty. I may have picked the wrong year to be a Star Trek red shirt for Halloween.
• A faster HomePod mini with support for an as-yet-to-be-delivered conversational Siri, thrilling thousands of customers.
• A faster Apple TV with support for an as-yet-to-be-delivered conversational Siri, thrilling hundreds of customers.
• A faster Vision Pro, thrilling Carl.
• Updated AirTags, thrilling no one.

There’s also a chance Apple will announce new MacBooks. Or just do the whole thing by a press release. It’s all very exciting adjacent.

An interesting Ternus events

Mark Gurman stirred the cauldron of Apple executive news this week, suggesting that a major Apple leadership shakeup was Impending with John Ternus taking over the reigns from Tim Cook.

What changed to make this news? Not much, honestly, as Cook shows no real signs of stepping down in the near future, other than that thousand yard stare he had while standing there listening to the president of the United States field a question about his possible involvement in a child sex ring.

Probably not where he saw himself in 30 years back when he was working at Compaq.

Apple did subsequently shake its snow globe full of executives, though. (Sorry, I have a barrel full of metaphors here and they’re about to expire.)

“Apple’s Health and Fitness Teams Report to Eddy Cue in Reshuffle”

Jeff Williams continues to shed responsibilities as he prepares to retire and presumably spend more time with his family if he indeed has one. This change paves the way for a Health+ subscription service that Apple is expected to unveil next year.

The offering is said to feature an AI assistant providing personalized recommendations on nutrition, exercise, and sleep.

Look, I’m already eating all the rocks and glue I can.

Can’t we talk about something NICE*?

(* Stands for “Not ICE”.)

I was very tempted to skip this topic as it’s just depressing and this is supposed to be a jokey look at the week in Apple, not a documentary about the decline and fall of democracy and accountability in the United States. I’m barely qualified to do the jokey column about Apple news and surely unqualified to do the latter. But, then, if I don’t talk about it are we just all gonna not talk about it until we all get hauled off?

Not talking about things is how we got that chigger infestation.

So, yeah, Apple rolled over and showed its belly to the Trump administration yet again this week. Hashtag fun. Following up on last week’s removal of ICEBlock, an app that tracked appearances of ICE agents, the company also banned an app that archived video of ICE abuses.

Look, this memory hole isn’t going to feed itself, people.

It’s almost like this administration is somehow different than previous administrations because I don’t recall Tim Cook donating $1 million to Joe Biden’s inauguration or giving him a glass trophy. It’s weird. I’m old enough to remember when Apple took on the Obama-era Department of Justice in order to protect the privacy rights of a terrorist, by which I mean I am older than 10 years old.

iPhone security is, of course, much different than the App Store, which Apple treats as its personal theater of lesser passions including avarice, despotism, and indifference. But Apple loooves to tout the safety of the App Store. Heck of a time to realize they were talking about the safety of the state rather than citizens.

This all highlights the need for alternative app stores where those who choose to can get apps outside the patronizing, mercurial, and uncaring oversight of our favorite fruit-themed company. Maybe if we made a shiny trophy for “Bestest President At Breaking Up The App Store Ever”. Might work.

[John Moltz is a Six Colors contributor. You can find him on Mastodon at Mastodon.social/@moltz and he sells items with references you might get on Cotton Bureau.]