It's almost quaint to see an iPhone commercial featuring a voice explaining actually HELPFUL things one can do with their phones, like finding where one parked their car (just keep making the phones easier and easier to use, because that car-finding thing is most helpful to seniors who are, incidentally, the least like demographic to be in the market for an iPhone.)
Of course, this ad is also telling us that as the iPhone improves it will be capable of doing more and more of the thinking for us, allowing our brains to atrophy so we can become more and more dependent on iPhones. And there will be more and more ways to waste the brain cells we still have playing dumb games with each new update and each new App.
Eventually, we'd get apps for shopping and "gaming" (which used to mean losing an hour playing Candy Crush and Angry Birds but now means losing the rent at DraftKings.) And ordering takeout at a 30 percent markup. And watching stuff. Lots and lots of stuff. And doing it all while sitting. Lots and lots of sitting.
Two decades later, I'm not sure that Apple* has improved our lives any, and in fact I'm pretty sure it's been a destructive influence. But I don't think we get to complain that we weren't warned.
*maybe a silver lining is that once the tariffs hit, we'll have less money to gamble away? I'll leave that idea to the weirdos who think that they can find the bright side to every situation. I'm not one of them.
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