Note: Today's Notes From the Field blog post is coming to you from the future. It seems Cringely hitched a ride on some faster-than-light neutrinos and woke up in October 2023 -- just in time for Apple to announce its newest life-altering creation, the iPhone 17.
I have to say today's Apple special event was the most impressive I've ever attended. Well, "attended" is probably not technically accurate, seeing as it was delivered via a 3D hologram to my room in the nursing home.
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Still, it was just like the old days in Cupertino, before Apple built that new orbiting headquarters at the Lagrange point between the earth and the moon.
The iPhone 17 is truly a technological wonder. With a display lighter and thinner than a standard piece of what used to be called "paper," back when we still had trees, it is easily the finest mobile communications device around -- instantly obsoleting the 17,342 Android devices currently on the market.
The iPhone 17 is the first device to take advantage of blazingly fast 14G wireless networks, which are able to deliver content to mobile devices before it has even been created.
CEO Justin Timberlake demonstrated the iPhone 17's stunning speed by streaming an HD16X movie (a remake of "Police Academy III" by the Coen brothers) as it was still being filmed.
"Notice the amazing resolution on Suri Cruise's cheekbones," he said, pointing at the actress on the 300-foot tall display behind him. "You can actually count her pores."
As with the iPhone 16, you have the option of sliding the wafer-thin Omnipresence Module ("Om") under the tongue, where it is held in place via magnetic attraction to your fillings, or opt for a surgical implant just behind the cerebellum at the base of the skull.
Timberlake says Apple has solved the problems with saliva buildup that hindered users of the iPhone 16, when a number of AT&T subscribers reported that they could only make calls while touching their tongues to their noses.
