Have you come to terms with the idea that iPhone 7 has some nifty little aspects buried deep within it?
Are you amazed by the iPhone 7 Plus's dual camera and amused the AirPods that look like they debuted in the wardrobe department of "Galaxy Quest"?
HBO talk show host Bill Maher is neither amazed nor amused. He's appalled.
On Friday's "Real Time With Bill Maher," he took time to eviscerate not only Apple but those who stand in what he called "the nerd line."
If Apple really does think different, Maher said, it should try not releasing a new phone.
"The only people who really need you to get a new phone every year are the shareholders," he said.
There's a truth in that, of course. But how are we going to survive if people see that we've got a phone that's a year old? Or, perish the notion, two years old? We're judged by the gadgets we're seen with. They're part of our self-image.
Perfect for taking ever-better pictures of our self-image, too.
Maher claims he knows what the people on the nerd line are thinking: "Oh, Bill. How can you say the iPhone 7 is the same as the 6? The old phone had an A9 processor and a camera with an aperture of 2.2. And the new one has an A10 and a 1.8. Sorry, not sorry."
Big deal, Maher said. Better pictures in low light will only encourage Anthony Weiner. And: "do you friends really need clearer pictures of your lunch?"
Some will muse that Maher is known to lean heavily leftward, so you'd expect this sort of critique.
But anyone who works in business knows that the pressure for more -- now fueled by an always-on technological world -- can feel both grating and stifling.
At heart, it's the insistence on never-ending growth that invades every American business and cascades down to us to keep propelling it along.
CEOs want more because that's what shareholders want.
And if you haven't had the time or the ideas to create something that truly is better, you have to dress it up a little, market it a lot and hope that real people's emotions are sufficiently moved.
Perhaps Apple has signaled that this relentless pace cannot continue.
Even technology has its limits, despite those who run tech companies wanting you to believe it's not true.
Yet even though we know we could all use a pause for rose-smelling, stock-taking and mind-resting, we still screech for a new, better, cooler phone than last year's.
Because, well, why? Because that's how it's supposed to be? Because that's what's going to make us feel good?
Or because that's all we know?
