Say hello to the future.

(Written 11/2/2017 for 800 Words with Kevin Coyne)

           The future is upon us, Apple would have us believe, and that future looks like wireless charging, face recognition, a “bionic” chip and even, get this, “radically new rear cameras.” On November 2nd, dozens of expectant fans dozed outside the Apple Store on 66th Street and Broadway, waiting to get their hands on that very future at 8 the next morning.

           Three exhausted young men sitting near the front of the line had been there since 6 a.m. Only one of them, pharmacy worker Pablo Rios, 18, was awake enough to explain why he was there: “I use my iPhone all the time,” said Rios, now looking to upgrade the device so central to his life. Part of it was the experience of waiting in line, too. All three would be buying two phones, the hard limit set by Apple.

           One dutiful sibling sat to indulge his brother’s fandom. “I’m doing it because my brother wants one,” said Michael Taveras, 19. “He’s done so much for me, I couldn’t say no.” The two had scouted out the spot for days, until Taveras set up shop at 1 p.m., when he saw that things were getting busy. His brother couldn’t make it, but his cousin was there to keep him company. Both planned to buy two phones as well.

           Daria Tarasova, 26, had come all the way from Russia to wait in line. She’d been there with her friend since 6 a.m. “It’s an amazing phone,” she managed, in broken English.

Apple’s notoriously frenzied fandom has made for easy jokes, and Charlie Todd, founder of Improv Everywhere, couldn’t resist making one himself with an elaborate stunt. Acting on an idea submitted by a fan, he coordinated a fake line of Apple customers, complete with fake Apple employees, outside the 23rd Street subway stop.

           The subway entrance, a glass case housing an elevator bank, looks uncannily like Apple’s Fifth Avenue location. Some locals bought it, and despite multiple warnings - “We kept telling them ‘there is no way you’re getting a phone,’” said Todd - one couple waited in line until the very end, emerging to their dismay into a grimy New York subway station rather than a sleek Apple store.

           But the store on 66th Street is very real, as were the sleepy yet eager customers waiting outside. So what incredible innovation brought members of our unlikely campsite to spend the night - some over 24 hours – in New York’s crisp November air? What acme of American technology brought together this brave group of multinational fans? What miraculous device prompted Apple to skip “9,” as it boldly jumped from “8” to “X”?

           Steve Jobs’ last gasp, said Joanne McNeish, professor of marketing at Ryerson University in Canada. The phone represents the pinnacle of the innovator’s yet unused ideas, which had to this day remained trapped in the development pipeline. Now that they’re fully baked, Apple wants to capitalize: “It sounds like this will be a cash grab,” said McNeish. And yet, she too may pay a steep $1,700 Canadian (about $1,300 U.S dollars) for Apple’s new phone: the iPhone X.

           Even prank orchestrator Todd indulged. “I have to confess that I set my alarm and woke up at 3 a.m. last week to get a pre-order,” said Todd. “I’m as guilty as anyone of the hype and the consumerism.”

So how does Apple keep customers shelling out hundreds, even thousands on products set to expire in less than three years?

           “Planned obsolescence,” answered McNeish. Tech companies like Apple make products difficult to repair so that when one component breaks the whole device has to be replaced. They also push updates incompatible with old models, forcing customers to keep buying the next big thing.

One category particularly susceptible to this strategy has been millennials, who are “thoughtful in some categories, but not so thoughtful when it comes to tech,” said McNeish, giving her an entirely new reason to be miffed at the sight of phones in class.

            At some point the madness must stop, said McNeish. Our practice of throwing away entire devices because simple components can’t be replaced has led us to ship mountains of waste to countries like China. In America alone, we throw 150 million phones away every year, research by IBISWorld shows. At this rate, said McNeish, we’re going to run out of capacity, and the question will inevitably arise of what to do with our obsolete phones next.

            “Oh my God, are we going to shoot them into space?” asked McNeish.

           Blasting waste into the ether: say hello to the future.