picture from endgadget, copied from MacRumours

Apple announced some new phones, again.

The 5C is a plastic iPhone, as if there isn’t enough plastic in the world. Soon there will be Chinese billions of plastic iPhones cluttering up our island beaches. On the positive side at least that means billions of people will have access to a great mobile operating system, as long as they’ve got access to lots of $$. In the UK this phone will start at £469 as a SIM free phone, that’s not a cheap deal.

As for the Gold, Silver and Platinum (space grey!) 5S, have Apple looked at the world and decided we all value metal? Its not even real metal, its coated aluminium from Iceland or Australia and tin from the island beaches where the plastic iPhones will end up.

No, no, no, no, no. Wrong Apple.

Do you need to upgrade? Of course, you will always need to upgrade. Do you need to upgrade to iOS7 now (or on 20th September 2013)? No, but do it before Christmas.

The faster, quicker, zippy iPhone 5S includes a fingerprint scanner to unlock the phone. Can you use a fingerprint scanner in an emergency? Or when drunk? I don’t want to find out. But I do want a plastic iPhone, not one I have to buy a plastic case for ‘cos that is really taking the michael.

Brilliant news that iPhoto, iMovie, Pages, Numbers and Keynote are free now, but especially not after I persuaded a client to download the £10.99 iPhoto from the App Store recently.

Maybe its just because I’m a bit skint at the moment that this new phones announcement feels to me like Apple are trying to say “We serve the rich and the poor must pay”, the Jobs legacy or the Cook trumpet? I’m sure iOS7 will be brilliant and improve our digital lives and I will be downloading and installing it on my iPhone 5 as soon as I can.

I was rather hoping Apple would make a free phone, they have more money than 99% of us.

Meanwhile, in darkest Radstock, development of the courgette telephone is still underway. My hopes are pinned on vegetable telecommunications, I believe it’s the future.

Image and representative technology © Thomas Pinkney c.1993