The next really big thing

Everyone has been getting down on Apple recently. They say it is more preoccupied with protecting its turf, like Microsoft did, rather than with innovating, which is what made the company great.

Well, according to our sources, the company is not far off roaring back, big time, with an innovative new product that has been called a ‘game changer’ by those who have seen the mock-ups.

Apparently, Apple executives took a weeklong retreat last summer at an ashram in the Indian province of Rajasthan, at which they spent six days in meditative contemplation of a picture of the company’s late founder Steve Jobs. On the seventh day, they brainstormed. They asked themselves a number of questions, including the one that sources say gave them their moment of insight. “What is the biggest problem of the sucesss of our iPods, iPads and iPhones?” they pondered. And the answer came over them. The mobile products contain so much data that to lose one is a personal catastrophe. So, they reasoned, we need to make a product that can’t be lost. And they went forth back into the world and set up a crack team to come up with a product that would meet that challenge.

Accordingly—assuming there are no more factory worker revolts in China—next fall will see the introduction of the “thiPhone” TM (pronounced “thigh-Phone”)—a mobile phone/pad/pod device that is implanted beneath the skin. It’s revolutionary, of course, because its beauty lies in the integration of product and user. “We simply implant the chip in the fleshy part of the upper thigh,” said one Apple source, “left or right, it doesn’t matter.” People have talked about putting a chip on spectacles, but this is another generational leap ahead, says the source; who wears spectacles in the shower?

The device will run on voice commands, and will provide voice responses; so that, for example, if you want to ask the thiPhoneTM a phone number, it will speak the number back to you, and even dial it for you. “I know the concept of a talking leg sounds a little bizarre at first,” said another source, “but wasn’t the concept of people conducting intimate conversations at full blast on portable phones in the supermarket checkout line a little strange at first too?” At the same time, the chip will employ pulse and blood flow recognition technology; so that, for example, if a man’s heart starts to race when he sees an attractive woman, the chip will sense that he needs her phone number, scan her for the presence of a communication device, and prompt the user by asking whether he wants to dial the number. Commands can also be issued by blinking, tapping the feet, coughing, laughing or sighing.

But what about keyboards with which to enter commands and screens upon which to see? How will my thiPhoneTM show me the pictures of the latest Kardashian wedding? The answer is another step forward. The tiny (about 3” by 3”) combination screen and keyboard will be heavily magnetized and thus adhere to the thigh, through even the thickest overalls. And because all of the information useful to the user is embedded in the chip (and the user), the screen/keyboard can be lightweight and disposable. Its eye catching, simple design will be sculpted from cardboard and Saran Wrap, and made in a range of designer colours. “Here’s the beautiful thing about that concept,” said our source. “Just as you needed to buy music from iTunes to fuel your iPod, and apps from the Apple Store to run your iPhone, you’ll need to buy a new screen about once a month. It will be a bigger scam than buying $50 a cartridge of ink to keep your $100 printer going.”

Apple is currently locked in negotiations with the American Association of Tattoo Artists (AATA) to perform implantations and make tattooing services available at Apple stores; so that a person who is proud to be implanted with the thiPhoneTM chip can show that fact to the world with an Apple logo tattoo. Of course, Apple executives will insist that tattoo artistry will have to be up to Mr. Jobs’s standards; which is why the negotations have been protracted and shrouded in secrecy.

The thiPhoneTM is expected to retail at about $499, a price that includes a six-month supply of sceen/keyboards and basic implantation by an AATA-licensed tattoo artist. Replacement screen/keyoards will sell at about $19.95. Higher end models will include the tungsten, platinum and titanium level chips, for those with an eye to designer status—although the only way that someone will know that a higher-end model is being worn is to obtain an authorized Apple/AATA tattoo that says so.

And what’s beyond that? According to our source, Apple researchers are hard at work already on the next iteration of the thiPhoneTM : a chip that will slowly and safely dissolve into the bloodstream over a two, three or five-year period. Apple reasons that some people may tire of the concept of having obsolete junk floating around in their bodies, and will want to start fresh with each technical advance.

Oh, Mr. Jobs, you would be so proud of your old gang. Just don’t blow a fuse until the tattoo stuff is sorted out.

David Simmonds’s writing is also available at www.grubstreet.ca.