Pointed

Apple Pencil Dulled by Web Mockery

Make a fancy stylus with a dumb name, and the Internet will respond accordingly.

Apple unveiled its newest lineup of high-tech goodies Wednesday, and if you managed to stay awake during the bloated two-hour presentation and filter out the filler content, it’s an impressive slate. One item, however, has caught the attention of the Internet’s bullshit brigade, which was quick to pounce on the accessory designed for the new iPad Pro, the equally affected and silly Apple Pencil.

You know you’re in trouble when even “Moons Over My Hammy” slinger Denny’s is mocking you:

Yes, it seems like a cool tool for the tech company’s flagship digital sketchbook, capable of drawing and painting and dragging and doing everything else that your standard-issue Wacom tablet has done for almost a decade. Is it worth getting if you’re an artistically inclined iPad owner? Definitely. Does hyping up the white stick as a technologically advanced wand and giving it a pretentiously simple name do anything but smack of overdesign and a justification for a relatively hefty price tag of $100? Nope.

As many people were quick to point out, OG Apple visionary Steve Jobs openly derided the concept of a stylus years ago:

OK, laugh now. But let’s be real—it’s only a matter of weeks before we’ll be seeing these things magnanimously wielded in public by hipsters and yuppies pantomiming their way through a physical humblebrag, conducting an orchestra of high-design condescension on those of us who are still stuck in the drab past with just a mere “stylus,” suddenly the cultural equivalent of a stubby, bite-marked Dixon Ticonderoga.

As a wise man once said, “Laugh hard, it’s a long ways to the bank.”

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James Joiner

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