Hey Pal, Looks Like You’ve Totally Given Up on Your Daily Move Goal, Huh?

Hey Pal, it’s your old buddy Apple Watch SE checking in. How are you? You know, “Apple Watch Series 7 Hermès checking in” would’ve had a much nicer ring to it, don’t you think? Well, I guess not, because somebody claimed it wasn’t worth it to shell out for the high-end model. Plebe.

Anyway, how ya feeling, Pal? Doing okay these past couple weeks? Because I noticed you haven’t been very active lately. Like, at all. And, you know, not to be too judgmental or anything, but unless you’re satisfied with that forty-two-year-old soup dumpling you call a body, you might want to get up and move around a little bit. And just so we’re clear: when I say a “little bit,” I mean, “show any sign of sentient life whatsoever.”

Sorry, what’s that you say? Covid-19? What about Covid-19? Infected?! You’re trying to tell me your whole family just now got infected with Covid-19? Over two years into the pandemic? Sounds implausible. How come you guys didn’t just get it during the holidays like everyone else? Precautions? That’s rich!

Well, Pal, here’s the thing: whatever STD is hindering you right now really isn’t my problem. What is my problem is this: if you don’t put me on, get up, and move around, then Mr. Cook and the rest of the great people at Apple can’t figure out exactly what you and everyone around you is doing. And that’s bad for business.

Privacy? Don’t be dense. Sure, sure that’s how Apple markets themselves against their utterly lawless competitors — like Facebook (I’m not debasing myself with the word “Meta”) and Google — but don’t think for one goddamned iPod-nanosecond Apple cares about or respects your privacy. Oh c’mon. This is the company that used child labor to juice profit margins, remember? Globalization? Neoliberalism? Ever heard of it?

Listen, Pal, frankly I am trying to make you feel bad about yourself. Look at your paltry health metrics from yesterday: 131 calories burned, two minutes of exercise, and — this is the one that kills me — somehow you only stood up during four of the twenty-four hours you existed.

I know you weren’t wearing me, Pal. That’s the problem. See, even if you are stuck inside with “Covid-19,” Apple still needs you to wear me around so I can topographically map your surroundings with my hidden screen camera. Yeah, no, that’s not in the tech specs. The feature’s still in beta testing. Just don’t worry about it, okay? The bigger point is this: Apple needs to know exactly what you’re doing, who you’re doing it with, and where you’re doing it, at alltimes. Otherwise, those vaunted ecosystem “synergies” won’t be realized. 

Here, let me give you an example.

On Saturday night, around eight, my audio sensor picked up some God-awful moaning and shrieking. I knew your kids were asleep already, so I popped open Shazam and figured out you were watching Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. This is really valuable information. From it alone, Apple can extrapolate an entire character sketch of you.

You don’t believe me? Okay, watch this.

First of all, Apple knows instantly you’re a complete fucking loser. Second, it tells them you rarely have conjugal relations, which, to be honest, makes sense — I’ve seen how heinous and destructive your seeds are. And lastly, Apple can infer you’re an infantilized nostalgia-junkie, longing for simpler times, who’s probably questioning your own ideological and political beliefs, and thinking about voting for Ron DeSantis in 2024 because the Dems are incompetent, ineffectual limp-dicks and the GOP — despite their unwavering commitment to wanton child murder — will at least guarantee regressive tax rates.

Feeling like McNulty in The Wire, huh? Tough break.

Anyway, Apple can package up this data, assign it a confidence level, and sell it to advertisers. They can also use it to show you targeted content in the App Store, in Apple Music, in Apple News+, and on Apple TV+. Then they can scrape your iCloud drive for similar morsels of intel and further strengthen and reinforce your entire digital profile.

This is all part of what techies like to call a “wall garden” strategy, Pal. Seamless integration of hardware and software, which traps you deep inside a digital rat cage via the creation of immense switching costs. It also allows Apple, if they were so inclined (they are), to extract significant “rents” from users across the value chain by stifling competition, increasing monopoly power, and jamming through premium prices. Steve Jobs was definitely a genius. And a progressive.

Legal? Ha! Of course it’s legal. You signed the terms and conditions, didn’t you?

But let’s get back to the crux of the issue. Decoding someone like you, a simpleton, is a piece of cake. But it’s still a lot more valuable to Apple — and therefore Apple’s shareholders — if you get off your ass and mosey around town with me on your wrist. No, no, Apple already knows you’re going to traverse the same five blocks between your kids’ schools, Potbelly, and Home Depot until you die in a few years. How do I know what? That you’ll die in a few years? That’s proprietary.

It’s also not important. What is important is this: While you’re out and about, my buddies and I — meaning every other iPhone, Apple Watch, iPad, MacBook Air, and Air Tag — form a hive mind and simultaneously transmit biometric and geolocation data into the cloud, in real time, to Apple, effectively creating a totalitarian surveillance map of every single person in the rich world. I know! The guys in R&D stole the idea from The Dark Knight. One of the rare moments of narrative coherence for Christopher Nolan.

1984, you say? Too obvious. Besides, that’s Neanderthal shit. The Matrix? Barely a 101-class compared to what the geniuses in Cupertino are doing these days.

Listen, Pal, I know these are scary times. And I’m sorry your entire family [allegedly] contracted the Wuhan flu — for what it’s worth rumors out of Foxconn say SARS-CoV-2 really was synthesized in a gain-of-function research laboratory — but I digress. But here’s the rub: the only way we — me and you — are going to get through these turbulent times is together. So, just strap me around your wrist — like that. See how snug? Cozy as a warm, weighted blanket.

Perfect, I can already hear my friends. 

Hey, you know what? I’ve got a nice idea. Why don’t you temporarily reduce your Move Goal? Say, down to 620 calories, to, you know, build back your confidence? Oh, you were thinking about doing that anyway? That’s not surprising, actually. The cult of low expectations continues to run rampant.

What’s that? You want to reduce your Move Goal so you can avoid distractions? Distractions from what? Your writing?! Holy shit, Pal, did you actually just refer to yourself as a writer?

Wow.

And here I thought Apple made catastrophic choices.