The details contained within last week's iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C announcement were one of the worst-kept secrets in the history technology, with leaks explaining every detail, that new button, the colour choices and everything Apple else had planned appearing on the internet regularly since Easter.
Apple's Chinese suppliers have a problem keeping their mouths shut and their smartphone cameras in the locker rooms. And the feedback from the internet at large has been just as vocal and widespread as the pre-launch leakages, with the endless gossip doing a great job of ensuring absolutely no one was the slightest bit surprised by what Apple had to show.
Hence the massive global shrug when Apple expected people to be excited about two things we'd already seen. Here are some of the finest words from the deflated masses.
Same as it ever was
A lot of the disappointment with Apple's new line stems from the fact that the internet was expecting the iPhone 5C to be a "budget" model that would hopefully sell for a low price, rather than an iPhone 5 in a new plastic case for very nearly as much money.
The high price tag put an end to the fantasy of owning a new-ish iPhone on the cheap, and led RAWRscary (nice name) over on Engadget to take a hardcore mocking stance, saying: "I'd love to see how many suckers go buy a 5C when they already have the 5, and not realize they just bought the same exact phone. Frankly what they have done is almost borderline illegal in my opinion. Completely dishonest as it is the same phone with a different name now."
Owell on the Guardian was another cynical man sneering from behind the display of his rival-brand mobile hardware, suggesting that: "Maybe 'low-end' just refers to the amount of thoughts, innovations and labour that Apple allocate to the production of this model?"
Dangerous people
Even when it came to discussing the tangible positive changes, like the extra battery capacity in the iPhone 5S, people weren't exactly what you'd call besides themselves with praise for Apple.
The internet's incredible capacity to find something wrong with everything was perfectly summarised by Anandtech reader Jasonelmore, who managed to moan about a phone having a better battery life, whining that: "This will mean charging times will increase." Yes, and carrying an amazing supercomputer in your pocket means having to put your keys in a different pocket, Mr First World Problems.
As ever, the "Worst rated" section of the Daily Mail comments section ironically featured the best feedback, with clueless people from all over the world gathering to trade clichés. Reader Zed, who visits from Cape Town because there's not enough anger on his own regional bit of the internet, came out with this classic anti-Android comment: "Shut up haters! Either you can afford or not! If not keep quite [sic] and go to Samsung!"
Although using cost as a critical battering ram isn't a great idea, as the prices of Samsung's enormo-phones often outstrip that of even Apple's flagship models.
Gazman offered more Samsung hate, adding: "I absolutely love it and I'm going to get both. How long will it be before Sam-dung copy Apple with the fingerprint scanner and the colours?" Sam-dung. Brilliant. Unless it was a genuine typo? It's hard to tell with Mail readers.
Prints and the new power generation
The other modern hot potato of surveillance naturally reared its head over at Lifehacker, with Alexke saying (through several layers of anonymised proxy servers) that: "Isn't it great. Now the NSA gets even the fingerprints together with all other data for free. It is really surprising that no one sees this."
There then followed some people suggesting he's a paranoid idiot, before Speedler sort of agreed, pointing out rather sensibly that: "Is this not the same Apple that said the phone tracking info could never be accessed? It seems to me we have been down this path before."
And we'll be off down the same inevitable Apple path again within months, as Battlefield Fan over on MacRumours neatly summarised the world's newfound disdain for Apple launches: "Yawn... When do the iPhone 6 rumours start?"
Finally, bewildering comment of the week comes from the same MacRumours post, where a reader pondered Jony Ive's clothing choices, asking: "Why does Jon Ive expose his chest hair with basically an undershirt in every one of these first impressions videos? Doesn't he or anybody at Apple think it might be a good idea to have him wear something a little bit less distracting so the viewer can concentrate on what he's saying and on the product?"
Perhaps that mysterious C stands for chest hair?
- Want more Inflame? Then check out what the world thinks of Ballmer, HyperLoop, the world of next-gen consoles and Android KitKat.
