If there was any doubt that Apple was the most innovative company in the world, alongside its new AirPods 3 and MacBook Pro, it's just debuted something that could literally change the world: a polishing cloth.
This new accessory, listed on Apple's website, costs $19 (roughly £15, AU$25). It's "made with soft, nonabrasive material" which "cleans any Apple display", though that latter fact is immediately disproven by a compatibility list that doesn't include every Apple device with a display. Sorry, iPhone 5 users, but you can jog on. Got an entry-level 2013 iPad? Bin it, it's beyond cleaning.
The Apple store listing doesn't say how big the cloth is; if it's several meters squared, then perhaps the sarcasm in this article regarding the ludicrous price is unfounded. But that would be a curious size for a piece of fabric designed to clean smartphones and computer screens.
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I'm so glad Apple finally has a $19 polishing cloth because my tech was getting so dirty without it. I've literally not cleaned my 5-year-old iPad once, because I didn't have the tools to do it. No, there's no such thing as other cleaning clothes that are easy to find on Amazon for just, like, $2.
I can finally clean off the caked-on dust and fingerprints and mountain dew crumbs off my iPad. Finally!
Apple continues its value-for-money parade with this accessory, because it's just so much better at cleaning a screen than, say, the corner of your shirt, or literally any other cleaning cloth that's a fraction of the price. As we've mentioned, it's nonabrasive, as opposed to all those other things you might have considered cleaning your screen with like sandpaper or chainsaws, which are nearly as abrasive as my personality.
And the cloth is soft too! I'm so sick of non-soft clothes for cleaning screens! This also makes it great for other uses like as a tiny blanket for a pet rat or as a comedically-undersized handkerchief if you're in a period drama and want to exacerbate how bad your cold is.
If you've got your own insults for this laughable new product, Reddit's r/apple is hosting its own roast of the polish cloth which you can find here.
But wait, there's more
This isn't the only accessory Apple unveiled either. Here's a Magic Keyboard for US English – it's like the keyboard for UK English, but there's no 'U', and when you press 'S' a 'Z' comes out instead.
There's a USB-C to Lightning Cable here, for a generous $19, or about three times as pricey as alternatives on Amazon. Meanwhile, years of jokes about its bad design haven't encouraged Apple to redesign the Magic Mouse which is listed as 'new' for some reason.
Oh look, here's a $300 hexagon-block light. If only Amazon had smartphone-compatible equivalents for a fraction of the price... oh wait, they do.
That's why we're talking about this cloth, isn't it – a piece of fabric selling for more than an Egyptian-cotton towel at the same size would. If it was literally the first thing invented that could clean a device screen, maybe $19 would be a reasonable asking price, as it'd save us from a tradition of binning our phones as soon as they got a smudge or dirt on them.
With the Google Pixel 6 launch event kicking off tonight, let's just see if Google can match Apple for sheer audacity in any of its announcements.
