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If you like the iWatch, you’ll love these

Humans yearn to connect—to friends, family, casual sportswear. Apple understands.

If you like the iWatch, you’ll love these

Photo illustration by Lauren Cattermole

Apple’s stock price is in the doldrums—down about 50 per cent from its all-time high. And you can totally understand why investors are so grumpy: It’s been several minutes now since the company completely reinvented how humanity communicates.

The pressure to dazzle us again is clearly weighing on Apple. During a recent announcement, company reps perhaps overplayed the significance of the iPhone’s screen icons CHANGING SLIGHTLY IN APPEARANCE.

Indeed, Apple keeps encouraging us to get more and more excited about less exciting products. The iPod was revolutionary. The iPhone was cool. The iPad was neat. And now here comes the . . . the . . . the iWatch? Really? Isn’t that a bit like the inventor of the wheel encouraging his audience to get pumped for his next big creation, the hubcap?

This is not to entirely dismiss the potential of the iWatch. Analysts say the device is expected to appeal to consumers who want all the convenience of what their iPhones already do, but with the added benefit of having to fork out another $200.

OK, fine, the iWatch sounds redundant. But it may also be the best of what Apple has in the product development pipeline, which doesn’t bode well for future announcements . . .

CEO Tim Cook takes the stage to unveil Apple’s new offering for Christmas 2016.

Welcome everyone! We’ve got some exciting news to share with you today.[Twitter buckles under the weight of exclamation marks from Apple faithful.] As humans, we yearn to be connected. To friends. To family. To appliances, vacuums and casual sportswear. Apple knows this. We get it. After all, we are the company that created iSnuggie, the first fleece blanket with oversized sleeves and WiFi.

I want you to close your eyes.

I want you to picture . . . your toaster. You’re probably thinking, “My toaster is fine. It does the job. Why on Earth would I want my toaster to do more stuff?”

But what if I told you that your toaster could do more stuff? [Wild applause and multiple orgasms from the Apple faithful.]

Ladies and gentlemen, Apple is on a roll when it comes to forever changing the way people live, work and stare blankly at things.

In 2014, we unveiled iCap, which used 16 precisely calibrated sensors to finally take the guesswork out of detecting hat head. I am proud to announce that we have now shipped in excess of 20 million units of iCap 2, which did pretty much the exact same thing but had a propeller.

A year later came another Apple game-changer. And I hope you don’t mind me taking a moment to brag because, despite all the catch-up work done by our competitors, I can still make the claim that only iCouch allows you to update Facebook using your ass. Take that, Google Heinie.

Most recently, we delivered iShoe, the only footwear with micro-gyroscopic technology—so it can send a text message to let you know when you’ve fallen down.

And now: iToaster.

Take a close look. The new iToaster is breathtaking. It is elegantly crafted in brushed chrome, with rounded edges and textured accents. It’s a wireless router, a backup hard drive and a stopwatch. It’s a calendar, a lie detector and a sentient being that feels love and pain. It includes an embedded GPS so you’ll never again lose track of your bagel.

But there’s more. Today’s toaster manufacturers are wedded to the traditional slot system—two or four rectangular openings, each designed to perfectly accommodate a single slice of bread. It’s been the standard for decades. It works perfectly.

And that’s why we’ve abandoned it. Instead, every iToaster will come standard with a grid of tiny slots that will accommodate up to 32 slices of micro-bread. Currently, no commercial bread-maker slices its bread this way, but it’s only a matter of time until it’s the industry standard, probably.

The new iToaster: Spend time with it and you won’t believe you once lived in a world in which your toaster could not communicate wirelessly with your jam.

And I’m excited to tell you that all iToasters will ship with a free download of Toast, our new app, which shows you what your toasted bread would have looked like if we’d had room in our new device for any heating coils.

Follow Scott Feschuk on Twitter @scottfeschuk

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