Good news, everyone: Apple’s Polishing Cloth supports the iPhone 15 Pro Max

Title reads like an onion headline.

I legit thought it was a joke too.
- It reads like thick satire, I think it's a joke.
  
  Edit: I think I misinterpreted you referring to Apple and not the article. Oh well lol.
I read it in the voice of Professor Farnsworth lol
I thought it was at first... Had to peruse the comments to be sure I wasn't the only one.

What happens if I use it on an Android phone? Will it burst into flames?

A chemical compound causes the cloth to turn blue when polishing an iPhone, green when polishing an Android. It's only a subtle difference.
Tim Apple shows up at your house with a baseball bat.

It’s ok though, he just wants to talk.
- You might want to watch out your front window Larry, you'll see what happens when you fuck a stranger in the ass.
- You’ve got a nice phone there. It would be a shame if something happened to it.
This voids the cloths warranty.
Don't exaggerate! Just a lawsuit.
Don’t they handle that on their own?

Is it certified for clockwise wiping only, or is it bidirectional?

I think it is a subscription based model.
It's the opposite of whatever everyone else does
- Wiping in a motion that resembles an apple with a bite out of it
Wax on, wax off.
You're wiping it wrong.
Depends on your hemisphere.
- Coriolis effect, of course.

I had to Google this because I didn't believe it was a real product.

Why on Earth would you buy one of these? You can literally wipe your phone screen with a microfibre cloth and you can buy a bunch of them for about £2.

Or do what everyone does and wipe back and forth real fast on your shirt
- Been doing that for a lot of years, never had an issue.
Fine print: use of non-Apple cleaning tools voids warranty.
Well, this looks more premium. I'd be willing to buy it for up to 5 bucks.

Edit: $19, way too much
- Part of me is curious what could possibly make it so expensive. The other part knows it's just Apple tax. Both parts would like to touch it.
I have one (came with my display) and it works really well. Plus it’s safe for their nanotextured displays (which are sensitive to having their nanotexturing worn off by cloth that’s even mildly abrasive).
- Like when I put my phone in and out of my pocket? Lol

Phewww.. I thought I have to buy the iSwipe Pro Max 27 for $1,000 to clean my new iPhone

Apple assures us that this cloth, with its supple “nonabrasive material,” can “safely and effectively” clean any Apple display, even the high-tech nano-texture glass of the Pro Display XDR.

If the insinuation is that the Pro Display XDR has glass that needs special care, that sounds like a product that many would not consider a good choice for "pros".

All the reviews says that the incredibly expensive monitor has that micro texture on the glass that will impregnate with finger oils making it extremely hard to clean. So when a client touches your screen (because clients always need to physically touch your screen when they need to prove their point) it will leave a permanent mark on it. So "pro"
- My old manager once drew on my screen with his pen when pointing out something.
  
  He would also leave his coffee cups on my desk including a nasty ring.
  
  I was so glad when he left, and am even more glad to work from home where people can't draw on my damn monitor.
I have another point that I don’t see talked about a lot that I would like to consider. Their XDR Pro model is targeting actual professionals in the video field. Unlike pretty much everything that Apple makes, this monitor is comparable (and downright cheap) when compared side by side with other industry standard color calibrated video monitors. Professional grade video equipment has always been super expensive, and it’s not just an Apple thing. For example, here’s a Sony model commonly used in live broadcast. Same size, but the Apple monitor is actually 1.6X as bright for HDR, it’s higher resolution, and less than half the price. The only downsides being no SDI input, but it can still be used for post-processing just fine, or even live with a converter box. It also informs why the stand for the monitor doesn’t come standard, and is expensive as hell— it’s because they don’t expect anyone in their target market to buy it. They expect most of these monitors to be installed as a drop in replacement in color grading workflows or broadcast trucks, which are all pretty much fully vesa mounted already anyway.

In that context, their XDR Pro monitor makes perfect sense. On a cost basis alone, Apple’s monitor offering is very competitive for the professional video demographic they’re targeting. It’s not for the average power user, it’s for people whose literal sole job rides on colors being accurate.

As for the polishing clothes, yes they’re expensive when purchased separately, but they come “for free” in the box. I would rather they sell them separately than not at all, but the screen really doesn’t require anything special, just any old microfiber cloth should be fine, as long as the cloth is kept clean. Even that markup isn’t insane IMO, it appears to only be a 5-10$ markup on an accessory of a monitor they expect to be very low volume.

Overall, I think the product is just misunderstood more than anything. I don’t think it’s being advertised wrong, I think Apple just has such a proclivity to advertise their other products wrong that people’s expectations aren’t set correctly for when they are actually addressing the actual professional market (cough cough the iPhone PRO, a product that isn’t really a “professional” product in any sense of the word). These are just what professional grade products cost. Sure it’s expensive, but that’s what they have to cost to make these devices viable for any business to manufacture. The combination of low volume, high cost for components with a better than average precision, and pro grade calibration means that they just plain cost a lot more to make.

Equipment like this and the Sony monitor above are used in environments where they just need to work EVERY single time, and there is 0 room for failure. As an example, running shading (color grading) on a live broadcast, think events like the super bowl. Using any old monitor, you may not be able to tell the coke ad you are cueing up is going through your shading workflow, and their red branding is slightly off-color. That could easily be a million+ dollar mistake, I’ve seen similar things actually happen in the field (with other advertisers I will not mention for my own sake). Or god forbid you loose picture entirely. I’ve been in similar positions, and broadcast engineers/companies will pay any amount of money to make sure their equipment is top of the line, and won’t fail ever. If you don’t believe me, take a look at some other pro grade video gear, like a grass valley kayenne. The scale of money is simply, different with pro video equipment.
I’ve seen a bunch of professional equipment and their requirements vary greatly. Usually they involve some ridiculous compromises. One thing is really good while other things aren’t. If you’re a pro, you know how to use the device and you’re always mindful of the specific limitations each device has.

If you’re doing SEM, XRD, NRM or anything like that, you can get great results but the sample preparation is a royal PITA. In this case, you’ll be paying for the quality of the analysis results, but everything else will probably suck.

Alternatively, you could get a rugged pH or redox electrode, chuck it in the back of your car, take measurements in any filthy puddle you find along the way and you’ll get acceptable results every time. The data isn’t great, but the device will work in harsh conditions. You’re paying extra to make sure you can measure things quickly and easily. The device is portable, rugged, robust and all that. Other things might suck though, but a pro would understand that and treat the results accordingly.

This article is really trying for an eye-rolling kind of tone while at the same time, literally just being an advertisement for new Apple products.

Yep. That's iVerge for you.

Don't know why but polishing cloth strikes me as slightly dirty lol

Exit: would also accept "rubs me the wrong way"

This is why I like apple.

I just updated the firmware of my apple cloth and now it cleans 10% faster.

ahem... Don't you mean 10% slower?
- There’s a negative impact overall since apple throttled swipe speed due to aging cloth nonabrasive material.
  
  But I feel 13% happier so that would offset the negative impact.

Knowing Apple, they must have thought about a way to make old polishing cloths specifically incompatible with their newer screens.

Though soon it will be transitioning to a subscription based model.

Lower upfront cost, but they get you in the long run.

Slow news day?

Dunno how. Biggest tech news of the year broke yesterday.
- Which news was that?

I'm surprised they didn't mention it during their totally not cringeworthy meeting with mother nature

proxy

But does it still support the first-gen iPhone?

Compatibility only goes back to the iPhone 5.

This is the thing about Apple and why this sort of thing doesn't bother me. Overall, their hardware, at least their phones and notebooks, are relatively similarly priced to the competition with similar hardware. Then they charge buckets for all the accessories. But if you pay for those accessories, that's on you. It's not an Apple Tax, it's a Stupid Tax.

It’s not an Apple Tax, it’s a Stupid Tax.

If you buy Apple products, you are already grandfathered into that Stupid Tax.
Only their phones are similarly priced and that's only if you look at the most expensive android phones
- You can get a similar Android phone to the iPhone 12 for a third of the price. Perhaps even with newer chips and newer cameras. Apple has always been grossly overpriced.
- Base priced Macbook Air is $1099. That's pretty relative to a lot of the competition. You can definitely find better deals, but let's not pretend it's more expensive than everything else in its class.
their laptops start at similar prices but not if you actually compare apples to apple(s) Mac are way overpriced

This felt like a The Onion headline, i love it

And of course sold at a vastly inflated price.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

It’s that time of year again — the time when millions around the world nail their eyeballs to the Apple Store website and wait, unblinking, to find out whether the new iPhones and Apple Watches are compatible with the $19 Polishing Cloth Apple launched in 2021.

After all, you bought the cloth as soon as Apple announced it, and you know all about planned obsolescence.

That brings the grand total to almost 120 supported devices, per my quick count.

Apple assures us that this cloth, with its supple “nonabrasive material,” can “safely and effectively” clean any Apple display, even the high-tech nano-texture glass of the Pro Display XDR.

Apple launched the cloth alongside its M1 Pro and Max chips and third-generation AirPods, and in the two years since, it’s no doubt cleaned countless Apple screens the world over.

To save you a trip to its product page, the Apple Polishing Cloth now supports:

The original article contains 230 words, the summary contains 153 words. Saved 33%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!