iphone 17

iPhone 17: Because the Planet Wasn’t Dystopian Enough Already
By Our Correspondent in a Bunker Somewhere Neutral-ish

GENEVA—Apple’s marketing department, fresh from convincing half the Northern Hemisphere that “courage” means removing headphone jacks, has now confirmed the iPhone 17 will launch this autumn in a palette of colors named after endangered species. (Arctic Fox White hits different when the actual fox is down to its last 400 breeding pairs.) Across six continents, the announcement was greeted with the sort of rapture once reserved for the Second Coming or a tax rebate, proving once again that humanity prefers its existential dread wrapped in surgical-grade aluminum.

In Lagos, street vendors pre-ordered empty display boxes so convincingly counterfeit they already have iOS 21. In Shenzhen, factory dormitories are installing suicide nets 2.0—now with USB-C. Meanwhile, in Silicon Valley, venture-capital apostles speak in tongues about “spatial computing” and “neural capture,” which is just a polite way of saying your phone will know you’re lonely before you do. The global supply chain, that Rube Goldberg contraption of misery and rare-earth minerals, hiccups to life like a chain-smoking dragon waking from a nap.

From a geopolitical standpoint, the iPhone 17 is less a phone and more a floating referendum on who still has clean water. The cobalt in its batteries originates in Congolese pits so artisanal they make medieval serfdom look unionized. The chips are etched in Taiwanese fabs that Beijing insists are just temporarily rebellious. The carbon footprint is proudly offset by a reforestation project in Paraguay—population: 12 guys with machetes and one drone for Instagram verification. Everyone wins, except the planet, which files another report card under “See me after class.”

Europe, ever the moral older sibling, is already drafting a regulation requiring the device to be repairable using only tools available in an average household. This promptly triggered panic in Cupertino, where engineers briefly considered a screwdriver before settling on a new proprietary pentalobe screw shaped like the EU flag. In Brussels, officials celebrated with artisanal beer and the quiet knowledge that the fine for non-compliance will be paid out of petty cash.

The global south watches the spectacle with the weary amusement of a bartender watching the fifth tequila shot slide down the bar. Latin American lithium miners, now moonlighting as amateur geologists, joke that the iPhone 17’s battery will last longer than most local governments. Indian consumers are promised “Assembled locally,” which is corporate speak for “Still shipped from China but we let Chennai screw on the back plate.” And somewhere in the Pacific, another island quietly drowns so that notifications about drowning islands can arrive faster.

Security experts warn the iPhone 17’s new RetinaKey feature—unlocking your phone by simply looking sufficiently disappointed in yourself—will be exploited by authoritarian regimes. China, Russia, and your local HOA are reportedly “extremely interested.” Apple counters that privacy is “foundational,” a claim as reassuring as a pilot announcing he’s “pretty sure” about the landing gear. In response, the NSA upgraded their surveillance budget to “whatever the next prime number is after ‘obscene.’”

Economists predict the phone will add 0.3 percent to global GDP, roughly the same bump generated by panic-buying toilet paper. Wall Street algorithms, trained exclusively on hype and Red Bull, price in record earnings. Meanwhile, the average user will finance the $1,399 base model over 84 months, because nothing says progress like paying for a rectangle until it qualifies for a bar mitzvah.

And yet—here’s the punchline—we’ll queue anyway. From Tokyo’s Shibuya crossing to Dubai’s Mall of the Emirati Glitz, humans will sleep on sidewalks to secure a device whose primary innovation is reminding us we’re aging faster than its A19 Bionic chip. The iPhone 17 isn’t a phone; it’s the final artifact of a civilization that mastered the supply chain but forgot how to supply meaning. When archaeologists dig it up centuries from now, they’ll note the screen still has 3 percent battery and wonder why we never used the remaining power to call ourselves.

Conclusion: The world will stagger on, slightly poorer, slightly warmer, infinitely more photographed. And somewhere deep in a landfill, an iPhone 17 will vibrate with a final notification: “Your trade-in value is $0.” Even the apocalypse, it seems, depreciates faster than an Apple product.