Prepare To Be Blown Away By the iPhone 8

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Hayley Tsukayama reports on the latest exciting news from Apple:

Having decided to give the latest iPhones — the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus — a smaller-than-expected makeover, the pressure is on to deliver something spectacular with the next models. Apple insiders expect the company to show off a 10th-anniversary model of the iPhone that is substantially redesigned, with an edge-to-edge screen and no home button.

ZOMG! I’m not sure my heart can take excitment of this caliber. Does “substantially redesigned” mean yet another kind of connector so you have to toss out all your old accessories? Dees it mean a slightly different form factor so that your old cases won’t work? Does it mean a brand new color?¹ Does it mean putting the headphone jack back on top? Or wait. Does the iPhone even have a headphone connector anymore? I guess not. That was last year’s big news. Maybe this year they’ll adopt an entirely new way of piping encoded music that’s only compatible with Apple branded buds. It’s all to protect the customer experience, you see.

Perhaps you’re an Apple fan and don’t appreciate my juvenile snark. I understand. But seriously, Steve Jobs died six years ago. How long does it take before his reality distortion field fades away too?

¹In fairness, though, I have to give the color bamboozlement award to Microsoft this year. They recently released a new stylus for the Surface tablet, and the old silver color has been rebranded platinum and costs $20 more.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

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