I feel a combination of amazement, confusion and dread, which I should really just start calling the "Apple Triad" of emotions. This week, the latest in Apple's quest to rule all it surveys and pave the road to conquest with oblong, rectangular handheld computers.
iPhones in the works
At least one new model iPhone is already in production, according to a report late last month from Bloomberg, which cited anonymous sources "with knowledge of the matter." Those mysterious sources, between drags on their cigarettes as they spoke quietly from the shadows of the Watergate parking garage, told Bloomberg that iPhones with exterior designs similar to those of the current 6 and 6 Plus models are set for a production ramp-up as early as this month.
That tallies well with earlier scuttlebutt, which predicted an intermediate device release around October of this year, with the new-and-different iPhone 7 scheduled for the first half of 2016. Big production now could suggest an eagerness to avoid the supply chain issues Apple experienced last summer in the run-up to the release of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus.
No, really, it's definitely not the iPhone 7
Leaked photos obtained last week by 9to5Mac (their story here) are being widely regarded as further proof that the iPhone 6S, not the iPhone 7, is the model likely to be coming out in October. In fact, the new device (devices?) will be outwardly almost identical to their predecessors, though they'll pack new internals and new features.
Take it to the bank
Apple Pay, people are starting to suggest, is going to be the first step in Apple's transformation into something more the first consumer electronics powerhouse to also be its own bank. Which, according to my own understanding of finance, would mean that it would probably be simpler to just declare Apple the owner of all property everywhere and accept that we're just renting.
In all seriousness, though, Ben Lovejoy over at 9to5Mac has been beating this drum since 2013, and others are starting to dance to his tune. David Goldstein at LearnBonds has an interesting outline of how Apple becoming a bank might turn out which is to say, it wouldn't necessarily do that at all: Partnerships between Apple and Wall Street investment banks looking for an in to the consumer market could pull the company into the financial sector, instead. Lovejoy himself isn't saying that the iBank is a certainty, of course, but he does lay out some reasons why it might make sense.
Whether it makes sense to add your personal finances to the increasingly long list of things that you're absolutely dependent on Apple (or Google) to manage is probably beyond the scope of this article, but hey, consolidation is happening everywhere. Why wouldn't it eventually include consumer finance?