Making a Thing

The most popular camera maker debuted its new product yesterday, the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus. If you want criticism of the product or a review of the presentation, go pretty much anywhere else today.

What I like about these unveilings every year is that it’s all about people making a thing.

Making a real thing you can hold in your hand is incredibly difficult, even if it’s analogue, let alone a high tech device with fragile components that must withstand at least a year or two of daily use. Making it with all new technology and shipping millions of them across the world at the same time just adds to my amazement that this kind of thing happens at all.

This isn’t what we usually focus on. We focus on minute details, comparing them to what we’ve become accustomed to. This is not a bad thing, considering the money we spend on these devices. But, it also helps to keep in mind that we should be grateful to have the options at all.

We have the combined knowledge of the world in our pockets and we’re rich enough to buy it if we want, while nitpicking the details of how that information gets captured and retrieved. I love that. I also love how reliably we can expect those improvements year after year. This has not always been the case throughout history. Enjoy it.