Five Stages of Accepting an Apple Product

With the release of the iPad this Saturday, I’ve been pondering the coverage and am amused. I present my own snowclone of the Kübler-Ross model.

1. Speculation

Everyone and their cat has a prediction to share. The rumor sites whip the public up into a frenzy. Apple’s latest gadget will change the world. It will do everything technology has promised since Star Trek. It will do video conferencing. It will understand your speech. It will translate. It will teleport.

Of course it will. Why? Because I read about it on macrumors.com!

2. Announcement

The world stops working while everyone slams the poor servers of real time news bloggers lucky enough to have a golden ticket to the show. The lights go down. Fanbois hold back the tech-gasm. Steve Jobs takes the stage and unveils….

Huh? Where’s the teleporter? Wait, what? It doesn’t run 20x faster than the latest and greatest piece of hardware of roughly the same size and weight? What? It’s not powered for eternity by the laughter of angels and has to be, gasp, recharged?!?!

Meh.

3. Anger

We’ve never, EVER been so let down by our own hyped up expectations. I mean, come on, Apple! Don’t you read the rumor mills??!?? Surely you should know our whims by now! Why don’t you do what most other companies do and announce your amazing products months or years in advance? At least by time it’s released we’ll be bored enough through all the hype that we’ll forget how much was promised and not delivered!

4. Denial

You know what? I heard that someone’s working on a better idea that’s going to be an “iPad Killer”! Yeah, I heard about it at that conference, you know, the one that Apple didn’t go to. In fact, why don’t they go and show off prototypes at all these trade shows? Can you believe it? How can they be so stupid to miss opportunities to generate interest in their products? They’re doomed.

5. Acceptance

Hey. Did you see the new iPad videos? Yeah, they look pretty simple. Oh, you got one? Haha, how do you like it? Hmm. That’s nice. I still miss the teleporter, though. Oh? You can run all your existing iPhone apps you bought on it? That’s a nice touch. Can I hold it?….