Fear or avoidance of the number 13 is so ingrained in Western culture that it has its own word: triskaidekaphobia. This is why hotels sometimes don’t have a 13th floor, why some cities don’t have a 13th Street, and why Jason Vorhees regularly butchers amorous teens on Friday the 13th.
However, the iPhone, Steve Jobs’ combination pocket computer and telephone, has long since slipped the surly bonds of Western culture through Apple’s mastery of supply chains and penetration of markets worldwide. We celebrate and sustain this achievement through a semiannual rite known, simply, as “September Apple Event.”
Today, the gods of progress were good, and brave. From a stage in Cupertino, California, they announced in an unmistakable voice: We are not triskaidekaphobic!
They announced the iPhone…13.
As inevitably as 13 follows 12, and “new” means “improved,” the new iPhone improves upon the old iPhone. It is better than the old iPhone in two of the regular ways Apple improves the iPhone, via a more sophisticated digital camera and a faster silicon processing chip.
The new digital camera allows users to take videos in “Cinematic Mode,” kind of like a video version of Portrait Mode, which blurs the background behind human subjects, making human faces appear sharper and (though human attractiveness is highly subjective) more attractive. Now this effect can be achieved by iPhone owners in motion. It promises to make your poor home movies look bizarrely professional, as if they were handled by a Hollywood cinematographer.
