WhileApplemakes some generally expensive products, it is usually justified by its design quality. It should not come as a surprise then thatAppleis charging a pretty penny for what is a glorified microfiber cloth.
The tech world took a collective gasp when theApple’s iPhone Xreleased as the “most expensive iPhone ever,” bringing the prices into the thousands. In fairness to Apple, its product were not always overly priced, and have since been providing models at cheaper price points that still deliver that Apple experience. For example, Apple’s iPhone 13 has standard variants that will run buyers about $600-700, and Pro variants that are back in that $1,000 price range. Many are comfortable paying these prices because of that signature Apple quality, but ifor others, Apple’s products have sometimes lacked the features of its competitors, making its heavy costs seem not as worthy.
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Apple has released its own polishing cloth on its official store for a price of $19.00. It bears a very simple design, a white square of fabric withthe familiar Apple logodetailed into the bottom right corner. The official description of the cloth reads, “Made with soft, nonabrasive material, the Polishing Cloth cleans any Apple display, including nano-texture glass, safely and effectively.”
Senior Editor at The Verge, Tom Warren, tweeted about the cloth with an upside-down smiley face emoji suggesting his dismissal of the product. Other users were quick to respond with their musings about the polishing cloth, especially in regards to its device compatability list. According to the list, any phone older than the originaliPhone SE(the iPhone 5S and below) will apparently not work with the polishing cloth. Apparently this polishing cloth was originally included for “free” in some of Apple’s most expensive computers, but is now available for anyone to purchase.
The funniest thing about the polishing cloth is that its equivalent product, a microfiber cloth, is not the hardest thing to obtain, and can be often bought in bulk for the price of Apple’s singular cloth. Perhaps there truly is something within the material that makes it especially suited for Apple devices, but similar results can likely be reached by using any sort of microfiber cloth. Only until more of these polishing cloths are out in the wild, as there will probably be numerous cleaning test videos, will the effectiveness of the cloth be known. Maybe it might actually scratch someone’s iPhone 13 Pro Max and they cansue Apple just like Epic Games did.
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