Full disclosure: This cartoon was drawn on an iPad. All of my cartoons have been drawn on an iPad since June 2021, and I believe I only have 11 payments left until I officially own my Ipad.

I love my iPad and my iPhone. I love how easily they make everything. I love how they sync together. I love that when I bought my very-outdated AirPods, I didn’t have to sync them to my devices. They automatically knew each other. I like that when I take a photo, it knows where I took the photo and will later present me with a gallery of the photos taken at that location. Hey, here’s your trip to Las Vegas or your trip to New York City. To me, that’s some fun tracking.

Apple unveiled the latest versions of its iPhone and watches last Wednesday. It’s the iPhone 14 and Apple Watch Series 8. I never buy the latest newest most up-to-date tech, but I did last year when I got my iPhone 12 and iPad pro 12.8. For about seven minutes, I was up to date with the latest technology. I don’t see any reason to update again for a while. But, there are people who bought the iPhone 13 and will now rush to own the 14, and in a few months the 15, then the 16…yeah, get out of here.

And while I do like Apple stuff, I realize they screw over the people who are loyal to them. You would think that someone who spends $2,000 on an iPad wouldn’t have to shell out another $130 for the Apple Pencil (and in my case, you’d expect the pencil to actually work and not crap-out and force you to wait several days for Apple to send you a new one). Microsoft’s first few versions of its Surface Pro included its Surface Pen until they got smart and started selling it separately. The iPhone used to come with EarBuds you could plug into your device. Now, not only do they not include the free EarBuds, but the newer iPhones don’t even include the input for your old EarBuds, forcing you to purchase AirPods if you want to listen to music privately. Nobody wants anyone else to know they’re listening to Cold Play.

As usual, there are new features to these products with one for the watch being a fertility tracker. The thing tracks women’s periods and fertility and will tell her when she’s ovulating. This feature can be very cool or very scary. Some people haven’t been this upset with Apple since that time they hid a U2 album on iPhones.

I think a watch that tracks your steps can be very cool. And it’s cool that it can track your heartbeat and warn you of palpitations and stuff like that. I’m not afraid of this stuff because I’m concerned about being tracked, but because I kinda get the feeling the watch will be like, “Are you sure you want to be eating all that pork?” But some people are concerned about how Apple is tracking them and where and how they’re storing the data. Hopefully, it’s better than the system of hiding shit in a basement at Mar-a-Lago.

It’s like when the vaccines came out and a lot of people were afraid of being vaccinated by the government. White people with concerns were mostly lying conspiracy-driven fucks believing the vax contained itty-bitty tracking chips, but black Americans had a better right to be concerned about what was in the vaccines and how it’d affect them. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, Google “Tuskegee Syphilis Study.”

You might think we shouldn’t be too concerned about Apple storing data about us or Alexa sending all our personal deets back to her masters at Amazon, or another device tracking your sleep farts, though it does sound kinda Orwellian that not only are corporations tracking us, they’re selling us the products used to do the tracking.

That’s kinda like Nike selling you a shirt that advertises their product, and don’t get me started on my beef with YouTube showing me a commercial before I can watch a trailer to a movie. They’re forcing me to watch a commercial before I can watch a commercial. You motherfuckers, you.

But women have every right to be concerned with a corporation tracking their fertility after Republicans have wiped out abortion in nearly half the nation and working on banning legal abortion in the rest of it. And now, Apple will know when you’re ovulating and Amazon will know what tampons you’re buying. Getting ahold of this information is a Republican’s wet dream. Also, “Republican Wet Dreams” would be the worst-selling erotic novel on Amazon. Others would be “Ted Cruz comes into Bloom,” “Lindsey’s Night of Georgian Passion,” “Rand Paul: Just a Gigolo,” and “Trump’s Moist Misadventure in Moscow.” By the way, which word do women find the most disturbing? “Moist” or “Ted Cruz?”

So maybe when the government is doing all it can to erase privacy, and the Supreme Court saying the Constitution doesn’t guarantee a right to privacy except for where they live, it might be a rotten time for a corporation that’s worth over $2 trillion to sell a product made to stalk your periods.

What’s next? Is Apple going to charge us to name our children after them? Actually, Cold Play’s Chris Martin and Gwyneth Paltrow did name one of their kids “Apple.”

I love my Apple stuff. I love my iPhone, iPad, and Air Pods, but they need to be careful about what they force upon their customers. If the new stuff includes an ebook titled, “a Moist Ted Cruz,” I’m throwing my shit out the window.

Creative note: This is from the batch drawn up before the Queen’s passing, which put everything else on hold. The rough for this was drawn up Wednesday evening after Apple released the new series. I wasn’t sure I was going to make a real cartoon out of this.

Music note: I listened to some Coheed and Cambria.

Signed prints: The signed prints are just $40.00 each. Every cartoon on this site is available. You can pay through PayPal. If you don’t like PayPal, you can snail mail it to Clay Jones, P.O. Box 3721, Fredericksburg, VA 22402. I can mail the prints directly to you or if you’re purchasing as a gift, directly to the person you’re gifting.

Notes on my book, Tales From The Trumpster Fire: There are 19 copies of my book in stock, which go for $45.00 each, signed. Also, I have copies of my first book from 1997, Knee-Deep in Mississippi available for $20.00.

Tip Jar: if you want to support the cartoonist, please send a donation through PayPal to clayjonz@gmail.com. You can also snail it to P.O. Box 3721, Fredericksburg, VA 22402.

Watch me draw: