Look around you right now and count the number of Apple products that are out there.  There are probably more Macbooks and iPhones around you than there are even people.  Why is this?
     I cannot figure out exactly why there are so many Mac computers.  I have a powerful Windows 7 computer I use for everything. It is heavy, but it does everything I want it to do.  I also have a tiny and cheap Samsung Google Chromebook that cannot do much at all, but still comes in handy whenever I need to have Internet access and Google Internet services at my fingertips.       
   I have frequently used Macbooks and know my way around their strange inner workings, but I still have not figured out their allure  —  unless it is hidden in their ability to use exclusive graphic design and other media software.
  On the cellphone and MP3 player front, I can see the allure that Apple has.  In an imore.com article series on the history of the iPhone, Rene Ritchie reveals the iPhone revolutionized the entire industry.  
   “Apple introduced the original iPhone back in 2007, instantly obsoleting every other smartphone on the planet in every way that mattered,” Ritchie said.  
   This revolutionary accomplishment is tangible, every time we see a phone that still suffers from analog keyboard and button overload, we cringe a little bit inside because that went out of style six years ago.
    Arguably the iPhone is the best smartphone on the market. It certainly was when it came out and has only recently begun to succumb to the efforts of Samsung’s new Galaxy phones and Google’s powerful Android operating system.  We have seen a phenomenon rise — the dominance of the iPhone in the smartphone market  — but is it about to fall down like the Razr flip phone and the Blackberry of yesteryear?
We almost worship the iPhone and the rest of Apple’s shiny, safeguarded masterpieces.  It always makes me cringe when I see someone try to take a picture with an iPhone. The device simply is not a camera, and its lens is too small to really accomplish anything with all the megapixels it is given.  The worst thing out there is an iPad photographer.  Envision a large rectangle held above eye-level, blocking out a large swath of the sky with its bulk. Then push a small touch-screen button in the middle of the screen, jostling the camera, and a mediocre picture pops out, leaving you looking silly.
   The culture surrounding the iPhone has overstepped its bounds and will soon find itself on the decline.  The hype and attention given to the hardware and software updates is simply too demanding.  The phones will never be able to live up to the expectations we have developed.  We will take the wonderful invention given us — one of the best devices in the world — and we will demand that Apple give us more.  Apple built, and the flocks of iFans have come, but it is not enough.
    How does Apple respond to the rising demand?  Just last Tuesday it released the annual slew of new gadgets, this time including not one, but two new phones.  This year we get a shiny gold phone and a new option that, according to gizmodo.com writer Eric Limer, will usher in a new market for the iPhone.
   “Apple’s new plastic-backed, color-coated iPhone 5C is a $100 option for a whole new generation of iPhone users,” Limer said.
   You would expect this news to be life-saving for the declining iPhone and its surrounding culture, but it is not enough.  According to Mark Gongloff’s Huffington Post article summarizing the results of Apple’s news release, the stock fell to surprising levels.  
    “At its worst, the stock was down three percent before recovering a little to a two percent decline, still snugly below the $500 share price that Wall Street’s round-number fans find so important … Apple continued to tumble on Wednesday morning, but in even crash-ier fashion. About an hour into the trading day, the stock was down nearly six percent to about $466 a share, in what CNNMoney termed an ‘iPhlop,’” Gongloff said.
     In all, Apple promises to bring a new age to the fading empire, but there is little hope that in the long run an influx of the cheaper phone users will ultimately restore the company to where it was in its days under Steve Jobs. The phenomenon has come and gone. It left in its wake changed telecommunications, social media, hardware and software industries, and paved the way for a much brighter future.  The iPhone will eventually recede from sight as the culture that grew around it dies off, but its legacy will remain as touch-screen technology and social media connectivity continues to dominate the computing world.