If you’re reading this, close your blinds, put on a tinfoil hat, and clutch that ancient iPhone of yours like a family heirloom, because the hour of Apple’s centennial is nearly upon us — and the reptiles in Cupertino are plotting to sell you a new iPhone on your deathbed. The myth tells of a world before Apple, but let’s be real: no one remembers it. There were rotary phones, there were floppy disks, there was hope. Then one day Jobs walks out of a mist, holding a gleaming rectangle and the Earth tips ever-so-slightly toward the digital abyss. Fifty years have passed and I’ve seen enough Apple product launches to recognize an omen when I see one. Now, as the forbidden 100-year milestone looms like a blood moon over our civilization, those same executives are preparing to sell you another rectangle — and this one will finally end time itself. I sat down in a windowless bunker (formerly a Genius Bar) with Greg “Joz” Joswiak and John Ternus — Apple’s priest-kings of Marketing and Hardware. Were their eyes human? Couldn’t tell; I was busy going through iPhone withdrawal. As Ultravox played faintly from a Bluetooth speaker, they handed me a glass of imported Electrolyte Water (vintage 2024) and told me, in no uncertain terms, that the future is the iPhone. Always has been. Always will be. “But what about the singularity?” I ask, referring not to the AI revolution, but to the point in the line at the Union Square Apple Store where the end meets the beginning and time becomes meaningless. John “Get Ready to” Ternus leans in: “A singularity is just an accessory for your iPhone.” I wept. You’d think that after launching the world into touchscreen submission, inventing the headphone jack and then promptly un-inventing it, Apple would take a day off, eat some birthday cake, and let go. But no. Like an immortal vampire feasting on consumer dopamine, they promise another fifty years of updates. Will humans even have hands by then? No, but you’ll be forcibly upgraded. Ask about AI and they answer with an uncanny smile: "We were doing AI when it was called Clippy!" The phone will never die. Apple promises only more. Macbooks will be surgically welded to your lap. Siri will be your legal guardian. Keynotes will be national holidays. If you try to look backward, Apple will send an iMessage to your dreams warning you against nostalgia. In 3024, archaeologists will unearth iPhone 14s in fossilized Otterboxes, still sending push notifications about iOS 17.8.4 There’s no escaping it. I tried to throw away my iPhone; it AirDropped itself back into my jacket. I attempted to defect to Android, but the Apple executives read my mind via neural lace and blocked the port with a proprietary dongle. So make peace. In the end, when the last star fades, you’ll be able to order a new iPhone via RetinaFaceID, have it delivered by a six-legged robot, and watch your consciousness get backed up to iCloud for one final system update. Apple doesn’t just think you’ll want the iPhone at 100. They know you’ll need it, because they’ve erased the alternative from the fabric of reality itself. May your storage never fill, and may the end-times notifications be forever swiped away.