In the same way that Pinterest, with its made-from-scratch recipes and bespoke home decorating ideas, fills some people with a creeping sense of despair that they lead an inadequate life, Apple advertisements and keynote demos have always made me feel terrible about myself.

The prototypical Apple demo person is someone I’ll call Apple Man. Apple Man is a fortysomething dad who just wants to FaceTime his adorable children while he’s on a business trip, and also find a local pourover coffee shop while he’s in town. Apple Man has an Apple Watch (obvious). He needs a way to manage his photos of his adorable children and hiking trips with friends. He loves jogging and mountain biking and wants to use his Apple Watch to monitor his workouts, because he LOVES working out. Apple Man is very fit for his age — you can just barely tell he’s totally ripped through his light blue, off-the-rack, wrinkle-free, button-down shirt. Apple Man has a great head of hair. Apple Man owns his home and wants to be able to open his garage door from his phone to park his family-sensible-yet-sporty-crossover. (He's on the Tesla Model 3 preorder list.) He wants to make brunch plans, and it would be great if he could add a brunch plan to his calendar app directly from text messages. Apple Man wants to track his health, but of course he has no need for a period tracker. His calendar is full; his inbox is zero.

If you’re like me, somewhat disorganized and more likely to have a photo roll full of your drunk idiot friends than a whitewater-rafting trip with your children, this feels not really relevant to your life. Or if you’re basically anything OTHER than a rich white businessman who loves dim sum and jogging, then this might not feel relevant to you.

When the Apple Watch came out it seemed like the ultimate hardware realization of Apple Man. A bulky fashion device with a huge price tag that seemed mostly useful for outdoor running or biking and getting alerted about business meetings. Indeed, some (frankly sketchy) sales analysis suggested that initial buyers of the watch were 80% male (the gender gap is closing, but still very real).

But at yesterday’s WWDC keynote, Apple announced new features for the Apple Watch that feel like they’re designed with someone other than Apple Man in mind.

The first one is the wheelchair activity monitor. While this, of course, still appeals to people who love exercising (just like Apple Man), it’s a feature launch devoted to people with disabilities, presented at a major event.



