Over its nearly 40 years of existence, Apple has addressed itself to many audiences: nerds, teenagers, parents, students, writers, photographers. So it’s interesting in 2015 to consider “Think different,” nearly two decades out. This requires some delicacy, because “Think different” is an ad, and ads are just propaganda with a profit motive and rarely to be taken at their word.

And yet. With “Think different,” Apple was at the very least addressing itself to people who were not incumbent. (That status quo, unnamed in the ads, was of course Microsoft—which made serious machines preferred by people of business.) Apple made technology for people who wanted to change the world, not the people who ran it.

Which was always a little rich, because Apple devices weren’t cheap. The Apple pitch was one of exceptionalism: Apple alone combined pre-existing technology with incremental advances and holistic, humane design. Buy an Apple phone/laptop/music player, and you didn’t get an amalgam of specifications, software, and capacity. You got an experience.

And even as Apple has expanded, even as it has sold more than 700 million iPhones, this has remained to some degree its pitch. Apple products are expensive but they’re within reach of a middle-class American, and they were loved as quality machines. The Apple developer Alexei Baboulevitch makes this point well, I think:

We loved our iPods and iPhones for their sleek design and smooth [user interface], even when people dismissed them as “expensive toys.” We knew our $2000 laptops were incredible for the price, even while people mocked us for not buying cheap, creaky Windows machines. When Android and Windows users poked fun at our platforms for lacking in free tools, we lauded the benefits of carefully crafted, paid-up-front software. We let our Apple logos shine bright because we were proud to be affiliated with one of the few companies that seemed philosophically bent on setting a new standard for mass-market products.

High quality for the mass-market: This was Apple.

Today’s messaging was a little different.

The company announced new laptops: They will be available in gold. It showed us an example Apple Watch user: She was Christy Turlington Burns, a supermodel who Apple’s video shows taking time off from philanthropic work in Tanzania to run a half-marathon around Kilimanjaro.

And even the less-obviously luxe marketing seemed tailored to an aloof elite: You can call an Uber with your watch now! If you forget to stand up every so often (perhaps because your trans-Pacific first-class Emirates seat is just so comfortable), your watch will remind you to walk around a little!

But these are details. Most will correctly fixate on the price of the most expensive watch, the 18-karat-gold Apple Watch Edition. Apple hasn’t released an upper price window for these watches, but Tim Cook mentioned on-stage Monday they started at $10,000.