Unless you also blew away every one of your news apps while you were deleting Facebook over the weekend, you know that Apple held a town hall meeting in Chicago. One of a very few that have ever been taken outside of northern California.
The event was held at Lane Tech High School in North Center, a school known for producing everything from scientists to TV news anchors in abundance.
During its presentation, Apple paid homage to the Windy City with a couple of artist’s interpretations of the built environment, done in the style that Apple is using to flog its electric pencil gadget. Starting out with a big fat representation of the Chicago skyline:
In recent years, Apple always starts these events with a video, but right after the video, this was the first picture the audience at Lane Tech, and around the world on the interweb got to see. Let’s break it down, shall we…
- Willis Tower
- Ummm…. pass
- Oh, let’s be generous and call it City Hall
- 500 North Lake Shore Drive?
- The Crain Communications Building
- Three First National Plaza, maybe?
- I’d like to buy a vowel, Pat
- The Vista Tower (in progress)
- Foshay Tower in Minneapolis
- Aon Center
- If you squint hard it might pass for Chase Tower
- 875 North Michigan Avenue
Sure, 13 through 22 are fictional filler, but FruitCo managed to hit the highlights pretty well. And Lane Tech got its own great big Keynote slide, which is six flavors of awesome:
The show ended with a promotional video for the iPad with a narrator sounding suspiciously like he was channeling Chicago’s own voice of the downtrodden student, Jean Shepherd.
Unfortunately, this morning the chattering masses of the internet aren’t talking about the Chicago skyline, or the Lane Tech bell tower, or Chi Town’s great poets. They’re asking the question: How many times did Apple force that kid to lick the iPad?