Apple Announces iPhone Cthulhu

Apple surprised many by announcing a new version of the iPhone today, the iPhone Cthulhu. The new version of the iPhone sports an interface refined for the Elder Gods.

"While demand for the upcoming 3G model of the iPhone remains high, we decided that there's a much larger market in the Star Spawn segment," said Senior Vice President Phil Schiller in a press conference held at midnight on Tuesday. "The Great Old Ones crave not only souls and blood, but also a smartphone that's easily 5 millennia ahead of anything else out there. " Added Schiller "Please, get out of my mind now."

Read on for more details on the iPhone Cthulhu, including photos and a description of the all new tentacle-based interface!

The Technology Behind iPhone Cthulhu

Apple gave their surprise press event deep under the Pacific Ocean to an exclusive, invite-only audience. Upon receiving an invite from Apple, Nyarlathotep was heard to exclaim "Oh R'lyeh?!"

Schiller spoke for the majority of the event, his demeanor was a far cry from Steve Jobs' typically cocksure presentation. Instead, Schiller strode across the stage in fits and starts, as though his very bones were being controlled by a force not of this Earth, nay, of this very plane of existence.

"Instead of 3G, we're bringing them OG - Old God speeds. The OG technology is really innovative, based on coterminous nature of Yog-Sothoth, who knows all and sees all." The new wireless technology in the new iPhone speaks from across the nameless void, folding the very fabric of space and time to bring unheard-of planar atrocities direct to the handset at lightning fast speeds. It also (finally!) supports MMS and the ability to send text messages to multiple recipients.

Schiller paused for a moment to advance his Keynote presentation to the next slide, which immediately caused the few mortals in the audience lucky enough to receive an invite to bleed from their eyes. Schiller immediately jumped to the next slide, which listed several of the incredible new features of iPhone Cthulhu.

After OG, another new feature of the iPhone was a new suite of ringtones based on the piping of Azathoth. Schiller played a short snipped of the default ringtone, which caused a small stir during the event as the remaining living mortals present went mad with horror for a time before rending their garments and wailing with fear. Schiller also played an updated version of the classic "Marimba" ringtone from the original iPhone, which was also pretty bad.

Cocoa Tentacle

After Schiller explained the market need for the iPhone Cthulhu, designer Jonathan Ive took the stage. Unlike Schiller, Ive was unfazed by the presence of the Elder Gods in the Audience. Indeed, he appeared to feed on their slow, patient, and unending malice for the universe.

Ive explained the work that went into the interface for the new device:

When developing the iPhone Cthulhu, we realized that we'd have to go back to the drawing board. Multi-touch gestures were a real breakthrough with the original iPhone, which we codified in a programming language we called 'Cocoa Touch.' But we realized that a device that could only account for a maximum of two fingers would not suffice for my brethren, er, for the Elder Gods. They needed something more. They needed Cocoa Tentacle.

Ive then showed how Cocoa Tentacle was able to handle up to 27 concurrent inputs on its touchscreen interface. He also described a bit about how Cocoa Tentacle would be integrated into the current iPhone SDK. "It's quite simple, really, you just learn how to invoke some new API." Ive then wrote a program that integrated with Google Maps to locate the nearest virgins available for human sacrifice. His invocation of the APIs of the deep amounted to a long string of guttural chants and burning of incense that brought the crowd of Outer Gods to their "feet."

Price and Availability

The iPhone Cthulhu is available for $399 immediately, though it does require signing a 2 year contract with AT&T. Shub-Niggurath, an attendee of the press event, said of the requirement "That is really the only downside here, those carriers, man, I don't know if you can comprehend just how evil they are. They really give me the willies."