But then Easter disappears from the Apple holiday calendar.
Apple has every right to honor whatever and whoever it pleases. The idea that Apple honors equally as other companies might is probably not exactly accurate.
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Apple Launches New 2018 Pride Band for Apple Watch, Available to Buy Today
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Apple has every right to honor whatever and whoever it pleases. The idea that Apple honors equally as other companies might is probably not exactly accurate.
Just to confuse small-minded people I guess
Orrrrrrr it probably has something to do with the fact that the vast majority of LGBT people spend stressful years/decades hiding and suppressing who they are, so when they finally do come out they can celebrate and be gay and wear a damn colored watch band if they want.
Lots of people have lots of extremely stressful things in their lives. Where are their watch bands?
Yeah, you glossed over the “hiding and suppressing” bit of his post, which is kinda key to the whole “Pride” thing.
And if you’re not LGBT+, but also have some aspect of yourself that you feel you’ve been forced to hide, then by all means grab a rainbow flag (or wristband) and come party with us this Pride season. We’re an inclusive bunch, as long as you respect our freedoms too.
I'm happy when a product makes people happy. I'll always buy Apple if it's the best product for me. At the same time, no one's 100% fair and balanced, it just isn't human nature. So being open about what Apple stands for (i.e. we dropped Christian holidays because we don't favor the Christian worldview) would actually help people to move past trying to catch Apple in something that seems inconsistent from what they say about being a champion of everyone.
Exactly what would those bands you mentioned look like? Gay pride is very obvously attached to a specific design (a rainbow flag). What should Asians, African Americans, and women wear in your opinion? As for who cares? Millions of gay Americans and tens/hundreds of millions more worldwide, as well as their families and friends. The REAL question is, why are you bothered by it, and for what reason do you so obviously feel left out of something that you claim not to get into (as if it matters)?
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Get back to me when those people are sometimes beat to death by total strangers on streets in America, or stabbed in large cities as recently as this week for walking home.
Well Apple’s “UK Holidays” calendar tells me about:
Shrove Tuesday, Ash Wednesday, Good Friday, Easter Sunday, Easter Monday, Christmas Eve, and Christmas Day.
So, yeah, not really seeing their anti-Christian bias to be honest.
It was reinstated after some people complained. It had been omitted for a reason that was not made clear, which is back to my comment that all some are looking for from companies is transparency. If Apple has its views, that's fine. If Chick-fil-A has its views, that's fine with me too. But companies seem to be trying to ride down the middle and get credit from everyone when it's clear that they have their views just like individuals do.
Yep. I’m not sure exactly when it stopped being sold, but probably around the end of last year’s Pride season.
I went to a Pride event last week, and had a few people ask me where I got my rainbow band from — they were surprised when I said it was an official Apple thing, seems a lot of people missed it!
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I get your point and to be honest, even as a non-religious person, I don’t see why they felt the need to remove it. But I listed 7 Christian holidays, and even if they removed all of them apart from Christmas, that’s still giving a shout out to one of the most important days of your chosen religion. So it’s not like they’re actually trying to erase you from history or anything.
I'm a Libertarian, and I believe Apple has every right to do what it pleases. Include remove those holidays. It's like they're hiding themselves, that's my personal view, about their political beliefs for fear of alienating a customer. But if those beliefs are so important, why wouldn't they let the person go. Isn't that what standing on ideals is all about?
Back to the post, if the watch bands make people happy, I'm glad they're out there.
I'm gay, I'm 49 and I just ordered a pride band.
Oddly, perhaps, it took me a very long time to understand what pride was supposed to be about. In general I found gay pride parades very alienating as they seemed to be focussed on sex. As a survivor of sexual abuse, I find sex a pretty terrifying thing, so I felt like gay pride wasn't really for people like me.
And then I thought about what the word "pride" means. A recent survey in the UK asked people whether they were proud to be British. It's an accident of birth, I thought, so I'm not sure it makes sense to say I'm proud of it. Grateful perhaps. There are worse places to be born.
But then I realised that the opposite of pride is shame. And oh how much of my life I've wasted in being ashamed of being gay. It's almost impossible not to be. Homophobia has been regularly and loudly shoved down my throat my entire life. I knew I was gay by the age of 9. I knew I had to deny and hide it by the age of 12. When I was finally forced to come out to my parents, when I was 19, they disowned me and our previously loving relationship was permanently destroyed. My dad was ashamed of me.
For what? I didn't choose to be gay any more than I chose to be right-handed. Why do all these people hate me?
Black people certainly know about irrational hatred and persecution. But the fact that they're black has at least one plus point: it's easy to find other black people. And other black people who get you.
But since gay people are encouraged to hide, it can be really quite hard to find other ones. Certainly at high school I was fairly sure I was the only gay person in the school, and possibly the world. I did try to become straight. I really did.
I'm old enough to remember things like the UK's notorious Section 28 law — that described homosexual relationships as "pretended" and effectively banned schools from offering support to gay people. Nice.
I'm not sure why, but when I saw this year's pride band, and the way it was paired with the new watch face, I immediately knew I wanted to wear it. If only to say to myself that I'm done with being ashamed.
As for people who don't get it. Well, I half understand you. In a way, you're lucky that you don't. It means you haven't had to put up with the giant crapfest that is being gay. Black people's parents don't disown them for being black. Their parents don't wish they were white.
But, to be honest, I suspect that if you don't get it and feel the need to attack it then that's because you've been a victim of the deafening, relentless barrage of noise that constantly tells society that being gay is wrong. And despite there being no rational basis to this, you've bought it and now you're passing it along.
It's a watch strap. If you don't like it, don't buy it.
Oddly, perhaps, it took me a very long time to understand what pride was supposed to be about. In general I found gay pride parades very alienating as they seemed to be focussed on sex. As a survivor of sexual abuse, I find sex a pretty terrifying thing, so I felt like gay pride wasn't really for people like me.
And then I thought about what the word "pride" means. A recent survey in the UK asked people whether they were proud to be British. It's an accident of birth, I thought, so I'm not sure it makes sense to say I'm proud of it. Grateful perhaps. There are worse places to be born.
But then I realised that the opposite of pride is shame. And oh how much of my life I've wasted in being ashamed of being gay. It's almost impossible not to be. Homophobia has been regularly and loudly shoved down my throat my entire life. I knew I was gay by the age of 9. I knew I had to deny and hide it by the age of 12. When I was finally forced to come out to my parents, when I was 19, they disowned me and our previously loving relationship was permanently destroyed. My dad was ashamed of me.
For what? I didn't choose to be gay any more than I chose to be right-handed. Why do all these people hate me?
Black people certainly know about irrational hatred and persecution. But the fact that they're black has at least one plus point: it's easy to find other black people. And other black people who get you.
But since gay people are encouraged to hide, it can be really quite hard to find other ones. Certainly at high school I was fairly sure I was the only gay person in the school, and possibly the world. I did try to become straight. I really did.
I'm old enough to remember things like the UK's notorious Section 28 law — that described homosexual relationships as "pretended" and effectively banned schools from offering support to gay people. Nice.
I'm not sure why, but when I saw this year's pride band, and the way it was paired with the new watch face, I immediately knew I wanted to wear it. If only to say to myself that I'm done with being ashamed.
As for people who don't get it. Well, I half understand you. In a way, you're lucky that you don't. It means you haven't had to put up with the giant crapfest that is being gay. Black people's parents don't disown them for being black. Their parents don't wish they were white.
But, to be honest, I suspect that if you don't get it and feel the need to attack it then that's because you've been a victim of the deafening, relentless barrage of noise that constantly tells society that being gay is wrong. And despite there being no rational basis to this, you've bought it and now you're passing it along.
It's a watch strap. If you don't like it, don't buy it.
Great answer!
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Don't forget that homosexuality is illegal in dozens of countries, punishable by death in many, and that gays have increased rates of suicide, depression and other mental illness. But I guess the straights feel bad about being left out...
Thanks for sharing! Another thing I like about Pride season is how it encourages people to share their stories, even in random and unexpected places like the MacRumors forums. And I’m sorry that you had such a rough time when you came out mate! But yeah, being yourself — being the *very best* version of yourself — is what Pride is all about.
And yep, black people have their own crappy world of pain to deal with (and then of course there’s black LGBT people), but the unique blessing/curse of being gay is that you *can* hide and blend in…which means that many of us *do* hide (for some time, at least).
Pride is the antidote to that.
I much preferred last year’s design, I really wish I’d gotten one of those. Will be ordering one of these. I just fear that as it’s a white band it’s not going to go with my SS black watch as well and it will get / look dirtier after a short while.
There is the older version without the white stripes between the colors that was originally given to employees and then later made available for public purchase.
I like those colours. Would wear them as a straight guy. Looks like classic Apple logo colours.
Quite possibly the kindest, most honest post I have ever read on the world wide web. Thank you.
You failed to mention a straight white pride. Oh, sorry, that is a racist concept.
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Rainbow was not created to honor gays. It was created for a different purpose, but the beautiful concept and symbol have been hijacked for the “in-your-face”’ gay propaganda. I’m for equal rights for gays but against their aggressive marketing campaign, which is exactly what Cook is shoving down our throats. Maybe we should demand the ISIS flag watch face, the devil worshipper watch face, the confederate flag watch face, the Nazi and Communist watch faces the Black Panther watch face, etc. so that all extreme groups are represented in the Apple stock software, since custom watch faces are not allowed. What do you think?
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No it’s not, unless you make it racist. If you can think of a way of celebrating those things in a positive way (rather than making it an event *against* people who aren’t straight or white), then why don’t you organise one? No one is stopping you.
Then you can finally have a day of celebration, where you can publicly do…erm…all of the things that you seem to think you’re not allowed to do normally. Whatever those are.
Or just come party with us at Pride. Lots of straight white people do. We’re happy for you to celebrate diversity with us, it’s great fun!
None of those groups have a long global history of being expected/forced to meekly hide away and pretend to not exist. Quite the opposite, in fact.
Seriously? You don't know what Nazis did to Communists or what Communists did to Nazis, or what Americans did to both?
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No, I'm an outdated and racist concept.