Eagerly anticipated by sixth-graders everywhere, who have been predicting (and getting each other to spell) the product for decades, Apple announced that it will soon be releasing the iCup. Like the iPhone, the iCup is a hand-held device that syncs up with your computer.
iCup Features
In related news, the 79th Carnival of Satire is now available for your reading entertainment, and features my recent iPhone review (in which I come down hard on the iPhone’s chunky, clunky design).
collecting tokens 
I presume the 16oz and 24oz measures are legitimate, which I find odd. Obviously we use the metric system here, because we have that things called commonsense, but by memory, a standard coffee cup (or what used to be the standard) is 8oz. 12oz used to be considered ‘large’. I can only assume that the fluid ounce hasn’t changed since then and that 16oz is twice the volume of an old standard coffee cup and 24oz is four times that size. Moreover, I suspect such a cup would be used for coffee or tea predominantly, and perhaps something a little more hard, later in the evening.
My question is this: How much coffee can one possibly ingest?! I consider myself a rather large coffee drinker (that is to say, ‘I drink a lot of coffee’, rather than ‘I am a coffee drinker and I am large’) and the maximum I will drink is an 8oz cup at a time (a number of times per day). in fact I am disheartened to discover that the coffee shops that are taking over (Starbucks and Gloria Jeans) not only do not serve have-in coffees (in real cups/mugs, which reduces the amount of waste), but serve 12oz cups as an absolute minimum. This is why I don’t buy coffees anymore, preferring to have my daily quota before leaving the house.
Even if it’s only tea, it’s just as bad to have so much; studies have recently shown that “Tea drinking reduces the absorption of non-haem iron” (de Maeyer 1989), meaning the more you drink tea the more likely it is you’ll become anæmic.
Just thought I’d let you know. Otherwise, good, entertaining post, Alejna, but you and your husband’s iObsession with all things Apple may soon become a little iDisturbing.
Brilliant!
Jangari- this is America, so it’s impossible for us not to supersize. But not to worry, once you take into account all the cream, whipped cream, flavorings, syrups, and various trendy energy boosters, there’s very little actual coffee left in our mega-coffees.
Jangari-
16 oz. seems to be standard for travel mugs, though they don’t easily hold more than, say, 14 oz. I have yet to actually see one in 24 0z., but it wouldn’t shock me to learn they exist. (And it’s really only 3 cups. I do know people who could down that much.) Starbucks has 3 sizes in these parts: tall, grande and venti. Where venti (20 in Italian?) is 20 oz. It amuses me that “tall” is the smallest available. The “short” size disappeared about 10 years ago, I think. Not that it was terribly small…
Interesting article, by the way. Oh, and glad you otherwise enjoyed the iPost. iI don’t know how long this iBusiness will go on….
bs-
Thanks! Yes, that’s true that much of the beverages do contain very little coffee. And if you get an iced version, you get about 50% ice. (Or is it more?)
Oh man, I can’t believe I missed a chance to rip on Starbucks for their ridiculous size names! (not that they’re the only chain doing this.. Cold Stone Creamery- and you know how I feel about them- has 3 cutesy size names, the only one of which I recall right now is “gotta have it”, which makes me feel so ill even typing it that the last thing I want to do is eat ice cream).
A while back Espresso Royale had a size conversion chart, with two columns labeled “Theirs” and “Ours”, which helpfully explained that “tall”=”small”, “grande”=”medium”, and “venti”= “large”.
I just found this
blog which looks to be frequented by Starbucks fans and employees, and interestingly, it sounds like the size labels annoy more people than I realized. Also, they backfire in a way I hadn’t anticipated, as a number of employees report incidents where customers order a Tall, thinking they’re ordering a large, and then get pissed off when they’re handed a small. Ha.
Where can I camp out in line for one? I must have an iCup. Before the neighbors.
The euphemy of size names is particularly linguistically interesting in my opinion. One commenter on that thread said that Starbucks no longer offers 8oz coffees, yet their ‘conversion chart’ stipulates that ‘our’ (=Starbucks’) “tall” equals ‘their’ (=the competition’s) “small”. 12oz is my absolute largest possible size, 8oz is standard, or should be, and espressos are only about 30ml.
It’s linguistically interesting because Starbucks seems to harbour the opinion that bigger=better; they try to make their coffee sizes sound larger than they actually are, which is ironic, because they are larger than they should be, irrespective of how the name sounds. It’s as though their assumption that size-names, like small, medium and large, are value-judgements (because of their assumption that bigger=better) and therefor they fall under the domain of semantic shift due to taboo terms. If smaller=worse, then the name ‘small’ has to change to sound less small. ‘Tall’ is almost a euphemism.
If I were to go into a Starbucks for a second time ever (I didn’t like my first visit) I’d see the size “tall” and ask for something that’s not so tall; a “short black” for instance.
Do they even offer short blacks?
Clothing size labels have shifted in the opposite direction, in the US at least. At some point a size 10 was relabelled as an 8, which later became a 6. And with “larges” now transformed into “smalls”, you see a lot more XS and even XXS to fit the people who truly are small. I’ve put on a few pounds since high school, but I’ve dropped at least two clothing sizes. It’s miraculous!
I guess what it comes down to is, by god, we’re a country full of small people drinking tall coffees, and no one can tell us anything different!
bs-
Wow, that coffee blog discussion got heated. And by the way, I have very nearly considered going into a Stone Cold Creamery out of morbid curiosity. Perhaps I could just go in and look and mock, but not order, since I would be inclined to get the most embarrassingly small size possible. (By the way, I had some Tosci’s ice cream today. And yum, do they know how to make good ice cream.)
KC-
I don’t have info on where to get one yet. The one I have is an early prototype (circa 2000).
Jangari-
Yes, “bigger is better” does seem to be the norm in US culture. (Except, as bs points out, for clothing sizes.) You’d be horrified by the portion sizes they give in most restaurants. I’m all too often served up a platter of pasta that could feed a family of 4.
As for Starbucks, the one I used to go to stopped offering “short,” though they may still be willing to deal in them under the table. (Or under the counter?) You are still allowed to get your coffee black, as far as I know. (My goodness, you’ve only been to Starbucks once? That’s wonderful. I’m ashamed to say I’ve been more times than I could count, and to more stores than I could count. Including some that are across the street from each other, as in the Best in Show quote. (“We met at Starbucks. Not at the same Starbucks but we saw each other at different Starbucks across the street from each other.”) Sadly, Starbucks is not even my first choice for a beverage…
bs (again!)-
“I guess what it comes down to is, by god, we’re a country full of small people drinking tall coffees, and no one can tell us anything different!”
You crack me up!
I remember in grade 1 or 2 I had this friend who always had a big smile on her face, and she would get people to spell iCup and it NEVER got old.
Recently, someone was talking about that famous equation (e to the power of i times pi) and figured out that it would be iPi, therefore apple pie.
Then I got the idea to google iCup and that’s how I found your blog.
excellent, lol, had one that was usb for pc prior to moving to apple mac, now i can get one that fits in with the style!