Apple suddenly remembers the Mac (or remembers you care about it)

Out of nowhere, new Apple ads celebrating the Mac. How strange.

I know I'm supposed to wander the streets with two little white earrings known as AirPods hanging from the sides of the head.

I know I'm supposed to use the iPhone for everything other than flushing the toilet. Though I know that app will soon be upon us.

I didn't know that I'm supposed to still be using a Mac.

Somehow, Apple has entirely forgotten to remind its customers that Macs are really quite useful things. Wonderful, even.

Indeed, I'm writing this on a MacBook Air thinking: "Goodness, Apple just released some ads featuring Macs. Has it heard the plaintive cries of those who still adore them?"

In these ads, Apple shows that creative types, those with hearts, souls and even caring personalities use Macs for all sorts of glorious purposes. (Other than writing articles, that is.)

Here's Peter Kariuki, the Rwandan creator of the SafeMotos app, which makes roads safer for all who use them. He used a Mac to code the whole thing.

And here's musician Grimes.

She says she doesn't need permission to do things. Lately, though, it's seemed like Apple was giving customers permission to use any other laptop by resolutely refusing to update its own.

For Grimes, though, the true joy of the Mac gives her the chance to work on the floor. Quite literally. Who needs a studio when you have a Mac?

"You can do way weirder things when you're alone in a room and you're not worried about people judging you," she says.

I spend most of my days this way and it's refreshing to hear someone say it publicly.

Photographer Bruce Hall, who's legally blind, has his own ad. It's one in which he says: "Has the MacBook improved my vision? Absolutely. It's allowing me to do things that I couldn't do a decade ago."

Over the decade, however, Mac's pace of change has markedly slowed.

The Mac is Apple's most glorious(ly neglected) product.

Its combination of lightness, simplicity and sheer aesthetic joy was unsurpassed for years.

Yet Cupertino suddenly decided, for warped commercial reasons, to tell you that the iPad is now a computer. Which made Microsoft laugh a lot, while you wondered what the Mac was now.

I asked Apple whether these ads are a small bow of shame to those who remain frustrated -- frustrated that Apple doesn't bother even updating its Mac range from one year to the next. I'll update, should I receive a reply.

The last ad in the series, though, hits the heart the hardest.

It shows the intensely personal relationship between Human and Mac, as Human tries to create and Mac sits there doing Human's bidding, tolerating Human's whims and looking sublime at the same time.