I often hear Apple criticized for being overpriced. And I guess they are overpriced if you don’t care a whit about quality.

Is it worth devoting the first 750 or so words of this piece to the iPhone 5’s surface appeal? I don’t know how else to convey the niceness of this thing. This iPhone 5 review unit is the single nicest object in my possession. I own things that cost and remain worth more (e.g. my car). But I own nothing this nice. It sounds hyperbolic to put it that way, but I offer this observation with no exaggeration.

When you pick up an Apple product, you can feel the workmanship and thought that went into calling forth each object from the void. Apple’s products are the only ones I use regularly that I would call “art.”

I use a 30”  Cinema Display mainly because the screen is great (though nothing compared to the new iPad screen). But I also use it because the object itself is beautiful. It will be beautiful in a thousand years, just as Roman friezes are. It is timeless and there is a reason many movies feature a Cinema Display in their “futuristic” scenes – and not because it looks futuristic, per se.

No, it’s because it will never look antiquated. Know how 1960s sci-fi looks so dated, like it might as well have been filmed in the 1400s? That’s what set designers are trying to avoid when there is a Cinema Display mise en scène.

If you care more about price – and can afford it – an Apple product is what you’d nearly always choose, in my opinion.

I sound like an Apple ad, I know. But it’s worth recognizing one of the few companies in the world that cares about quality of experience and design first and foremost. It is extremely rare and worth noting.