I guess every day is April 1. I guess that’s just life now. The world has embraced swirling madness, and everyone’s along for the ride. We’ve already seen BP lose it, and now none other than Apple is hopping on the crazy train with something that we want to believe is self-parody, except they’re actually selling it for real money. Designed by Apple in California is a coffee table book filled with pictures of Apple products past and present. That’s it.

It’s just pictures. Lest you think perhaps Apple will put in some interesting anecdotes or insight into their design work, set those thoughts aside immediately. Not only did they not do that, they explicitly did not do that as an artistic statement. Take it away, Jony Ive!

“While this is a design book, it is not about the design team, the creative process or product development. It is an objective representation of our work that, ironically, describes who we are. It describes how we work, our values, our preoccupations and our goals. We have always hoped to be defined by what we do rather than by what we say.”

That’s from the foreword. It doesn’t sound like the book is big on words after that point. The book contains 450 shots of products from the last 20 years set against white backgrounds and taken by photographer Andrew Zuckerman, in what I guess can be termed the Apple style. Did they include a picture of the book in the book? Maybe! I honestly hope they did.

The book itself is hardcover and completely white, with the photos, “printed on specially milled, custom-dyed paper with gilded matte silver edges, using eight color separations and low-ghost ink.” It gets better — according to Apple’s own press release, they spent eight years developing this book. It’s like they wanted to preempt an Onion article.

Designed by Apple in California is dedicated to the memory of Steve Jobs. It comes in two sizes, 10.2″ x 12.75″ and 13″ x 16.25″. They cost, incredibly, $200 and $300. This is too much for me this early in the morning. I want to go back to bed. You can buy the book online or at Apple stores starting tomorrow, as reluctant as I am to pass that information along.

Via Engadget