It's possible we've reached peak Jony Ive. Apple has done the unthinkable and managed to make all of its products seem slightly 'less than' with just one perfectly, precisely designed accessory: its new $999 monitor stand. If Apple's chief design officer was an item on his desk, he'd be this stand.

Announced at WWDC 2019, the Pro Stand has been built to be used with the very high-end, professional $4,999 or $5,999 6K Pro Display XDR and the very high-end, professional $5,999 Mac Pro workstation. In accessory terms that puts it at a fully reasonable ten or twenty per cent of the price of the products it complements, depending on whether you consider the Mac Pro part of the package.

We could try to mount a defence. An Apple Watch Series 4 costs $399 (we're sticking with dollars, as there's no UK price for the stand, display or Mac Pro yet)) and the new Pride Watch strap is $49: that's 12 per cent. The new ipads Air is $499, the 2nd gen Apple Pencil is $129 and the Smart Keyboard is $159: that's 25 per cent and 31 per cent respectively for the ipads accessories. Suddenly, $999 - or ten/twenty per cent - isn't so outrageous.

Only it very much is.

Apple itself is known for commanding high prices, but even compared to its own kit, the Pro Stand seems to have created a class of its own in terms of the Cupertino excellence mark-up. It's not a direct comparison but there's a swanky iMac stand aimed at regular people on Apple's online US store. It's called the Twelve South HiRise Pro. It works with iMacs, iMac Pros and external displays. It's made from aluminium with an optional walnut finish on the front, adjustable to four different height options and has a "padded leather valet tray" for your phones, glasses, keys and other tchotchkes. It costs $150.

This new workplace status symbol says a lot. It says: "All the milliseconds this stand is saving me and my company will make that $999 back in weeks/days/minutes/seconds/milliseconds." In some cases that's true: for editors, CG artists and developers working on million-dollar movies and projects, time is money, as is focus or lack thereof when fiddling with displays. As ever with Apple, though, it's important that the Pro Stand now says this, whether or not that's strictly true.

This new Stand shorthand, that only Apple could bring into existence, will provide extra enterprise profits where the Pro Display offers what's more comparable, in terms of value, with the specs and prices of high-performance screens. The alternative to the Pro Stand, the VESA mount adaptor for the Pro Display, costs an equally egregious $199, whereas the VESA adaptor for iMacs sells for 'just' $79.

So what has Apple managed to do with the humble monitor stand to warrant the price tag? The Pro Stand, which will go on sale this autumn, is made from aluminium, with Apple's matte silver finish. The attention-grabbing feature is that it rotates from landscape to portrait mode by unlocking a slider and turning the Pro Display, a feature Apple's product page suggests will be helpful for developers, photographers and composers who are keen to spend less time scrolling. (A rotating monitor certainly makes more sense than Samsung's portrait Sero TV concept.)

What else? There's 120mm of height adjustment, "precision tilting" and Apple says that the monitor stand has been engineered so that the angle of the display will remain intact as you adjust the height. Again, this is about saving "pro" users milliseconds and, more importantly, maintaining their creative concentration levels. Minuscule gains mean incremental increases in efficiency and, again, that means money.

In a pitch to Hollywood, Apple has also made it quick to detach the Pro Display from the Pro Stand via magnetic connectors, to move between studioses to sets. The stability to desk footprint ratio is another precise design consideration i.e. it's stable but it doesn't take up too much room.

Those are all admirable arguments in defence of a monitor stand that costs more than most, perhaps double or triple. But, on balance, $999 is a step too far.

Here's what you could buy from Apple for $999 (or thereabouts):

Six pairs of second gen AirPods

Get a set of Apple's 2019 wireless earbuds for all your employees. They can casually but rudely ignore each other until ioses 13 is ready and the tap to share music feature is live.

A MacBook Air

An extra $200 pays for a 13-inch Macbook Air (2019). There's not a lot more we need to say about that comparison.

An iphoness and ipads

If you trade in an iphoness, you could get a new iphoness XR for $479, a fifth-gen ipads Mini for $399 and a first gen Apple Pencil for $99.

Almost every Apple lifestyle product

Just over $1,000 will also pay for: an Apple HomePod, an Apple Watch Series 4, an Apple TV 4K and a pair of AirPods 2.

Remember these are Apple products we're talking about. It doesn't make sense to compare these 'consumer' products to the Mac Pro and Pro Display XDR, but this is an adjustable metal stand versus a speaker, a smartwatch, a streaming box and some in-ear headphoness. The Pro Stand has singlehandedly done the impossible and made them all look like bargains. Bravo. We are not worthy.

This article was originally published by WIRED UK