As you read this, Apple may be launching the 4th Gen iPhone SE … or it might not. Who can say? Unlike an autumn iPhone launch that takes place at a special media event and is therefore marked a week in advance by a clue invitation, we are told that the new SE will follow the less glamorous route for an e- Mail press message. Press releases fall into our inboxes with zero message, often in the window between writing an article and sending it on the site. A really well-developed email can send tech journalists shaking to the nearest content management system such as Panicking Meerkats.
They can give the Apple element of surprise (and save money on video production and actor coach), but press releases are missing a particular something when it comes to excitement. I recently complained about a product’s injustice as important as the new SE, which was treated as a coupon offering at your local burrito place. Events mean hype, and if something deserves a bit of hype, it is this strategically important entrance to the Cupertino ecosystem.
However, hype can be a product we will have to learn to live without. It may be time to acknowledge that Big Apple events are on borrowed time and that the days of tech product messages like Must-Watch Agreement TV can be over.
In 2024 we were given a generous slate of events. But the strange thing was that none of them seemed necessary. The light loose event in May in May ran for a long time on Gaffes and briefly on material revelations, and I saw nothing to get me to revise my prediction of a meeting that could have been an email. WWDC was all software and the iPhone event was heavy on Apple Intelligence. And the one event that matters didn’t happen. Instead of a Mac event in late fall to announce the redesigned M4 MAC Mini, Apple chose to hold a week’s quieter announcements on three consecutive days in October.
In doing so, the company kept the attention of the technical media for more news cycles to a fraction of the cost of an event, and because the inmate whisper rather than the megaphone, fans were less likely to be disappointed with the new set. It is also worth remembering that when big events become rarer, the amount of attention and interest that each one can harvest becomes greater. The boy who cries Wolf too often may find that customers stop bothering to adjust to his wolf live streams.
The warning signs for the Big Apple event emerged, just as with the decline of so many beloved cultural institutions when normal life closed the pandemic. WWDC 2020 was the first of a series of virtual Apple events with risky but exciting demos on stage replaced by safe and boring promotioned videos: Glorified ads, really. As restrictions lifted the company understandably decided to preserve many aspects of the visual events, they mixed canned presentations with a few practical elements. The benefits of virtual were simply too appealing to leave.
The problem is that with live scene sections removed, events begin to lose their original purpose and meaning. A pre-played video will be sharper and faster than a live performance, but it will not communicate the same excitement to the audience-there will be no sense of being present in a historic moment when something could happen. And when you first get to that point, it feels picturesque to sit through 80 minutes of joyful sketches and robotic marketing Spiel to get to the headline messages. Why not save everyone’s time and just send an E email? Why not just send the ad on the site?
Once you’ve added the relatively boring nature of many recent Apple product updates, and Tim Cook’s obvious lack of interest in being the same kind of showman as his predecessor, there really is only one conclusion: there will be fewer Apple events in the future , and those we get will simply not be as exciting as they once were. There will be fewer errors (at least of the “Whoops, this feature did not work”) and fewer moments of authentic wonder. Imagine if Steve Jobs had not revealed the iPhone in front of a live audience.
But maybe, given how artificial it all has become, it’s all for the best. It should be about the products, not the event. Steak, not sizzle. And the new iPhone SE will live and die from its qualities, not its press release.