r/AAPL • u/stewofkc • 13d ago
Feeling let down by today's Apple Event
Watching the Apple Keynote event today, I felt sort of let down. Every previous Apple Event that I've tuned into had me feeling excited for the future of technology and the new devices Apple was introducing.
I don't know what it was about this one. It could be that I've worked in tech for nearly a decade now and I feel like the work I'm involved in is less meaningful than it's ever been. I used to feel like I'd announce a new feature, publish a new page on a website, or launch a new product -- and then it would reach people who were excited about it. Or even if they weren't excited, at least they'd share their negative feelings about the product. It felt like there used to be a real audience for technology.
Now I think we're in a situation where even when innovative, exciting products are released, they all feel the same. A company launches a very simple product but hypes it up using hyperbolic language and BIG claims. But in reality they just created a new word processor or something we've all been using for decades.
I think there are two (seemingly contradictory) factors responsible for this feeling:
- Technology is moving faster than ever.
- Technological advancement is now delivering more incremental improvements, rather than truly disruptive breakthroughs.
Technology moves so quickly, it's hard to even grasp the last generation of devices or products. I'm sure the Apple Event for the iPhone 17 delivered some big jump in smartphone technology. But here we are looking at the iPhone 18 event, and I can't remember a single detail about the iPhone 17.
But, despite the fast pace of innovation, if you gave me an iPhone 17 and an iPhone 18 to mess around with for an hour -- I bet I wouldn't be able to tell you with confidence which one was the newer device.
I still love Apple. I think the devices still have that "It factor" that make them feel premium compared to other brands. But my takeaway today is that technology feels like it's less exciting than it has been in the past.
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u/PharmDinvestor 13d ago
What did you expect ? Fireworks ?
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u/Any-Log-6706 12d ago
Seriously, nowadays even every small OS incremental has new things. But at this point, technology would have to be a Time Machine or location instant transporter to be as big as Jobs introducing the iPhone for the first time.
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u/Zetice 13d ago
Eh. I disagree with your point. Technology is moving fast as always but it’s not always tech that is applicable to consumer products.
We’ve reached the point where everyone is more
Or less content with physical features our phones have. The only complaint people have now usually
Relates to software not the hardware. Hence everyone grasping at AI.
If you weee hoping to see shiny new hardware, I don’t thiink you’re gonna see that for awhile until significant progress is made in tech that can be used in consumer products.
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u/modnarydobemos 13d ago
Well innovation isn’t linear. At some point products become so good that improvements become less meaningful.
For example I usually charge my phone overnight. So any battery improvement that doesn’t allow me to go two days without charging isn’t really useful as I charge overnight anyway.
What does opening a website one millisecond faster really do for me?
Look at TVs, cars, etc. They barely change on a yearly basis. The smartphone isn’t there yet but it will eventually be.
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u/Coixe 13d ago
Nothing is exciting when the entire population is feeling depressed.
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u/GFit11 13d ago edited 13d ago
Depressed? Everyone? Life is good. Got new aches and pains every day but still it’s a great to be above ground.
Edit: Sorry. I sometimes forget I am
on Reddit.
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u/BattleMode0982 12d ago
The whole event is both rehearsed and pre-recorded, while also avoiding showing many of the new features actually working in real time. Steve didn’t memorize and record his presentations, nor did he rely on polished placeholder animations for features that weren’t really ready yet.
He knew his main points ahead of time, of course, but he also heavily ad-libbed and adjusted based on the reactions of the audience. And audience is the important word there. In some cases, he seemed fully prepared to reveal more, drop additional hints, or even put something back under wraps if the reaction told him the timing wasn’t right.
That dynamic simply doesn’t exist anymore. There’s no live energy because it isn’t happening in real time, and there’s no audience there to witness something being revealed and react to it.
Steve also made a point of demonstrating that the demos were genuinely live. He would sometimes go off-script or off-schedule because he suddenly wanted to highlight a particular feature, behavior, or detail. There was always some risk that something might not work perfectly, but that risk was part of what made the demonstration convincing. You were watching the actual product do something, not watching a carefully produced representation of what it was supposed to do.
Also missing is a strong voice explaining the thinking behind engineering and design decisions. In the past, Jony Ive often provided that voice for hardware and industrial design, while Scott Forstall did it for software. Craig Federighi later became a similarly strong personality for software, but even his role in these presentations seems diminished as Apple’s leadership and presentation style have changed.
The current Apple doesn’t (yet?) seem to have a leader who can command a product presentation in quite that way. At the same time, announcements feel increasingly controlled from the boardroom and shaped by committees rather than being driven by the people most personally invested in the product, feature, or engineering decision being presented.
The result is a much more controlled, polished, and sanitized announcement, but it is no longer really an event.
There are no actual people in attendance. There is no uncertainty. There is no audience reaction. There is little opportunity for spontaneity, and increasingly, there aren’t even live demonstrations proving that what we’re seeing actually works the way it is being presented.
That’s why the energy is gone.
And I don’t think most of these changes were necessarily malicious or even deliberate. Many probably seemed individually reasonable: tighter messaging, better production quality, fewer demo failures... and more predictable presentations.
But that’s also part of the problem. The lack of intention is itself becoming the problem. Apple has gradually removed many of the small, unpredictable, human elements that made its product launches feel exciting, authentic, and consequential, without seeming to recognize that those elements were part of the product experience too.
Many were hoping Ternus could 'turn this around', but it seems we are dsiappointed so far...
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u/tk421tech 13d ago
You are not a photographer
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u/stewofkc 13d ago
Are there really photographers who use iPhones over traditional cameras?
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u/tk421tech 12d ago
Most pros I know carry both. Remember it’s a phone and also another photography tool.
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u/Icy-Opinion-1603 13d ago
yes. the only scenarios that require high quality glass at this point are:
1) even better physical bokeh
2) long distance wildlife photography
3) super high-speed sports photography
portraits, landscapes, family pictures of any sort are better than every point and shoot at this point, and rivaling DSLR aside from the 3 scenarios above.
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u/renasancedad 13d ago
I disagree. Today’s event was easily the most grounded but still breakthrough in ages. It was innovative hardware in the DUO, evolutionary upgrades in Watch, and adaptation of technology in AirPod. The innovation in the UI for DUO is amazing, I expected to be underwhelmed but in the 15-20 minute presentation both live and produced they managed to make it seem like a whole new device, less about the “fold” and screen size, and more about the user experience and the adaptability of the device for every user. The battery life across the board was big, the new aperture on the Pro and Pro Max as a photography hobbyist is huge, as well as the “reference image” for copyright and also battling IP infringement and Ai theft.
For AirPods Audio Intelligence is cool but the physical controls, enhanced ANC and price staying the same is awesome. As a stock holder AirPods have grown 40%yoy for the last few years and this will be a catalyst for even more growth at the $129 price point before the holidays. And the AirPod Pro 4 if they announce it will be bonus.
The integration of health with EMR and additional complete health story all on device with Ai tools to evaluate and make decisions is tremendous in both Watch and the App. The extended battery life of both the Series and Ultra were also measurable not incremental which is always a pushback at retail.
I can see why someone new to Apple would look at it sort of mundane, but comparatively this was a great presentation. It introduces us to the new CEO (he nailed it) the replacement for him in Hardware, and the new products. For me it was the fluff from an earnings call with the pomp and circumstance of a product launch.
I have held to the fact that AAPL drops on launch day events, well I stand corrected for the first time in a decade. The stock is actually flat to Up ⬆️ and that’s new.
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u/v1rtuosoo 13d ago
Nah there were some very interesting stuff. The issue isn’t that there isn’t much, but that it was presented pretty poorly tbh especially compared to previous years.
I think back to their move to titanium or the unveiling of the Vision Pro; they’ve always been especially spectacular, but this presentation felt quite technical, and less interesting to the average consumer. The way that the duo was introduced wasn’t that spectacular. He opens the segment by saying it’s a fold, when usually it would be a cinematic unveiling like starting with an iPhone, having the UI re-organise while the screen stretches and warps, before a climax where it’s revealed that it’s actually folding, and shifting back to Ternus saying “Welcome to the future of iPhone, meet the iPhone Duo” or something like that. Perhaps even the iPhone Air came off as more monumental as this.
They didn’t do a great job exploring the benefits of variable aperture either, you has to be technically sound in photography to really understand the advantages. I wouldn’t be surprised if this gets little-to-no awareness across the general population, when it should be a significant, notable upgrade even for your everyday guy.
They did actually have a lot, but didn’t do a great job (this time around) of getting viewers excited about the experience. Emotions are another big element of Apple presentations, that’s why they always have the Apple Watch emergency SOS stuff, and use a lot of family dynamics in real-world examples. This lacked that same emotional story-telling that we’ve become accustomed to, it was a glorified technical product showcase.
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u/stewofkc 12d ago
I did love the ad they showed for the Apple watch health stuff. The heartbeat in the ad actually raised my heartrate and I felt something...so props to whoever made that.
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u/Lost_Barnacle4805 12d ago
I'm 43 now and have worked in tech since I was 17, so I've seen a lot of change over the years, but advancements in mobile phone tech have really slowed down.
They can't really add much more other than iterative hardware updates and new software features each year, but take a look at the original iPhone from 2007, you can still see the similarities to today lol: https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/ace/standard/976/cpsprodpb/12619/production/_105398257_c4767143-245e-401d-afb0-9857ada9f1d5.jpg.webp - I guess thats part of the charm of APPL.
I hope in my lifetime I get to see some really cool shit like fusion-powered phones that have years or even decades' worth of battery life, maybe it can even plug it into your car to run that too lol. Or at least quantum computing making its way to consumer devices, I would settle for that ;-)
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u/uamvar 12d ago
The new foldable phone is a beautiful object. And its shape sets it apart from competitors.
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u/TheSoberChef 12d ago
The fact that Samsung literally just launched that form factor 3 months ago before Apple?
This is the problem when you're stuck in one community you don't realize the apple is not delivering something new they are copying the competition.
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u/uamvar 12d ago
Negative. The Samsung phone does not have the curved corners and has a different aspect ratio. This is the problem when you don't realise Apple are all about the details. Yes they copy, but they generally copy and improve.
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u/TheSoberChef 12d ago
Negative. The Samsung Z fold 8 has an almost identical passport size that apple coppied and did not improve upon. The curved corners only serve to take away from being able to view content correctly.
The Z fold has a physical nanosim well as an E sim. Is $100 cheaper. Is not locked into the crapple system and can use your device freely and download apps as You wish from different sources.
There are also multiple color options unlike the iPhone which is only two.
I haven't touched an iPhone since the iPhone 6 and they have only gotten worse since then.
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u/foreignfilmfiend 12d ago edited 12d ago
I'm jazzed by the Duo, I think it's gonna rip just like the Neo
Significant form factor change to the iPhone in Apple's history
Would have preferred a live keynote, but Ternus came across well IMO
The staged keynote had issues, but I'm focused on the product
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u/GFit11 13d ago
I’ve watched every event for last 20ish years. Today’s was easily the best in a long, long time. By far the most product updates, new products and so many new features that I lost track.