AUGUST 2019 MACWORLD 45com/3xnt), Google went ahead and took
control the narrative.
It’s a smart and savvy move. Smartphone
makers have long wrestled with the reality
that keeping a new handset secret until its
launch is a futile effort. Ever since an Apple
engineer accidentally left his iPhone 4 in a
Redwood City bar, leaks have become big
business, and there’s very little Apple,
Google, or anyone else can do to keep their
latest creation under wraps.
And that inevitably leads to
disappointment. Whether it’s from people
hoping that the leaks are fake or people
who decide that the new design isn’t up to
snuff months before they get to see it in
person, the big event is never as
celebratory as it should be. Even
something like the iPhone X led to more
criticism than celebration, as people
focused on what they knew rather than
what was new.
And there’s the rub. The parts of the
phone that Apple and Google can keep
under wraps—the software features, chip
enhancements, and architecture
improvements—are overshadowed by the
superficial aspects of the hardware. By
leaking the look of the phone (or half of it
anyway), Google is shifting the focus to
what its new phone can do.
And Apple might want to consider
doing the same with the iPhone 11. We
already know it’s coming in September.
And we kind of know what it will look like
too. There have already been bountiful
leaks that have revealed a giant square
camera bump—which incidentally looks a
whole lot like the Pixel 4—and it’s
expected that all three models will be
pretty much identical from the front. So
what’s the harm in confirming what we
already know?CONFIRMATION BIAS
It’s no secret that Apple is already looking
at a post-iPhone life. The rise in services
as well as the focus on wearables has
diversified Apple’s portfolio and softened
the impact of flattening sales, but the
iPhone isn’t going anywhere for a while.
Probably another 10 years, at least. So why
stick to the same script?
If Apple were to “leak” an official render
of the iPhone 11 over the summer, it would
make instant headlines and cause a frenzy
in the media. It would stop blurry spy shots
and speculation. And I don’t think it would
hurt sales either, since we all know it’s
coming. Frankly, it would be akin to
launching a new color of the iPhone XS,
injecting a surprise bit of excitement into a
somewhat stale and fading product. It might
even spur sales when people realize they’d
rather have the current model.
But perhaps most importantly it would
take some of the pressure off Apple to
blow our minds in September. By leaking