pple iPhone launches
are possibly my
favourite big event in
the tech calendar.
Admittedly that’s not saying much
as I hate all trade shows, but still.
This year’s was a vintage one in
many ways, but also very different.
For a start, there was no iPhone.
This, it is said, was due to COVID.
Given that the coronavirus
pandemic has brought death in its
wake and pushed the world to the
brink of social and economic chaos,
I am not going to claim that a
delayed phone is all that big of a
deal, but it was a decidedly sombre
affair nonetheless.
The Apple spokespersons were
as cheery as ever, but the way the
camera tracked them through the
corridors and up and down the
levels of Apple’s gleaming yet eerily
deserted Cupertino lair – sorry,
‘campus’ – gave the event the air of
an artsy horror movie. Or perhaps
an episode of ’80s kids ‘VR’ show
Knightmare. You don’t remember
Knightmare? Trust me, if you did,
that joke would be funny AF.
One moment in particular where
the camera seemed to plunge
downwards, to cut to someone
telling us about the new Apple
Watch, made it appear that the
spokesman had for some reason
been imprisoned in a dungeon for
some unspeakable crime.
Of course many of Apple’s rival
brands probably think they are
guilty of unspeakable crimes.
Most particularly, the crime of
announcing ‘new’ products,
services and features that are
uncannily similar to ones already
out there... And then making a huge
success of them. “Ooh! Nasty...” as
Knightmare host Treguard probably
would have put it. Remember that?There’s
always a
classic moment
in every Apple
event where they
turn the chutzpah and
brass neck up to 11. Here, it
was in an advert segment for Apple
Watch Series 6. The conceit of this
was that an off-camera interviewer
was asking people about futuristic
features that a watch might one
day have, only to be told, “It already
does that.” I know, right? My sides.
Many a maker of rival, less
successful wearable must have
watched this whilst grinding their
teeth, thinking ‘We already did
that.’ Most particularly, the way that
Apple kept implying it had basically
invented the idea of testing blood
oxygen via your wrist must have
had everyone from Withings to
Fitbit quietly seething. Or, indeed,‘affordable premium’
market that Apple knows best.
Their annual marketing
campaign is defined by these
iPhone launch events, and that was
true this year despite the absence
of an actual iPhone.
Having been doing live events
for years that have become pretty
slick, it’s no surprise that this
pre-recorded one was extremely
slick. Gone were the awkward
pauses and occasional technical
glitches we’ve come to cherish.
Tim Cook was in his black
clothes, to indicate both that this
was a serious matter, and that
creativity was high on the agenda
with Apple Pencil+ – creative
people wear black, you see.
The lurking doubt this year was
whether what seems like a certain,
looming recession will torpedo that
‘affordable premium’ market. It may
be that Apple is pinning more
hopes on the cheaper iPad Air and
Watch SE than it is on their range-
topping counterparts. Will they be
affordable enough to defy a deep
recession? We’ll see...
Still, there was one bit of very
good news for Apple event lovers.
The delay to the iPhone launch can
only mean one thing and that is...
another Apple launch event very
soon! Try as I might, I for one won’t
be able to resist tuning in.“Tim Cook was in
his black clothes, to
indicate that this was
a serious matter”
A
noisily seething. I also don’t think
FIIT or Peloton were jumping for joy
at Apple’s new Watch-integrated
streaming fitness class service.
But the secret of Apple’s ongoing
success is not ‘stealing ideas’
outright, as some have claimed. It’s
that it takes existing ideas, hones
them, and delivers them in a way
that people can understand and use
easily. Also it plonks the whole
shebang in a beautiful device that is
immaculately marketed to theOCTOBER 2020 T3 31Opinion
Duncan Bell is
iPhone-less
Another year, another big Apple launch
event. But this is no ordinary year...