Let out your collective yawn
If you found the iPhone 5c/s presentation by Apple boring today, you’re not alone. A lot of people were expecting exactly what they presented and more. Nothing else showed up. You’ll see a lot of people talk about a lack of innovation for a while, and how Apple is dying without Jobs. Things like that don’t help anyone. Let’s talk about why people found today boring:
They already knew about all of the things coming out. There were no surprises at all. Those who have been around apple product announcements for more than 10 years expect some kind of surprise. Rumor mills killed this more than anything else.
These were all iterative changes. Nothing new, just additions to the existing. Think of this as a clay model you’re slowly removing bit from in order to make the end product come alive. Except you’re doing it in front of thousands of very critical people.
My opinion is that Apple is working on something else. Not an iPhone. Not an iPad and definitely not a Mac. There are rumors about this apple tv thing. Maybe that’s it, maybe it’s not. Who cares at this point we won’t find out for a while. The stock price is going to drop, people on wallstreet expect amazing life altering things from apple which create billion dollar industries and they didn’t get that this time. None of us did really. And that’s OK.
One thing to keep in mind is that so called “miracles” take a while. You don’t make a washer and dryer in a weekend. You don’t make a self folding washer and dryer in one either (come on Apple I really want a better washer/dryer than my samsungs, you can do it).
The assumption is that at the time of Steve Jobs death that there were 5 years worth of roadmap in the pipeline. Perhaps this was on that roadmap. Perhaps it wasn’t. But it’s what we have. You will either like it or you won’t. But I certainly miss those surprises that the rumor mills kill off every year now. Let’s move on to more important things.