
The Last Apple Keynote (Hopefully) - thomasjudge
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/11/opinion/apple-keynote-2019.html
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dlivingston
What a bizarre article. This could have just as easily been written about
Google or Samsung or any other smartphone manufacturer.

The reason Apple should cease keynotes, from what I can parse from the vague
and scattershot article, is the following:

* The Frogger demo was weird and out-of-touch

* "It feels a little obscene to gather to worship a $1,000 phone"

* Apple execs tout that new iPads are made with 100% recycled aluminum, whereas Microsoft and Amazon employees are staging climate change walkouts

* The event seemed "eerily calm", like a "super chill birthday party" (what?)

* The keynotes used to just appeal to white, middle-aged men, but now they have more women and POC featured

* And, finally: "The company’s flagship product — the iPhone — no longer feels like a piece of the future dropped from into the hands of mere mortals. It feels like, well, a phone, a commodity. And so the whole thing seems gratuitous."

Such a strange article.

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paggle
The article couldn’t have been written about Google or Samsung, because what
the NYT is saying is that Apple keynotes, once considered capital-N News by
the press and public, now have all the excitement of a Samsung press event.
They ascribe this to a lack of innovation in the iPhone but I think it’s
really just the lack of Steve Jobs. The iPhone releases have always been about
speeds and camera quality — Steve Jobs just had the star power of an
entertainment celebrity and got people interested in these releases in a way
that is not sustainable in his absence. Now it’s back to “Mega Corporation
releases new product lineup.”

~~~
jecxjo
I always found them to be funny BECAUSE all they showed off was speed and a
new camera. Past the first iPhone release much of the technology was already
in Android phones before Apple. The whole "but we perfect the technology" was
such a BS answer that I never really cared to see how Apple now had multi-
touch, or Biometrics, or whatever else last year's tech you're adding it and
charging crazy prices for.

~~~
basch
Perfecting Battery management and Privacy settings made iOS markedly better
for normal person long term usage, something google didnt really resolve until
Android 9.

Even if Android had features first, the overall OS was a drag on battery, and
apps were an all or nothing allow. Even if those things dont matter to people
as a flashy feature, they matter.

My point is, when you are building a foundation, having better windows doesnt
make you better. An accomplishment doesnt count fully if you missed the scope
of what you were supposed to achieve.

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saagarjha
I strongly disagree with the premise of this article. First of all, Apple
isn’t the only company doing keynotes–most tech companies have yearly
presentations, and many are more cringy than Apple’s. Sure, there’s always
some video game person who’s a bit _too_ excited about the game they’re
demoing, but that’s nothing new. Oh, and by the way, lumping in random current
events (iPhone zero days, tech walkouts) doesn’t help the argument, it just
seems like a reach for things to throw at Apple. And FWIW, Apple almost always
has a couple of slides at the beginning that addresses the concerns brought
about diversity and the environment; Tim Cook _specifically_ mentioned that
he’s skipping them this time. If you don’t like the keynote, don’t watch it:
Apple isn’t always going to release a new iPhone, and just because this event
was a bit more on the boring side doesn’t mean they should just stop doing
them.

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AgentEpsilon
The Apple keynotes were created to present, and build hype around, something
_new_. Some new product, or feature, or service, that would supposedly change
the way an Apple user would interact with the world.

Of the announcements from this most recent keynote, what was new? The third
camera on the iPhone? The update of the main series iPads to use the "Pro"
look? A new screen in the Watch? A couple games and a tv show?

These keynotes stopped being relevant when Apple stopped producing anything
keynote-worthy. They're just routine at this point.

~~~
tapoxi
Steve was also a lot more informal and relaxed. The current presenters just
seem very "corporate excited" instead of actually enthusiastic about what
they're working on.

~~~
DonaldPShimoda
Craig Federighi always seems genuinely excited, but he only details the
software stuff so he wasn't on yesterday.

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throw03172019
The game executives noted in the beginning of the article don’t work for
Apple. They’ve always had guests presenting games/apps. Some good...some bad.

I do miss the days of Apple Keynotes actually being a surprise. These days,
everything is leaked weeks before.

~~~
tatrajim
Ming-chi Kuo single-handedly reveals most of the Apple hardware surprises in
advance. I fail to understand why Apple can't limit the leaks to him.

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berberous
The keynotes have been boring and almost a parody for a while now, and I'm not
sure why anyone (including me) continues to _watch_ them.

But for Apple, they continue to be an amazing marketing platform. 1.5mm were
watching the YouTube stream yesterday alone. Why would you ever cutoff that
much free marketing?

~~~
pchristensen
I watch them because I feel like I get a better feel for new features, their
usage, and their potential, from the way Apple presents them vs reading about
them in the news afterwards.

For example, the new ultra wide lens. I know mentally what wide-angle lenses
do, but I learned a lot from seeing the kinds of pictures they took, and the
comparison between wide/normal/zoom. It was instructive to see how the Camera
app uses the vertical letterboxes to show the extra content you would see if
you switched to the ultra wide.

I probably will not get the Pro phone, and may keep my Xr for another year.
But the ~6 hrs/yr of Apple keynotes are a very information-dense way to
consume a year of Apple releases, even despite the fluffier parts and AR game
demos.

Your question is like asking why people would ever watch a movie trailer for
free - if there's something new that you want to learn about, watching
promotional material is a good way to go about it.

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malshe
Yes, I also hate it when Apple forces me to leave everything I am doing and
watch their keynote. Only if I had the choice to not watch it.

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paggle
Apple Keynotes were special because Steve Jobs was special, not because
iPhones were. In a world where the top guys (Tim Cook, Sundar Pichai, Jeff
Bezos, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Satya Nadella) have the charisma of
somewhere between a moldy shoe (Zuck) and a friendly PTA dad (Nadella), for
all of his horridness Steve Jobs was a bona fide rockstar — a Picasso / Lennon
/ Madonna. They’re not making one of those again so Apple keynotes are now
like any other corporate event, a sequence of boring people announcing
marginally improved products. That’s not bad, it’s just life.

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joezydeco
Parts of it just seemed half-baked.

"And now let's watch a video about how great this feature is"....with no
explanation before, during, or after the video. Lights go down, lights go up.
Applause. Repeat.

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gfodor
seems like the calm before the storm to me. Apple's next big thing is probably
AR, and once we get to MVP on that tech every year will likely bring similar
leaps akin to the early iPhone launches.

~~~
iamnotacrook
There's already AR on phones, and it's never really taken off. If you need
comedy/expensive glasses for it it's always going to be a niche market
comprised of people who don't think they look bad. AR is already here for
audio (turn by turn directions) but I can't see it taking off visually outside
of people such as gamers who are already using it.

~~~
the_gastropod
I mostly agree with you. But Apple almost never invents new things. They just
_greatly_ improve existing things. There were smart watches before the Apple
Watch. There were smartphones before the iPhone. There were MP3 players before
the iPod.

Just because AR exists and isn't widely used today isn't really proof that
there's no potential there.

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kkotak
I just can't believe that even the moderately level headed people can tolerate
the monotonously repetitive assertions by the Apple team - 'The best ever!,
'The fastest ever!', 'It's gorgeous!', 'It's so impressive!', blah blah blah
and applause that follows. Sometimes I'm scared that some of us have forgotten
that we have a choice not to watch or applause at this grotesque display of
self stroking speak that comes out from apple twice a year.

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tsieling
This article is deluded. Apple practically creates its own weather and rules
the news cycle through these events. Because poor Charlie is bored is hardly a
reason to give up on a formula that creates billions in sales.

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IdontRememberIt
Do you remember Craig Federighi imitating a chicken and a unicorn in 2017? I
felt so stupid watching this event. The parody resumed everything:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4Xl4hPEV80](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4Xl4hPEV80)

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pupppet
That Frogger demo was pretty cringey.

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draw_down
I think incremental updates are ok. No need to watch the stream if not
interested!

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camdenlock
This article actually only serves to demonstrate how ideologically-possessed
and out of touch the New York Times has become. They’re basically yelling at
Apple for not making their keynotes “political enough” (for values of
“political” equal to “Progressive,” of course)

