The September Apple Events have become like televised Harry Potter marathons to me: even if I know exactly what's going to happen in every scene, I can't help but sit on my couch and watch every minute of them.
Today's event saw Apple unveil its iPhone 15 lineup as well as the Apple Watch Series 9 and the Apple Watch Ultra 2. As I wrote about last September, I think anyone tuning into these keynotes expecting radical iPhone changes is completely overlooking the fact that the iPhone is the most successful consumer product of all time and there is little to no upside in radically overhauling it right now. But as always, I still have a few thoughts on what was announced.
1. Treating sustainability as a product feature and not a footnote was an interesting step forward.
Apple spent a pretty sizable share of the Apple Watch product presentation talking about how many steps they took to make the Apple Watch Series 9 its first-ever fully carbon-neutral product, and I think that's great to see from a company with as much signally capability as Apple.
That being said, I can't help but wonder if this was such an emphasis in the keynote because Apple was truly out of ideas for what else to add to the Apple Watch (although the new double tap gesture looks pretty sweet). I don't say this to be overly cynical; at the end of the day, whether the incentive is environmental welfare or self-serving PR BS, carbon-neutral is carbon-neutral. I more than anything wonder if we're going to see these heightened ESG product goals trickle quickly across the rest of the product line as Apple continues drawing blanks on what hardware features to add to their next-gen devices and instead tries to anchor its hardware updates more and more around sustainability. It's not only a great coverup for their lack of hardware innovation but it makes for a great halo on their public image. I expect we'll see more where this is coming from.
2. This USB-C port stuff is purely a stop-gap change.
Apple knows the future is wireless (or more accurately, port-less). We're so close. I would be surprised if three years from now the iPhone 18 still had a port. Except for the .01% of people who would kill to do fast USB-C file transfers off their iPhone, most people could do without any ports on their phones today. AirPods are ubiquitous. Wireless charging is cheap and accessible. Most cars still require a cable for CarPlay connection but Wireless CarPlay does exist. Taking away the charging port today feels much less obstructive than when Apple removed the headphone jack in 2016. I understand Apple had to do this port change because of EU regulations, but I'm not expecting this to turn into a new USB-C smartphone revolution. It'll more likely just end up being a weird asterisk on the end of the wired iPhone era.
3. The iPhone camera app is starting to get bloated with decisions.
We're settling into this really comfy pattern where every September Apple announces a slew of new features for the iPhone Pro models, and then the following September, those features trickle down into the regular models, and so on. As much as I like the consistency of this routine, I think it could end up bogging down the Camera app. 99% of people who pull out their iPhone camera just want to be able to point there phone at something and quickly snap a photo that looks great. And I still think the iPhone is better than any other smartphone at doing that, but the more I hear about Portrait Lighting and Optical-quality 2x telephoto zoom and 4K Cinematic Mode, the more exhausted I feel about the idea of taking a photo.
If any company is able to integrate these features into their software so they're pain-free and relatively thoughtless to use, it's probably Apple, but considering we're approaching iOS 17 and Apple still hasn't figured out the right place to put the camera flash option, I'm worried the interface is getting too cluttered for its own good.
That being said, spatial video on the iPhone 15 Pros is going to be so freaking sweet when used right. I can't wait to try it.
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