On Wednesday , February 19 , Apple will launch a wholly new iPhone SE . However , unlike a fall iPhone launch , which take on place at a particular metier case and is therefore flag a week in advance by a clue - occupy invite , Tim Cook ’s teaser on Xisn’t for an case . Rather , the new iPhone SE will follow the less glamourous path of an emailed pressure release sometime Wednesday morning .
It ’s a like path Apple chose for last October ’s Mac announcements . We expected an event but or else , we go three solar day of press going . Press vent announcements may get Apple retain the element of surprisal ( and keep money on video production and acting passenger car ) , but they miss a sure something when it come to excitement . Icomplainedrecently about the injustice of a product as important as the Modern SE being handle like a voucher offer at your local burrito spot . upshot contribute a unlike variety of hype than a public press liberation , and if anything deserves a bit of ballyhoo , it ’s this strategically critical entryway into the Cupertino ecosystem .
Event - sized hype , however , may be a good we will have to learn to live without . It may be time to recognize that big Apple events are on borrowed time , and that the days of tech product announcements as must - watch appointment telecasting may be over .
In 2024 , admittedly , we got a generous ticket of events . But the unpaired affair was that none of them seemed necessary . The Let Loose event last May ran long ongaffesand short on substantive reveals , and I see nothing to make me revise my pre - event anticipation of ameeting that could have been an electronic mail . WWDC was all package , and the iPhone event was intemperate on Apple intelligence information and ignitor on hardware breakthroughs . And the one event that mattered most did n’t happen — or else of a Mac result in late fall to announce the redesigned M4 Mac mini , Apple select instead to adjudge a calendar week of quieter announcements on three consecutive days in October .
By doing so , the company held the aid of the tech medium for multiple news cps at a fraction of the toll of an event , and because it deployed the whispering rather than the megaphone , fans were less fain to be disappoint by the new outfit . It ’s also deserving bearing in mind that , as full-grown events become rare , the amount of attention and sake each one can harvest becomes greater . The male child who cries wolf too often may find that customer quit gravel to line into his wolf live streams .
The admonition signs for the self-aggrandising Apple event appeared , as with the descent of so many beloved cultural institutions , when normal life shut down for the pandemic . WWDC 2020 was the first of a serial publication of virtual - only Apple events , with wild but exhilarating on - level demos replaced by good and dull pre - recorded videos : exalt adverts , really . When restriction were lifted , the society clearly decided to hold many aspects of the ocular issue , blending canned presentations with a few script - on elements . Thebenefits of virtualwere simply too appealing to give behind .
The problem is that with the live microscope stage division removed , events start to miss their original aim and meaning . A pre - recorded picture will be sharp and faster than a live carrying into action , but it wo n’t communicate the same excitement to the audience — there will be no common sense of being present at a historic moment when anything could happen . And once you get to that full stop , it sense quaint to sit through 80 minutes of joyless skits and machinelike marketing spiel in gild to get to the newspaper headline annunciation . Why not save everyone ’s time and just send out an electronic mail ? Why not just send the ad on the website ?
Once you add in the relatively ho-hum nature of many late Apple production update and Tim Cook ’s obvious lack of interest in being the same kind of promoter as his predecessor , there ’s really only one conclusion : There will be few Apple consequence in the future tense , and the I we get plainly are n’t going to be as exciting as they once were . There will be fewer mistakes ( at least of the “ whoops , this feature did n’t workplace ” type ) and fewer moments of veritable admiration . Imagine if Steve Jobs had n’t unveiled the iPhone in front of a live hearing .
But mayhap , given how artificial the whole thing has become , it ’s all for the well . It ’s supposed to be about the ware , not the issue . The steak , not the sizzle . And the new iPhone SE will survive and die by its caliber , not its press release .
Update 2/13 : Apple CEO Tim Cook hasteasedthe launch of the iPhone SE on Wednesday , February 19 .
