Apple Events - Then and Now

[MTD's Mac]

I'm as much a fan of the current "prerecorded"/"infomercial" Apple events as anyone, but I was just watching Macworld 2005 and, wow, I had forgotten what these product reveals used to be like.

Steve Jobs, moving fast through specs but also talking openly about strategy. In setting up the iPod Shuffle, he states that the last new iPod model was designed to go after the high end of the flash music player market. Can you imagine Tim Cook explaining that a new product exists to go after a market segment? Compared to this event, which also saw the introduction of the Mac Mini, the modern ones are plodding and insincere. What a difference 18 years makes!

 

[curnalpanic]

There's too many people in the videos these days, I think. Someone talks for 35 seconds, then "and to tell you more, here is <random person>".

 

[WilsonNM]

The live events did allow for a level of candidness and connection with the audience that you simply can't replicate with prerecorded "infomercials". I'm sure that's desirable on their part. No more gasps when the price of a stand is revealed, no more lines like "can't innovate anymore my a**". Just overly-smiley, sanitized ads. There's no more sense that the Apple staff is really speaking to the consumer.

It's interesting to imagine what the events would be like now if they'd continued to be live. Theoretically they still would be if it hadn't been for the pandemic.

 

[Nermal]

I have to agree. I used to really enjoy watching them, ignoring news all day while at work and then getting straight into the video as soon as I got home. Now I don't even bother watching them at all.

 

[floral]

There's too many people in the videos these days, I think. Someone talks for 35 seconds, then "and to tell you more, here is <random person>".

I wasn't really there to see the older events, but I watched some archives and when one person announces everything, you really get an attachment to them, in a sense. Like, when someone new starts talking about the products, you have to get used to their speed of speaking, any accents they might have, and how long their pauses are.

...This might seem really specific, but in these kinds of events, if you have enough time to get acquainted with the person speaking and know how they talk better, you grasp the information they talk about a lot easier.

 

[txa1265]

There's too many people in the videos these days, I think. Someone talks for 35 seconds, then "and to tell you more, here is <random person>".

Apple under Jobs was an authoritarian 'cult of personality', where he was loathe to share credit (let alone stage time) with anyone else. He did over time, but very specific people for very specific things.

Under Tim Cook, Apple has embraced a culture of inclusion that recognizes that no single person is responsible for a product of any level of complexity. Over time we see many of the same people in these virtual sessions.

In an era of toxic megalomaniacs like Musk and Zuck and Bezos, Cook has shown that the human beings who work to make products matter.

 

[Falhófnir]

I wasn't really there to see the older events, but I watched some archives and when one person announces everything, you really get an attachment to them, in a sense. Like, when someone new starts talking about the products, you have to get used to their speed of speaking, any accents they might have, and how long their pauses are.

...This might seem really specific, but in these kinds of events, if you have enough time to get acquainted with the person speaking and know how they talk better, you grasp the information they talk about a lot easier.

I was so used to Phil Schiller for big hardware reveals it was really jarring when he stepped back/ retired. Never watched any of Jobs' events live but he 100% had a commanding stage presence and a sort of logical presentation style like no one else I've seen at Apple.

 

[EdwardC]

Those were fun times for Mac Addicts back in the day. My first Mac was a Dual processor (Intel 486-60 / Motorola 68030) that allowed you to start up in Win 3.11 or System 7, very cool at the time. That era though was very fluid with every year bringing doubled speed and just so much innovation. Today we still have innovation but we have become spoiled and numb to progress albeit not having the jaw dropping wow factor that things had in the early years.

 

[MTD's Mac]

Yeah, there are definitely pros and cons to both kinds of events. I was mostly impressed with the candid discussions of strategy, as if Steve Jobs was speaking primarily to stockholders. "We're going after this market..." etc. Even in the iPad introduction, which I re-watched recently, he talks about pricing it aggressively to sell a lot of units. Hard to imagine them saying that today!

 

[WilsonNM]

Apple would probably now consider that kind of frank discussion of marketing strategy to be giving away the game.

Though it's not as if we don't all know products are designed to go after certain markets. Yet it's difficult to imagine them saying something like "we're keeping the iPhone 15 display at 60Hz to encourage more consumers to go for the Pro!" on stage.

 

[XboxEvolved]

I’m not a fan of Apple’s current way of doing keynotes at all. The reactions good and bad is why the older keynotes have so many views on YouTube and honestly probably helped Apple and the industry as a whole over all. Could you imagine if they pre-recorded the iPhone reveal in 2007? It would be stupid and people would immediately just call it all out as fake.