Yesterday, Apple’s announcements dropped on like an anvil you saw coming two years ago, and have had steady updates on ever since. Sure, you knew the gist of it, as well as most of the details, but damn if it still didn’t feel like anvil dropping on you from the sky and going “Splat!” in glorious fashion.
It’s hard not to get excited about these precisely timed announcements. It’s entirely possible that seeing Haley’s iPhone(s) materialize exactly as predicted triggered in all of us a well-earned dopamine rush. We’ve effectively predicted the unpredictable, and so we are all timelords.
Weirdly enough, the iPhone 6 and the iPhone 6 Plus were the least exciting part of yesterday’s media bonanza. Not only are they an incremental upgrade on an existing product, but they are exactly what we expected at that. Better camera, more memory, A8 chip, larger screens, yadda yadda yadda. What’s more, their new and improved OS was previewed at length during Apple’s last announcement, and so I must say, I was slightly underwhelmed.
Still, let’s not downplay the flawless design choices here. Yes, the new iPhones have larger screens, but they the curvature of their edges somehow makes them easy to hold and operate with one hand. You might say Apple is late to the “huge screen” party, but in true Apple style, the execution of the change is its more impressive aspect.
Apple Pay on the other hard, was a more revelatory announcement than expected. I had predicted that Apple Pay would be just another addition to the iOS’s suite of apps, but Apple’s presentation forced me to look at it as something I might actually use in my every day life. Well surprise, surprise!
During the presentation, Tim Cook’s statements on privacy made me think about all the times I handed over my credit card, and upon receiving it back, the cashier would something like, “Thanks, come again, Jessica,” all without me having actually volunteered anything about myself.
This has often made me want to turn around like, “I guess I will, now that we’re BFF, and all.”
Finally, the belle of the ball was definitely the Apple Watch. Yes, I know. It’s not called the iWatch, because Apple still wants to surprise us, in some way. The entire time the wearable device was being shown, I couldn’t help but think, “Wow, it’s so pretty. OMG, I want one.”
Even more than for its puppy-like cuteness, my giddiness was more due to that Apple Watch is Apple’s first actually new product since the iPad was announced back in 2010.
Again, like with Apple Pay, I was able to imagine myself using the Apple Watch in my everyday life, basically because I am already an iPhone user, and positively stat obsessed. Apple knows me all too well, and honestly, it’s more than a little scary.
I have said on more than one occasion, that when humanity finally cracks interstellar travel, and begins colonizing planets, Google and Apple will be the two major players. Google will make a nice, functional version of our first colony on Mars, for example, and Apple will make the cool sleek one that takes twice as long to build, and everyone knows about, even though it’s top secret.
Yesterday was another indicator that just like every tech journalism outlet in the known world, I know the future, and it is here now.
