…The expressionless stares troubled me.
I don't want to be the person that craps on a new invention before I even get the chance to try it. I know how that story goes: humiliating. And it would also be closed minded of me. I don’t want to end up like Charles H. Duell.
But I’m still going to talk about it and their creepy presentation. Watch below if you haven’t yet. It’s only 10 minutes long.
(Update: My fiancé told me he didn’t watch the video because he got bored and confused 45 seconds in. Excellent marketing, isn’t it?)
Before we get to the elephant in the room, I have some key takeaways to get off my chest.
- Right off the bat what in the world are we talking about? What is this little thing that comes in 3 colors that are not white, black, and grey? Why are we talking about it’s battery pack and what I can do in case it loses power? I feel like the editor messed up and meant to put this information after the founders actually explain the functionality/purpose of their device first.
- The audio. What is that background noise? Perhaps I’m only noticing it because there’s no music. The silence is deafening.
- Someone on X pointed out they bet everything that the laser ink display on the hand is not as bright in real life as it is in the video. I agree, but still hope they’re wrong. If so, that’s definitely some misleading editing right there.
- The AI Pin sounds very neat and seems to have all the necessary daily functionalities, I’m just uncomfortable with having to command it out loud and have everyone hear as it speaks back to me. They said you could use headphones, but I would still need to speak to it to control it, so that only eliminates half the problem.
- From their TedTalk I came to understand the reason they made it this way is so that nothing gets in the way of being human. No screens or headphones or glasses disconnecting us or distracting us. Well, then… don’t use any device? Instead of buying an alternative device?
Alright. On to the elephant. Did you see that?
Nobody is smiling. They are monotone. Why do the founders look like they are forced to be there and announce at gunpoint? Where is the enthusiasm, why so serious? Have you learned nothing from your time at Apple? By the way, they are a married couple and are former engineers from Apple who left and made their own startup. Together they have a pretty stacked and impressive resume. Chaudri worked with Steve Jobs patenting the touch screen, and Bongiorno was the Director of Software Engineering (and before that, an astrophysicist).
Love or hate Apple one must admit they are the masters of marketing and selling their products. Aside from the legendary iPhone and their rather good MacBooks, they have also managed to sell some horrendous stuff. And at an exorbitant price point at that. I’m looking at the wheels for the cheese grater ($700) and their monitor stand ($1000). Just the wheels. Just the stand. Yikes.
Frankly that success was all thanks to Steve Jobs, but the current company still takes inspiration from his technique. Everything during Apple’s livestreams is clean and bright, polished and lively, people look happy and excited to be there and announce their next ~revolutionary~ product. And most importantly everything is perfect. If you remember Jobs and Apple for anything it should be the attention to detail and the utter perfectionism embedded into everything they do. This presentation was unfortunately quite the opposite. And not in a rugged, edgy, or cool way.
And I know that if the AI Pin was an Apple product, specifically with Jobs introducing it, the world would go crazy. It is quite impressive, after all.
I’m excited for the public to get their hands on AI Pin and try it out. But the minimal and lackluster effort of the video might kill the hype.
Try again next time?
