The Appropriate Underwhelming of an Apple Event

Volume 103 - three minute read

September 14th, 2018

Going into this past week’s September 2018 Apple Event, there were rumors of possible new MacBooks, Mac Minis, and even iPad Pros. I was excited to hopefully see news on the modular Mac Pro as well and hoped for the best going into this next event.

As Tim Cook got back on stage after the new iPhone XS, XS Max, and XR were unveiled and started to seemingly wrap up the event, I was a bit surprised to have only heard news about the new Apple Watch Series 4 and the new iPhones. If my memory serves me correctly, this seemed to be one of the smallest Apple Events in terms of new hardware.

I logged on Twitter soon after Tim Cook walked off stage and saw others mentioning the same observation. Of course there was excitement about the new hardware unveiled, but it seemed to always come down to not enough being shown.

As I started to think about what I had planned to pre order, I realized how perfect this event was for some consumers.

Take myself for example, I have an Apple Watch Series 1 and have been holding out on a newly designed watch to even think about buying a new one. In terms of my mobile device, I have an iPhone 7 Plus that I ended up having to buy 2 years ago because my iPhone 6 Plus decided it didn’t want to have a responsive screen anymore.

When the iPhone X was revealed last year, I was extremely jealous that I didn’t have the means to purchase the new phone and didn’t think it was worth the upgrade. But being someone that has always gone for the Plus models of iPhones, the new iPhone XS Max was perfect for me. On top of that I get the iPhone X screen and UX experience all in a brand new and improved package.

The Series 4 Apple Watch was a no brainer for me as someone that wears their Apple Watch everyday and feels like a kid on Christmas at the idea of an improved screen that’s also 35% larger with a new shape and thinness. I couldn’t wait to start using the new watch and face everyday to track everything from my fitness to what’s going on in my life and work.

So like any Apple fanboy does, I set my alarm for 2AM my time to be up in time for the preorder window and ordered my new Apple Watch and iPhone Max in Space Gray colorway. A whopping $1700 at the end of the day which I happily forked over to Apple for the wonderful care, design, and privacy they put into their work.

Point being, Apple knows what they’re doing most of the time. They carefully balance what they can unveil together that will be a no brainer for most of us to buy that will bring value and ease to our lives. Even if an event didn’t have that new iPad Pro you were hoping for, it’s a great fit in one way or another for others. Target market and audience research FTW.

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Dennis Cortés
Designer that also codes, illustrates, writes weekly articles, and produces music. Hispanic. Pokémon Master.
www.cortes.us