Christoph Dernbach/DPA via ZUMA
Here is professional technology enthusiast David Pogue on the big Apple product rollout today:
You can feel the excitement here at the Jobs theater—even though every single person here already knows most of the details! #AppleEvent pic.twitter.com/3o8wuVa11j
— David Pogue (@Pogue) September 12, 2017
It turned out that everyone was right. The new iPhones have wireless charging, faster processors, and, in the ultra-luxe iPhone X, edge-to-edge screens. In other words, all the stuff that my Samsung 8 already has. And yet everyone is so excited they can barely sit still.
I like to make fun of this because I’m an Apple cynic, but honestly, kudos to them for keeping up their marketing mojo long after their actual products have ceased to be very interesting. Compare this to Microsoft, which—well, let me tell a story about that.
I’m a Surface tablet junkie. I love my Surface 3.¹ And my Surface 4 Pro. And my Surface Pro 2017, which I bought a couple of weeks ago. But wait. Why did I only buy it a couple of weeks ago? It was announced in May and began shipping in June. What took me so long?
Answer: I didn’t know it existed. I’ve been using Windows since 1991 and I’ve purchased two Surface tablets since 2015. The first one was purchased at a Microsoft store. I adore Surface tablets. I would appear in commercials for Microsoft if they asked me. And yet I had no idea that a new one was out. I didn’t get so much as a single email about it.² My Twitter feed had nothing about it. None of the media outlets I read bothered to highlight it enough that I saw it.
Is this because it was boring? In a way, yes. It’s the same size as the previous model and has all the same ports. Basically, it has better battery life, a faster processor, and a new stylus that’s considerably better than the old one (which was pretty good to start with).³ It’s definitely evolutionary. But the longer battery life was enough to suck me in.
If Apple had introduced this, everyone on the planet would know about it. The battery life would be a category killer for laptops. The pen would be an artist’s dream come true. The faster processors would do wonders for gaming and 3D rendering. The miscellaneous updates in the operating system would be game changers. It would be the greatest upgrade in history.
I dunno. Some people can get away with nonsense like this. Donald Trump. Kanye West. Apple. Everyone plays along because it’s part of the act. But no one else can do it because, after all, it’s also pretty ridiculous.
Still, you’d think Microsoft could at least do ordinary boring marketing for their new tablet. There’s no reason to almost literally keep it a secret, is there?
¹This is now Marian’s Surface 3.
²In fairness, it’s possible that this is because I opted out of getting emails from Microsoft. If so, kudos to them for keeping their word. Still, you’d think they could figure out some kind of workaround to target folks who obviously like Surface tablets.
³It also has the same ridiculously paltry storage options as the previous model. Someday I need to have a long talk with the Surface product manager about that. What’s the deal with 128 GB on a tablet that supposedly can “replace your desktop”? You can upgrade to 512 GB, of course, but only if you upgrade to the top-end model, which will cost you about an extra thousand dollars. Seriously?
