A bag full of promises

The iPhone 16 isn’t even out yet and I already feel a need to write this story – and that’s sad.

I mean, I’m the target audience for the latest and purportedly greatest iPhone ever, yet I have odd reservations which are nagging away at me – and particularly about the two flagship phones – the 16 Pro and Pro Max.

With the Glowtime event now a week in the rear-view mirror I’ve had plenty of time to draw breath and work through it and my overarching reaction is that the event was predictable, padded and lacking any wow factor. If ever an event needed a “one more thing moment” this was the one – but it never happened.

I’ll go over what I’ve ordered and my concerns in a moment, but first let’s look back at what we got from Apple last Monday.

“If ever an event needed a “one more thing moment” this was the one – but it never happened.”

Glowtime unpacked

They started with Apple Watch 10 – and this must go down as the first oddity – no mention was made that this year’s release marks the 10th anniversary of the world best selling watch. Apple, who are the masters of marketing wouldn’t make a mistake. It was obviously a cognitive decision not to make a song and dance about its birthday…but why? Do you have any ideas?

Aside from the minor upgrades to the Watch 10 (with no mention that the 46mm watch has the largest face of any watch) we then got stage time for last year’s Watch Ultra 2. They told us the same stories about it as last year – they could almost have run last year’s VT – and all this just to tell us it was now available in satin black with some new bands!

The pace didn’t pick up as we moved on to AirPods.

Granted AirPods 4 are new! Coming in two variants and with a different design at least we’d not seen them before. As to why you’d want ANC on AirPods without silicon tips I’ve not got a clue – but Apple knows best, I’m sure.

Possibly the unsung hero of the event was the news that AirPods Pro 2 will be getting a software update that means you’ll be able to use them as a hearing aid and also carry out a hearing test with them. The feature now has FDA clearance and is the kind of thing that Apple was once great at – innovation. A proper real-life, useful application.

But from the high we no plummet to the depths – namely AirPods Max!

I adore my AirPods Max and have them on now as I sit writing this piece – but as amazing as the sound signature is that’s not to say they aren’t without flaws. So, wouldn’t it have been fair to assume that after 4 years and still at a price-point of $500+ we get a new case, an on/off button or the H2 chip?

You’d have thought so – but no. All we got were some new colours and a USBC port which let’s face it they were forced into swapping out anyway.

That little lot took up 40 minutes after which Tim and the boys regaled about Apple Intelligence – which isn’t ready yet! We’ll get some AI bits and bobs in October’s 18.1 iOS update and some more in December. But the good stuff like smart Siri and Chat GPT integration won’t be with us until sometime next year.

Apple is in no rush it seems to unleash the beast…

Just one more point to underscore the padding that I mentioned – they wheeled out dear old Craig to bang on about all this stuff that we haven’t got but should be getting. It was a copy and paste of his WWDC speech with the addition of Visual Intelligence.

Coulda, woulda, shoulda…now at last after 1 hour 40 minutes we got to the meat in this sandwich – the iPhone part of the event.

And things were about to get even more weird.

iPhone 16 – what’s the difference

I had to get a video out right after the event – I mention that only in so far as it gives context.

I didn’t have time to sit back and think about the event or let the information properly percolate through – I had to get straight to work with my reaction video. So it was only as I drove home in the wee small hours that I began to think about the phones and I began to doubt myself…

In my rush or tiredness or both surely I must have missed something obvious – but for the life of me, I couldn’t think of what the big differences were between the iPhone 16 and 16 Plus and the Pro and Pro Max.

But when I came back to the studio a few hours later and poured through the specs, my initial take was right. This year there are hardly any headline differences in the 2024 iPhone lineup.

You get the same Super Retina XDR display, virtually the same chip (the A18 Pro gets one more GPU core), Dynamic Island, Camera Control, Emergency SOS and so on.

Cutting to the chase, if you can do without the 5x camera, 48 MP Macro, 120P/4K video and a slower USBC connector then the iPhone 16 and 16 Plus should be serious contenders this year for your money.

I’d almost go as far as to say they are value for money.

Pressure from on high

So with a very iterative change to this year’s iPhone and Apple Intelligence still not ready, why did Apple insist on going ahead with a September release?

As it turns out all Apple has done is to ship iPhone 16 with a bag full of promises – and buying promises is always a risky business.

What not wait at least until 18.1 was ready and ship iPhone with some AI?

I tell you why – Wall Street! Apple being the trillion-dollar company they are has to please the board, investors and shareholders almost first and foremost – it may be sad, but it is also true. They are a business first and a tech company second. To have missed a month of sales, even slow sales would have cost Apple billions.

Take into account carrier upgrades, those on two-year deals and retail sales at the Best Buys of the world and there is no way on earth that Apple couldn’t ship something in September.

Although this would never happen Glowtime and this year’s iPhones could all have been a press release.

In January 2023 we got more new products all via the newsroom than we did last week. To remind you we got M2 MacBook Pros in two sizes, an M2 Mac mini and a HomePod.

The pressure we put on Apple, Samsung or Google to have a super-cycle year every year is surely no longer tenable. We’ve been pretty much at max slab phone for years now. Yes, foldables are new but not mainstream for a reason – we don’t need them and they are stupidly expensive…

You tell me something you can’t do on the phone on your desk or in your pocket right now. They are bloody brilliant – how much more do we need or want? Phones that are 3, 4 or even 5 years old, still get the latest OS and security updates and in most cases are still more than capable enough.

Possibly these events should now be bi-annual or maybe we should expect every other year to be an ’S’ year.

Evolution has to slow down at some point!

Guilty as charged

But as you’d expect – last week Apple wrestled more money from me.

This Friday Mr DHL should be darkening my doorstep with an iPhone 16 Pro Max with 256 GB of storage in Desert Titanium, a pair of AirPods 4 without ANC – and AirPods Max in Orange!

If I can offer up a meek word of defence – it is kind of what I do for a job and I have some sponsored content lined up around some of the gear. As for the Max – hell, even I can’t quite believe it but at least I have a buyer lined up for my existing AirPods Max.

To make matters worse – they’re coming in orange (good for thumbnails!)! I know…I know…but if you are keen to know how great that new USBC connector is, then I’m ya man!

I’d love to see Apple return to live events. The recorded ones are beautifully shot and produced but are anodyne and soulless.

Couple that with a flat year and the whole thing just left wanting more – but what about you? Did Apple deliver for you last week and what are going to be buying over the next few weeks?