Nine quick observations from the 2024 iPhone event

After watching the 2024 iPhone event yesterday, I had a good night’s sleep to reflect on what I saw, and here are nine quick observations, powered by an early morning coffee, and yet untainted by other people’s opinions (that I will start reading tonight after work).

Apple — as far as I can tell — is the only big tech company with such a big focus on health. I think that besides Cook, VP of health Dr. Sumbul Desai was the Apple employee most on screen. This focus on health is obviously a great selling point for Apple, and seeing all the things the Apple Watch can do today (now capable of detecting sleep apnœa), I’m always tempted to get one for myself or my mother. The features and their benefits for the user are indeed very convincing, and now it seems that Apple wants to bring this health approach to the AirPods and Beats lineups too.

The new Apple Watch was introduced by Tim Cook as featuring a brand-new design, but I was a little disappointed when it was revealed a few seconds later, as it is basically the same design, same looks, but thinner. I don’t pretend to know what a new Apple Watch design should look like, but maybe they should have simply said “same great design, even thinner.” Also, despite this thinner design, I found that most of the speakers in the video were wearing an Apple Watch on their wrists that looked oversized, with the band almost coming at a right angle near the case (not flushed against the skin). I wonder if they don’t want to wear smaller-sized watches when filming these videos.

Some products from the last couple of years only had small updates this year: the AirPods Pro, with USB-C and the hearing test/aid feature via an upcoming software update, the AirPods Max, with a few new colours and USB-C, while the Apple Watch Ultra got a new black colour, which I think looks pretty cool with the orange accents. They allowed the speakers of yesterday’s event to mention updated lineups, but I found it very strange that the Apple Watch SE was not updated but still mentioned, and the iPhone SE - now two and a half years old - was shown but not really mentioned. It’s a rather bad look to let the value of the cheapest products decrease while the regular products get better every year for the same price. Updating the SE models more regularly would avoid this two-tier look I believe.

The iPhone Pro lineup always had the best camera for stills and video, along with the best features for recording, such as Dolby Vision and Apple ProRAW. I appreciate that they have added sound quality to the list of “Pro” multimedia features of the iPhones Pro this year, with the new microphones. The new Voice Memos app looks really cool, and I can see how it can become a very popular tool. It’s just strange that it’s still called “Voice Memos.”

The new Camera Control button is a bit disappointing. For a camera button I believe I’m not the only one who expected a simple two-stage button, with the first stage locking the focus and/or exposure, and the second stage taking the picture. This would have been simple and great, and I’m sure Apple would have been capable of designing the “best button ever” for that purpose. The new capacitive button can do that, but may be tricky to use with gloves or with a case, and feels a bit complicated. I don’t think all the settings it can access are more useful than having a single function at a time for the half-pressed state. Maybe this single function could have be changed in the settings, like it can for the Action button, and the sliding/swiping thing made optional? It looks like I’m not the only one having this thought (haven’t read this yet, just glimpsed over it this morning), but of course we’ll see how the reviews and usage go.

The significant improvements for the processors were mostly justified by Apple Intelligence, as it was repeated what felt like a thousand times throughout the entire presentation. I can’t wait for Apple Intelligence and A.I. to become so mainstream that we don’t have to hear so much about it in every marketing presentation. Also, by overhyping Apple Intelligence so much, the real-world experience of Apple Intelligence can only be a disappointment, right? Haven’t they learned anything from Siri? Undersell, overdeliver, that’s how it should go. Currently, the overselling part of Apple Intelligence and A.I. seems already overwhelming to me. Oh and by the way, did I mention Apple Intelligence?

The new iPhone colours kind of suck, don’t they? It’s one thing for Apple to keep the overall iPhone design the same: the fact that they need to manufacture millions of them every quarter leaves little room for brand-new manufacturing processes required for a breakthrough design. It will surely come, maybe with a thinner body (that would be fantastic) but in the meantime, of course, Apple will continue using this design. But how difficult is it to offer more colours? Or different, more daring colours? I can maybe understand when EV companies only offer five dull colours (red, blue, white, black, and usually gray), but for the iPhone? I know most people use cases anyway, but why not keep some colours in the lineup for several years?

I thought that the little video snippets were great. The slo-mo explosion video was fun. The Audio Mix demo was excellent. The iPhone 16 promotional video was impressive. The behind-the-scenes video featuring The Weeknd was classy and compelling. The opening video was also very well made and to the point.

I won’t be so complimentary of the overall format of the event, though. Like I said last year, this Covid-era format feels tired, repetitive, long, and almost cold and rigid. If someone told me some presenters were, in fact, A.I. renderings, I might believe you. I would prefer for Apple to double down on the video snippets I mentioned previously and present their new products that way, with bespoke videos for each part instead of the awkward standing in an empty Apple Park with — I’ll admit — cool drone transitions. But I’ve even grown tired of them too.