Apple, the Indie Movie

Tomorrow's event could be a sign of things to come... for Apple events

Another September, another Apple event. Except the one tomorrow promises to be entirely different from what we’ve seen in years past. For one, it sure seems like the iPhone will not be making an appearance. For another, the Apple Watch, long a second-fiddle device, would seem to be taking center stage. For yet another, it will yet again be a stage in an empty room, with COVID still raging (not to mention forest fires and toxic air quality in the Bay Area). Strange Days. 

I do think tomorrow’s event will be an interesting test for Apple. What if instead of the big iPhone and WWDC events, they realize that some smaller, perhaps even fully remote, product unveilings are worth doing for products like the Watch and the rumored new iPad Air (which itself is sort of a second-fiddle iPad — the iPad Pro is the state of the art device that gets most of the marketing love). Maybe the products which previously only got press releases (‘Apple One’?) can get their own small streaming events now. People would watch, of course. And if it’s not exactly free publicity for Apple, it’s pretty close. 

In that way, I wonder if it evolves almost like the movie business. That is, the big, marquee movies head to cinemas while smaller fare goes to streaming. Again, the iPhone event and WWDC will always be massive events and when they safely can, it makes sense to convene people for such things. But for events like tomorrow, maybe tomorrow is a taste of what’s to come.

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Links

• Climate change aside, we’re — insanely — increasingly doing next to nothing when it comes to preventing forest fires in California. 🔥

• Fun interview with  Irwin Jacobs, the founder of Qualcomm as the company turns 35. “So I assured my wife that perhaps over the years, we’d get to 100 employees.” 📞

• Great post by Julian Lehr with some thoughts on the email product Hey, and its use of notes, in particular — and how this could be a great system-wide tool. (Some nice overlap with my thoughts on highlighting.) 📧

• Do you want to change your font on Slack? Probably not, but Slack in Comic Sans sounds fun. 🔤

• The press tour by Reed Hastings ahead of the release of his book on Netflix’s culture has been impressive. This interview hits on some thoughts about our current remote work situation. 💼

• The reviews of the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold can be boiled down to two lines from Dieter Bohn, “And then, I can just provide a recommendation on whether to consider buying it. Spoiler alert: no.” 📲

• Today is Monday, March 197th, 2020 in COVID Standard Time. 🕰

• Apple’s Face Mask looks like… a face mask Apple would design, from the box on down. I would buy this! A lot of people would! Even if it doesn’t come with stickers! 😷

• Come for Tyler Cowen’s rant about streaming service fatigue, but stay for the idea of renting out a theater with (trusted) friends to see Tenet. 🎞

• Remember Winamp? Enjoy. 🎶

• I don’t know how many hours of my youth I spent playing Sid Meier’s Civilization, but it was a lot. And that was fine, because it was a learning tool (well, strategy at least, if not exactly history). And now he worries the game wouldn’t have a place in today’s world. 🗺

• Facebook has invented… Facebook. 💀

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Posts

🧵 A Too Short Lasso

30 minute ‘Ted Lasso’ is the best. A week between is the worst.

🗣 An Interview with Yours Truly

A lot of talk about the state of Apple, investing, remote work, etc.

⚔️ Compete!

Apple is now writing App Store rules to do everything but…

🕹 Xbox Series Xbox One 360 S E X

Great moments in Microsoft branding

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John Frankensteiner @JFrankensteiner

Stanley Kubrick zoom call