Perhaps It’s Time to Calm Down Over Apple’s Annual Product Fest

Test Ticker

Please support Mother Jones with a year-end donation. The truth is, we're a long way from our $600,000 goal, and we have to get as close as we can by Tuesday so we don't have to make hard decisions come January. If you value our reporting, please consider pitching in today.

$600,000

We still need to raise 400,000: Whether you can give $5 or $500, it all matters.

Please support Mother Jones with a year-end donation. We need to raise $600,000, or get as close as we can, by Tuesday so we don't need to make hard decisions come January. Whether you can give $5 or $500, it all makes a difference.

Let our journalists help you make sense of the noise: Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily newsletter and get a recap of news that matters.

I guess everyone knows I’m not an Apple fanboy, but I’ve still got to ask: how long can Apple keep the press corps salivating every time they stage a product announcement? Today’s is being followed with the usual breathless real-time tweeting and front-page liveblogging, but what did Apple actually unveil? A modestly upgraded iPhone. An iPad with a bigger screen. And an Apple TV box with Siri and some new apps.

These are all perfectly serviceable upgrades. They’ll probably be popular. But really, it’s pretty unremarkable stuff. Is it really still worth covering these PR events as if Apple is revolutionizing the world?

POSTSCRIPT: Aside from Apple’s expertise at showmanship, part of the reason for this is probably demographic. A few years ago I attended a meeting of 30 or 40 people from left-leaning media outlets. About 20 of them had laptops out, and of those, 17 were MacBooks. Apple products are insanely popular among a small slice of urbanish/liberalish journalists, and I suspect this leads them to believe that their readers are equally entranced by Apple news. And maybe they are! But I have my doubts.