apple is still enjoying the fake
2024-09-10
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i still miss the new product launches held at the grass center and cupertino theater. live demonstrations - presenting the proudest products in front of an eagerly awaited audience - were once apple's tradition, and should not rely on sophisticated and cheap special effects transitions like now, with executives pretending to be excited to complete the recording.if you are still on the scene, it is very difficult to pretend to be excited. it also means that every person on stage is responsible for managing the atmosphere and needs to strive for perfection amidst inevitable imperfections. but reading the script in front of the green screen is another matter. it's like using fengling yueying to speed through all 81 difficulties and beat tianming. it's possible, but it won't be entertaining at all.this is the difference between a drama actor and a movie actor. i don't mean to disrespect movies. it's just that both are performances. drama strives to create falsehood in a real space, while movies restore reality on a false screen.consumer electronics launches were once as tangible as the products themselves.the consequence of leaving the scene is losing the ability to communicate with users. although apple was not very good at communication in the past, that was based on absolute product dominance. now, faced with boring and poor new products, it is not good at communication but still forces itself to be confident, and every line reveals a sense of hesitation, as if to say, "isn't that right?"the epidemic has certainly changed a lot, but those things that we were originally pessimistic about and thought could not be changed - such as various travel codes - have been firmly abandoned. only apple has continued the temporary online press conference format, inviting guests to fly to san francisco to watch the video every fall.in the history of business, there are too many companies that have risen and fallen.it all starts with them becoming good at execution, and only good at it.execute the application of technology, execute shareholder expectations, execute management goals, execute, not create.abandoning the scene is the result of only knowing how to execute. the scene cannot be executed. your slip of the tongue will be on the headlines of the media the next day. if you really want tofor every word on the keynote, you have to be prepared to pause for applause, but you cannot predict how long the pause will be. one of steve jobs' "black history" was to ask engineers to fill in the signal strength on the iphone interface in advance to avoid making a fool of himself at the meeting.the scene is the proof of creation. even if there are countless ways of fakery that can be used to replace the realism of the scene, as long as you enter the indoor space where eyes intersect, the infection of emotions is no longer abstract. although the studio and cg technology can make the fake look real, even the details of light and plants are no different from the real world, they cannot create human emotions, create the vitality that only exists when introducing products in person.as a result, apple has had fake press conferences for many years in a row. tim cook and his subordinates took turns standing in front of the camera and speaking, pretending to be excited, pretending to have ups and downs in their voices, pretending to be face to face. this emotionless sense of fakeness reached a new height this year.every person in the live broadcast is like a sticker pasted on a high-contrast scene created by the unreal 5 engine.if apple comes up with a big claim at the end and says that the above-mentioned executives are actually digital people, generated in real time by apple intelligence, just to show everyone what ai can do, i would call it a skill like biting a lighter.unfortunately, no, there is nothing, just like apple intelligence. they always claim that it is built around apple intelligence, but how powerful is apple intelligence that people still feel fresh about apple's products after seeing various ai products?even when apple promotes apple intelligence, what it puts at the forefront is its ability to protect privacy. this is not to say that privacy is not important, but that when all major ai companies are pursuing agi, apple is talking about the security of ai data storage.let me say it again, i did not mean to say that privacy is not important. for apple, the privacy feature is part of the price of the iphone, but it will not be the competitiveness of ai technology. competitiveness is the software model that is overturned overnight, the imagination space of the future, and the science fiction setting that shines into reality. but it should not be a big lock that tells users that they have locked the door with it.it can’t even brag, is this still apple?isolation from the scene, from users, from the forefront, and even from connectivity with market demand. this is my biggest dissatisfaction with the lack of a speed-up button for the "live broadcast" of apple's new product launch this year.the whole process is full of the kind of over-design that is unique to the late empire.just like the roman emperor caligula tried to build breakwaters into the deep sea, only because unnatural creations were worthy of the nobles' admiration.for example, i don't understand the need for a separate side button called "camera control" when the iphone has an entire touchscreen panel for complex interactions, but apple firmly believes that it's better to manage software by rubbing your fingers over those few centimeters of capacitive buttons. it's more confusing than the touch bar on the macbook, which at least can do a lot of things.another example is apple's demonstration of ai application scenarios. the protagonist of the commercial met a lady walking her dog in the park. after saying hello and asking for her consent, he started taking pictures of the dog and waited for ai to tell him what breed the dog was. let's say, in a normal world populated by real humans,he could ask her directly,this is what everyone generally does.just like i don’t understand the positioning of apple watch. it no longer looks like a watch, nor has it developed into a consumer electronic product. instead, it has become like a sensor tied to a person, just to digitize all perceptions.but compared with the iphone 16, the new models of apple watch and airpods are already very attractive. the market value of the previous toothpaste factory (intel) is no longer comparable to the real toothpaste factory (colgate). although we can indeed see that apple is working hard - mainly on the iphone 16 pro series - to demonstrate the performance ceiling, not many people will mount the iphone on a gimbal to shoot things, and the frame drops in "honor of kings: world" in the demonstration are even more embarrassing.that's it. fake people held a fake press conference. the product was not fake, but the sense of achievement it created was full of unreality. whether it was the grand carbon neutrality plan, the ethnically uniform models, or the ai core capabilities that made human communication and interaction more fake, this was all the performance of the mobile phone industry's spring festival gala this year.of course, they still have to buy it. the user inertia of maintaining a consistent experience is also a fortune that apple can squander. even if the afterglow is red and the sky is getting dark, the fireball is not extinguished after all, and it will not be dead silent. apple still has time left.it may be longer than pessimists think, and shorter than optimists think.whether it is used to save itself or to give away points, i'm afraid it will depend on the next ceo.
