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There was something missing from Apple’s WWDC keynote this year. And no, it wasn’t Craig Federighi Jumping from the planeBut that certainly didn’t help matters. It was the fact that there were no exotic locations, cool demos, or fancy transitions. Just ordinary shots of walking around Apple’s campus combined with real-life scenarios have an almost unsettling atmosphere for anyone entering their “responsible” adult years. It’s as if Apple took its 50th year seriously and was trying to represent its actual age.
As an older millennial in the throes of parenthood, leaving my 30s staring at hormonal changes in the face, it seemed less like the future and more like Apple sat us down for a chat: We see you, you’re overwhelmed — and here’s some help. Apple’s usual “we’re cooler than you” attitude has been mostly absent this year.
There was a solid 10-minute extension dedicated to Apple’s Parental Controls and Screen Time, including how to manage kids’ device use, set allowances, blur annoying content, and approve apps and contacts. These are all very useful things in this strange and slightly turbulent digital landscape we’re all forced to nurture, but in the end, I’m convinced Apple has lost its Gen Z audience.
Apple Watch will now report menstrual irregularities that could indicate perimenopause.
Once “peri-menopause” enters the chat, it’s very likely that any remaining outliers will be mentally checked out. As it turns out, menopause is not a moment but rather a hormonal shift that lasts for years, and has only recently been properly classified as perimenopause. It’s a very loud topic for older millennials approaching their 40s, and it now seems to be part of the Health app story. Great for consumers like me, less so for young tech sensibilities.
Apple even managed to take the coolest AI feature out of the entire keynote and make it seem tailor-made for the suburban minivan crowd. Spatial reformulation It gives you the ability to change the angle of the photo after taking it. The themes seem similar, but the perspective changes depending on where you want to take it from in the first place. It seems really useful, especially since you can apply it to old photos too, and even photos taken with other phones. But during the WWDC keynote, instead of showing it with some cinematic shots of a sexy model posing alongside some epic natural wonder, the demo was the presenter’s kid’s last day at school in what was very clearly a suburban backyard. This was the reality I experienced last week, and it hits very close to home.
You can now adjust and reframe your subjects from the background with Apple’s Spatial Reframing feature.
If the intent was to make this year’s WWDC more relatable, they certainly accomplished that. Google recently Got some fire For being so far removed from the average person. My colleague, CNET’s editor at large, Andrew Lanxon, expressed his appreciation for what Apple was all about Talk to the tech owner next to youinstead of the one in the private jet far above. But I missed the old “This is the coolest company on Earth and you want to be a part of it” phrase that made Apple’s developer conferences stand out. I’ve spent years trying to become an Apple beta user, but now that I’m here, I’m not entirely sure I enjoy the experience.
Until WWDC this year, Apple’s entire identity was built on ambition. She sold you a version of yourself that was cooler, more creative, more free. The genius of its marketing has always been the gap between who you are and the product that implies you can be. It’s not that I don’t appreciate what the tech giant has done; It’s just that watching the company completely close this gap, while useful from a practical standpoint, is a bit disappointing aesthetically. Part of me still wanted Apple to sell me a better life, and I wasn’t ready for that to appear as a reflection of the life I already lived.
