Surprise and Shine, well, shines

Apple’s Surprise and Shine event this morning didn’t hold that many surprises, thanks to the rumor mill, but it sure did deliver on the shine.

The new products look great, and I could easily spend a small fortune buying them all, which, unfortunately, is never gonna happen. I might have to upgrade a few things, though, and top of the list is the new iPhone Duo, which I covet highly.

New CEO John Ternus did a great job as the new face of Apple. The initial handoff from Tim Cook at the beginning of the event made me LOL.

Ternus is an easygoing and charismatic presenter, and I liked that he called out Apple staffers several times and handed off presentation duties to a wide range of supporting players.

It was great to get a glimpse of Apple’s new design braintrust: Steve Lemay (human interface design) and Molly Anderson (industrial design), who are elevating the company to new heights post-Jony Ive.

I still can’t understand a word Chief Hardware Officer Johny Srouji says, though.

As usual, I’m impressed by the vast resources Apple can bring to its product development process. Things like the new Apple Watch health sensor, which Apple says is the most accurate heart rate monitor on the market, required massive testing that few other companies can rival.

And did I hear right — the hinge in the iPhone Duo has more than 100 individual parts? And there’s some kind of carbon string component that senses when the iPhone is open or closed? Just the sheer scale of effort, from design to manufacturing, is mind-boggling.

But it results in crazy sci-fi experiences like the new Apple Watches being able to listen in on everything you do all day and provide AI-powered executive summaries of your conversations. It’s called Siri Recap, and of course, we’ll see how well it works in practice. Given Siri’s reputation for misapprehension, it might be comically bad.

AI was a major theme throughout the keynote, and I‘m more convinced than ever that Apple’s in the catbird seat regarding consumer AI.

As Ternus pointed out in his introduction, if you were to sit down to design the perfect AI device, you might come up with something like the iPhone, a powerful computer that’s always with you and enjoys unfettered access to your most important data.

It was grimly satisfying to see features like Siri Recap, which was the kind of thing Humane was trying to do with its doomed Ai Pin. Now Apple will bring that kind of functionality to millions of devices that people already wear and use every day — no brand-new gadget necessary.

Ternus talked about the iPhone being an “intelligent personal hub,” which instantly reminded me of Steve Jobs’ digital hub strategy of yore. Jobs envisioned the Mac as the central device that enhanced satellite gadgets like video cameras and MP3 players. That hugely successful product strategy led to a decade or more of innovation, spawning everything from the iPod to software like iMovie.

All the new AI features shown off during the keynote seemed firmly grounded in improving the kind of things people do all day, from automatically taking group photos to coaching better exercise form. It’s all designed to make everyday tasks easier.

I can’t wait to get my hands on the new iPhone Duo. I’ve wanted to upgrade my old iPad for a while, but that plan is definitely on hold now. There’s no need if the Duo acts as both devices. And no need for any kind of sneaky, spouse-deceiving, money-laundering plan — it’ll go on the Apple Upgrade plan.

Also in today’s newsletter:

— Leander Kahney, EIC.

Best reader comments

Subscribe to The Weekender — Get the week's best Apple news, reviews and how-tos from Cult of Mac, every Saturday morning. Our readers say: "Thank you guys for always posting cool stuff" -- Vaughn Nevins. "Very informative" -- Kenly Xavier.