It feels fake, because they speak in a way that sounds unnatural and overelaborate.
It is so long, with so many unnecessary sentences. And it feels like everything is said at least twice; First a generic statement about the new feature. Then a specific example, or a deeper explanation of what the first generic statement was. Then a demo. And then a conclusion to the future.
The old Steve Jobs keynotes focused on the most interesting things, but now it feels like they are afraid not to include everything. So everything gets diluted.
It would help a lot if they would stop saying the same lines:"And now...", "We cannot wait for you to try our new XXXX ... ", or "We could not be more excited to...", "We are excited to... ".
That is not how regular Americans speak. I think it's some weird American corporate speak that has metastasized in Apple keynote presentations. ꉂ(˵˃ ᗜ ˂˵)
It is, however, how a lot of Silicon Valley speak. Source: lived there for a couple of decades.
And to an outside ear, it does just come across as completely fake.
Jobs' "reality distortion field" was just the conviction in his voice as he spoke. There is no, none, nada, zero conviction in the way Apple deliver these missives. It reeks of corporate America and is therefore not trustworthy.
I'm also kind of surprised that no-one there has altered the format. There are a lot of smart people at Apple...
You can do that with and without fake discussions.
One of the main reasons that killed my desire to move to the US was the amount of fake questions during - on a paper - friendly discussions, when the point of those questions was just, and only just, visibility. An average American non corporate discussion is worse than a non-American corporate one. And that seems to be pretty global to me.
My brother and my sister-in-law watched “Somebody feeds Phil”, and we watched together the Sydney episode and after that some others, because I’d just announced that I’d move to Australia soon. That Sydney episode had quite normal discussions for us, Europeans. Of course, people had agenda, but they still reacted to what response they got. Even if things were cut, most times people seemed to react to something else from before. Then the next episode was from Las Vegas. And it had full with questions where nobody responded to the answers, nobody cared what the response was. And they kept those in the episode. There was a point when Phil asked the people in a line one-by-one what they work. And they basically just listed it, Phil had zero responses to any answers. Zero reactions from anybody. The point wasn’t to engage with the answers or the people. There was another case, when a girl talked about her shop. There wasn’t a single sentence which was organically connected to another. Phil and the girl had different agenda and they had to perform based on those, no matter what. And I was enough now there to say that that happens way more frequently than elsewhere. The next one was from Manila. And there were organic discussions again. I’ve never seen that clearly this phenomenon which bugs me. Of course, the usual scripting which happens with these shows, even helped to make this more announced. Probably, the people talking in that episode were way less interesting, but still as a visual to what annoys me is quite good.
Of course, I had good conversations also over there, and I had bad ones elsewhere in this sense. Heck, I did similar things before, but maybe this is the exact reason why I’m so sensitive to this, because it annoyed me greatly when I did it. But on average, it was the worse over the pond. Especially on the extremities. But even in day-to-day discussions. It was annoying that I have to peal down an additional layer with anybody to get real answers, which is not needed basically anywhere else.
It's not "fake" - it's cultural differences where what is intended to come across as polite by Americans[1] can be seen as insincere by people from elsewhere. On the flip side, Americans often view foreign behavior that's intended to be neutral as unfriendly, uncaring or cold.
1. e.g. lots of smiling, use of superlatives like "great"/"amazing" to describe mediocre items/effort/results
Execs are ‘super excited’ about everything. There is no dynamic range at all. They appear to have no opinions and no judgement because their opinion is always that everything is awesome. When the audience knows that stuff is either normal-level ok or actually fucked up, this message is insulting to receive.
Worse, it trains people downstream that shiny happy is the only valid comms. Hard to escalate a concern when you don’t know how to start the message with how super excited you are about it.
If everything is at a “10” in linguistic intensity (“Incredible”, “Legendary”, “GOAT”) then nothing is exceptional.
It’s the linguistic equivalent of a Dorito chip.
I’m American and this marketing/corporate speak drives me up the wall. I have a harder time respecting the judgement of people who thoughtlessly speak this way.
Ah yes British, the famously direct people who say things like "Maybe I haven’t explained this very well", "I’ll bear it in mind", or "How interesting!" which anyone unfamiliar with the culture would interpret to be the opposite of what was actually meant.
"I may be wrong", but perhaps 'Americans rarely sound authentic' to you simply because you're just more familiar with your own culture's idiosyncrasies?
Anyway, I love the Brits; no flame intended. I come in peace! :-)
As a Brit, at Apple, I once got dinged on a performance review because I apparently wasn't a team player - I was apparently always putting down people's projects in the group meetings.
"But, I've never done that. I'm pretty much always positive about things people present. I even said some of them weren't bad"
Yeah, high praise comes in subtle flavours if you're a Brit.
I think this “awesome”, “amazing”, “super exciting” phase came much later than the moon walking era. Remember it’s been over 50 years since humans walked on the moon. Much has changed.
See these old videos, where people talk in a straightforward way:
Speaking as a Brit, our national trait is generally too understate things. So even saying what you mean, directly, comes off as a bit immodest and hyping it up in sales pitches sounds shady.
Americans generally say what they mean a bit more, so I think their mid point is just different.
Speaking as a Brit, I couldn’t disagree more. I have no trouble understanding a wide variety of Europeans in a corporate environment, but sometimes struggle to even understand the basics of what Americans are trying to communicate, let alone the nuances of their position.
It’s like ‘American corporate’ is a totally different language that I don’t speak. The words sound the same, but that’s about it.
This is true for a lot of Americans too. God help me if I have to sit and listen to my CEO talk about anything and have to explain it to someone afterwards. It's just Buzzword Buzzword Agentic Buzzword Great Buzzword Exciting Buzzword Future Buzzword Growth Buzzword Great Great Great Exciting Exciting Exciting Buzzword.
As other comment suggested, the way I see it Americans are addicted to hyperbolas. Instead of "Thank you" it's "Thank you so much". So when you genuinely want to thank someone because that person went above and beyond (saved your life, avoided you a substantial hassle, etc.) then it's difficult to convey that.
American or corporate? I'm surprised that corporate talk overseas isn't overly enthusiastic! As an American, most of the stream has sounded very 'California' mixed with corporate.
A lot of corporate speak is developed in the US and then companies all over the world spread it around. Often the adoption happens without deep understanding of the concept, and without adaptation to local realities. And thus it feels much more unnatural.
Small talk is all lies. Almost all praise is fake. And it all drives me insane. I can fit in at work just fine, I can appear joyful and excited to come to work, I have 30 years of practice with it. But I avoid it whenever possible because it is all lies.
Americans appear to oversell everything because people get mad if you don’t.
“Why can’t you just be positive?!”
Because I’m not going to lie. I can’t fake praise, and I won’t even try. Being positive while lying is immediately obvious and it undermines the positive attitude that you’ve painted on. If anything, I take a negative message when I see someone faking a positive manner of speech.
> But "almost all praise is fake" and "small talk is all lies" feels like a pretty depressing place to end up?
No, not really. I just see it as a tool that normal people use to keep themselves happy. And that's not depressing, to me. It's kind of ... annoying that people are so fragile that they have to do that in order to have a "normal" day, but I can't fault anyone for doing things that make them happy. I wasn't given that opportunity; I was weird and if I didn't conform then I got in trouble. Yet normal people LOSE THEIR FLIPPING MINDS when asked to consider my behaviors normal and to consider my various physical movements as normal and tolerable. You have never seen such orchestrated and immediate pushback in your life, I promise. But I was forced to do what they refuse to do, which is to accommodate the other side. So, if anything, I'm angry about it all. Not depressed.
I don't need those platitudes to feel happy or normal, I need to be alone to feel happy, most of the time.
Praise given in private is usually legitimate. I value that. I feel that. Praise given in front of others (like ceremonies and ritual award reception stuff) are the fakest fake activity known to humanity. The ceremonies are for normal people. People like me can simply be privately told "well done" and given a piece of paper that they can look at, and maybe a raise, and that's enough. And maybe a mention during the ceremony that I will not be attending so that people know about it, if they're interested.
One thing about Jobs is that he was genuinely excited about much of the stuff he was showing, and even if you knew he was showing some useless BS (like coverflow, something I remember he absolutely loved), it made it interesting to watch. If today's presenters are in any way excited about what they're showing (or, more likely, talking about), that excitement has been polished away by all the takes they probably had to film.
They're not genuinely excited. Because there isn't much to be genuinely excited about. The "incredible new super-exciting developments" are usually "okay, I guess."
Once in a while you get something like the M series chips, but the rest is reliably mid - functional, maybe a few nice tweaks, probably some better-than-average design, but nothing revolutionary.
So all of the "We know you're gonna love it!" doesn't land, because it's literally scripted and rehearsed, not spontaneous.
Jobs was rehearsed and passionate, which was part of the appeal.
It's debatable if Cook has ever been genuinely excited about anything.
Cook is excited about shaving a few dollars off the BOM, a few days off fulfillment times, and adding a few basis points to the stock price. It has made him a great CEO for Wall St., Apple employees with equity, and a lot of retirement funds.
But I can't recall him ever using a computer. I cannot, in my mind's eye, conjure an image of him sitting in front of a Mac and using it, whereas fuzzy black and white images of Jobs' messy-like-mine home office with a Power Mac G5 shaped external hard drive on his desk next to a 30" Cinema Display are trivial to remember. Like, when was the last time we saw him organically using any of the products the company sells?
Maybe it's just because he doesn't have the rizz, so I've just never seen the pictures, but he just feels like a dude who never goes into the Settings app and tweaks anything.
They try to imitate Steve's diction and mannerisms, without replicating his ability to concisely focus on the few things he wanted to stick with the audience.
That parental controls presentation felt like the same 3 bullet points delivered 4 times over with the vibe of a group presentation where every team member had to present but there was only 1 slide of content between the bunch.
It's a well known fact that it is quite difficult for some parents to setup and use parental controls, I believe it was just to fully explain it to people that might not know much about how parental controls work.
It used to be a developer presentation. Now the main WWDC keynote is just another product-focused Apple event (since it might as well be one if the tech press is already flying out for it), and the more in-the-weeds developer talks are held on other days.
Apple presenters are coached on how to speak, how to stand/move, what to do with their hands, etc.
I can understand how it might seem culty, but it's in the service of clear communication to a global audience. Anyone who represents a company to important customers and/or the public goes through similar media training.
The comment is about how everyone in their videos does it. The over-use of it is the issue, like when you say a word too much and your brain stops understanding what it means.
> It feels fake, because they speak in a way that sounds unnatural and overelaborate.
I’ve been to a few official Apple Developer events. What I’ve noticed is that they all have the same presentation style, to the point that it feels almost cult-like.
I am old enough to remember the iPod nano -- Especially the 2nd generation. They were effectively low-priced and smaller iPods.
Apple sold millions of these much much quicker than the iPods and iPod minis (which came right before). Especially in 2006, it was _the_ "Christmas gift" just before the iPhone, iPod touch and later iPad mini took over. Possibly Steve Jobs' demo where he showed how they fit into the otherwise useless small jeans pocket helped convince the world.
The iPod nano effectively wiped out the competing music player market.
The Neo reminds me of the iPod nano and iPad mini. It is smaller and cheaper version of an existing successful product.
I think the outliers have burned them more recently and even Apple loses historical memory over time.
That said I remember everything you said and 100% agree - the nano killed everything around it. It’s been awhile since Apple had a similar home run; not an excuse for the clear lack of vision/leadership but a factor nonetheless.
The full time guys all had a Sun on their desk next to their PC. We also had to run an IBM 3270 terminal emulator and X server to connect to the Suns. It was all so unstable. I rememember a bunch of "Win32s error" popups.
The other intern and I found a room full of decommissioned 486 machines, installed Linux and didn't tell anyone for a month. Everything worked great and then we started an assembly line of installing Linux on those old machines for all the older coworkers to take home.
> 3.11 also introduced 32-bit disk access and 32-bit drivers.
IIRC a lot of it wasn't turned on by default due to hardware/driver compatability concerns, and there were articles all over the place about how to turn it on for extra performance. Essentially they used optimising tech-heads the world over as a giant beta-test group for parts of Win95's IO subsystem.
Mera Peak is said to be possible without any climbing experience, and it looks like the trek from Lukla is about 2 weeks. Is that true? How hard is the trek -- Looks like it requires well above average fitness level?
(Based on my recollections from ~25 years ago) Mera peak is the second highest non-technical peak in the world (the highest is in S America) at ~21,000 feet. Meaning you can basically walk to the top (no real climbing, but we were roped together for the final section, in case of crevasses). But the altitude and weather makes it much tougher than the equivalent trek near sea level. The summit day was incredibly gruelling, the hardest thing I have ever done physically. So you need a decent level of fitness.
If you are significantly overweight or have dodgy knees, then it isn't for you. You are moderately fit and prepared to do some long walks in preparation, then you are probably fine. If you aren't sure, maybe go on one of the lower level treks and see how you get on.
Haven't been up Mera, but back in the day, did do Island Peak which I understand is more difficult these days because of some glacial fissures.
That altitude was about my limit even at the time. I had done a couple of previous Nepal treks to fairly high altitude but not actual climbs and had done a lower altitude glacier climbing school in the US northwest.
Aconcagua in Argentina. It's on my 'things to do if in the area' list. The nearest airport is only a 200km drive on a tarmac road away and then a 40km trek to the peak! Although the 4km altitude gain is likely to be harder than the distance.
Mera Peak is in an amazing location, you can see a number of the world's highest peaks from the top (if it's clear), including Everest. IIRC Aconcagua doesn't have quite as much going for it, apart from being slightly higher. Each to their own.
BTW Everest is so steep that it doesn't have a lot of snow on it compared to other high mountains. So it is not even a very attractive mountain (subjective obviously).
Yes the altitude is harder than the distance :) Aconcagua has cca 30% summit rate mainly due to frequent high winds which make windchill temperatures go to -30s C easily. We had to turn back ourselves up there, nobody summited for whole week due to high winds.
There are higher non-technical peaks in South America. Ojos del Salado at well over 22,000 feet comes to mind as a peak that is often considered non-technical. Also an active volcano which is cool.
Isn't Cho Oyu (around 8201m) the highest non-technical peak in the world? Ice wall can be often bypassed/traversed around. Aconcagua is ~1.25km shorter.
This doesn't really align with CNN's view, but may apply to another even more popular US news channel that seems to be much more aligned with the current administration...
Greenland and Denmark are not the same. Greenland is a self-governed territory under the Kingdom of Denmark. The US administration wishes to take over Greenland from Denmark completely. So you should replace your headlines with "Greenland" and "Greenlanders".
Note: There have already been discussions about making Greenland independent from Denmark, but there is uncertainty over how to handle economic and defense situations. Greenland currently receives significant support (about $10000-15000 per capita yearly) from Denmark. So it is not clear how the country would run without that.
>Greenland currently receives significant support (about $10000-15000 per capita yearly) from Denmark. So it is not clear how the country would run without that.
Greenland absolutely positively cannot run without outside subsidy. Pacific islands (barely) function as independent countries because their tiny populations are commensurate with their small areas. Greenland's 50,000 people live on an island three times the size of Texas.
Currently that subsidy comes in the form of €600 million in annual funds from Copenhagen. Now Washington has emerged as a potential outbidder.
Europe has not just "cheered on". There were demonstrations throughout Europe against the wars in the middle east and both e.g. France and Germany openly opposed the war in Iraq.
The Europeans I know (from all over) have generally been opposed to American geopolitics both in the Middle East, South East Asia, and South America. The US has traditionally been seen as an ally, but that doesn't mean we "cheer on" its actions.
Because there are many financial and military interests, it is very hard to do much for e.g. the EU, and the politicians are very careful with their words. Just as it is for the rest of the world...
Note: Europe is not a single entity but a continent full of different countries including (part of) Russia. Even the EU doesn't really have one single foreign policy.
Many EU countries did send troops did it not? And what happened when it became clear the war was a farce? There were zero consequences right? It's a "told ya" moment for a lot of asian countries who didn't fully trust the US.
Some European allies joined US in the Iraq war for the initial invasion: UK, Spain, Poland, Portugal, Denmark. The "Coalition of the willing" was larger, though.
Many opposed it. Remember "Freedom fries"?
As for Afghanistan, that's a completely different thing. US invoked article 5.
Yep I vividly remember Tony Blair supporting the war. Millions dead. People just went on with their lives with a "oops". I'm just saying this behaviour is nothing new. Might makes right I guess.
You are right. People went on with their lives, just as they did in many other parts of the world, but I don't think what happened is forgotten -- Not even in the US.
Btw. as far as I remember neither China, India, Russia, nor practically any other nation stopped trading with the US over the war in Iraq. Maybe I am wrong about that.
Small detail on casualties in Iraq: the estimates listed on Wikipedia range from 150K to about 1 million (1).
> Btw. as far as I remember neither China, India, Russia, nor practically any other nation stopped trading with the US over the war in Iraq. Maybe I am wrong about that.
Yep. Because countries only care about themselves. The US is too important economically. But are you saying that Europe like India and China does stuff that benefits them and isn't a better standard morally?
Neither Europe nor EU is a single country with a single foreign policy. There are around 40 different small and large countries in Europe each with their own foreign policy, history, culture and language. Two of the countries are currently at war with each other (if we still include Russia in Europe). Historically, Europe is a continent of wars and full of disagreement, where countries have done much to benefit themselves.
I really don't know much of what is happening in China or India or how you would ever measure something as subjective as morality. The point was, that it isn't just European (or EU) nations that don't stand up to the US. Nobody really dare -- Even those other heavy-weights. So it doesn't seem fair to me to single Europe (European nations) out for not doing anything.
I would say that Europe has a lot of bad history and guilt and we know it. And there is an aspiration in many of the European countries to be better and do "the right thing" now, but it is definitely debatable whether those countries actually do it, or if we even know what "right" is.
I don't think Europe should feel guilt or anything about their history. They are just operating like every other region prioritising their own citizens first.
I just hope all of this is a nothingburger. The last thing the world needs is a war between the west. But looks like globalisation is going to slow down regardless. Sad.
Yes. You are right. Unfortunately, many countries that were/are part of EU sent forces to Iraq (not all).
You mention that Asia was suspicious, but the "coalition of willing" actually included Asian countries such as Phillippines, South Korea, Japan, Uzbekistan, Singapore.
I believe the current overarching feeling in Europe is that we were mislead by the US administration more than our own politicians. Already back then, there was quite a lot of skepticism and significant doubt in the media all over Europe about the justification of that war. Also in the coalition countries.
And Indeed, there were no consequences later. But what should have been done and by whom at that point? How do you prove that it was deliberately misleading? Why would it be the job of nations of Europe or EU?
I agree that it wasn't pretty, and that the European nations and EU should have opposed more, but even as it was back then, it was not a clear "cheering on" moment. I remember having discussions about Iraq with people from Scandinavia, Italy, Spain, Germany, and France back when the invasion started. Although a large group did support the war (I think many were still emotionally affected by 9/11), I actually don't remember talking to any one of them.
The reality is that the US is the most powerful geopolitical entity and Europe is a continent consisting of many individual countries. Even the EU is a divided group of nations, and even if united would not be as powerful as the US is currently.
> And Indeed, there were no consequences later. But what should have been done and by whom at that point?
Reparations?
> How do you prove that it was deliberately misleading?
Are you denying the fact that countries didn't know? Many EU countries did indeed stay out of the conflict after all. Are you saying the incredible intelligence agencies of western countries were simply oblivious?
> Why would it be the job of nations of Europe or EU?
Because you sent troops? And because people there genuinely think they are the good guys?
> I remember having discussions about Iraq with people from Scandinavia, Italy, Spain, Germany, and France back when the invasion started.
Would you let Russia off the hook for Ukraine then? After all the people there are under dictatorial rule. I'm sure there are large groups of people there who oppose the war.
> The reality is that the US is the most powerful geopolitical entity and Europe is a continent consisting of many individual countries. Even the EU is a divided group of nations, and even if united would not be as powerful as the US is currently.
I completely agree. The US is too powerful. I'm just saying it shouldn't come as a complete surprise that they would one day target Europe as well. Unfortunately might makes right. I just hope the US comes to their senses.
It seems a distinction needs to be made between what is being discussed. The ruling class of Europe has cheered it on, even if the peasants complained; but as with so many other things, it’s wholly irrelevant what the peasants want, as you highlight. Americans also were 90%+ opposed to entering WWI and WWII and Vietnam, but that doesn’t change that it was done to serve ruling class objectives.
That’s long been the system; the peasants are manipulated or forced to enter into the meat grinder for the ruling class. See the Ukraine for reference.
But rejoice, soon robots and drones with fight each other instead … or maybe get rid of “useless eaters” more efficiently? It could go either way, or both.
Note this is the M5, not even the M5 Pro and definitely not the M5 Max or M5 Ultra. If they are getting these improvements on low end M series, I’m sort of interested in what happens with the M5 max when it’s ready (I. Not holding out hope that the M5 ultra will be done anytime soon).
It is so long, with so many unnecessary sentences. And it feels like everything is said at least twice; First a generic statement about the new feature. Then a specific example, or a deeper explanation of what the first generic statement was. Then a demo. And then a conclusion to the future.
The old Steve Jobs keynotes focused on the most interesting things, but now it feels like they are afraid not to include everything. So everything gets diluted.
It would help a lot if they would stop saying the same lines:"And now...", "We cannot wait for you to try our new XXXX ... ", or "We could not be more excited to...", "We are excited to... ".
"With that, now over to person-X"
reply