Wednesday's iPhone 5 launch had more than a touch of deja vu.
Apple CEO Tim Cook's performance, though slightly more polished than in his last three product launch events, was largely a retread of his WWDC keynote. Cook still leads by getting out of the way, ceding the all-important announcement of the iPhone 5 to marketing chief Phil Schiller, just as he did at the new iPad launch earlier this year.
The order of events was pretty much by the numbers, too. We started with an update on Apple retail stores, moved on to new numbers for the Mac and the iPad, had the main event — the big reveal of the iPhone 5 and its new iPod brethren — and closed with a musical guest, in this case the Foo Fighters.
The big reveal, by the way, was a faintly ridiculous moment. The phone rose up from the stage on a podium while the house lights went down, so we could hardly see what we were supposed to be looking at. One longed for the days when Steve Jobs would simply whip a black sheet off a table.
A Leaky Ship
But Apple, it is becoming clear, is no longer the house that Jobs built. For one thing, it's becoming so leaky that hardly a single detail of the iPhone 5 was not known in advance. If there was any doubt about the specifics, Apple PR accidentally erased them by posting press releases online just a little too early.
Compare that to the iPhone 4S launch at the very beginning of Cook's tenure, where much of the media didn't even get the device's name in advance.
On the technology front, Apple is playing it about as safe as possible. The iPhone 5 has a slightly elongated screen, and feels significantly lighter than its predecessor. There's a different dock connector and the headphone jack is on the bottom. That's about all the changes the casual observer will notice when picking it up.
True, a great deal of work went into the minutiae of its design. Apple is not shy when it comes to geeking out about this. One entire video explained how the edges were hewn with diamond cutters, and at one point we got a baffling aside on how more than 700 different cover sections were designed for the camera lens.
This is a thoroughly solid and dependable gadget, the Volvo of the mobile world. But Apple is currently running a deficit in bold strokes, big visions, and entirely new products.
Indeed, possibly the most exciting things to come out of the event were the new EarPods, curious little periscope-like headphones designed to conform to the space available in the average ear, featuring four carefully notched speaker slits directing different spectrums of sound in just the right way. They look and feel entirely new.
When the headphones elicit more gasps than the phone itself, you know something's not quite right.
Apple R&D Needs Some TLC
This could have something to do with the fact that Apple is still spending a mere 2% of its revenue on research and development. No other company in the tech world puts as little of their cash into R&D, as a percentage, with the sole exception of Dell.
You could argue that all of Apple engineering and design could fall under the R&D heading, given how inventive the company is when it comes to, say, squeezing more power into the same size phone. Still, there's a world of difference between innovation in the same product and innovation that leads to entirely new products.
The latter is what we used to see from Apple. The former is what we're currently getting.
Of course, this could all become moot next month, when Apple is said to be planning another event to launch the all-new 7-inch iPad Mini, and possibly the iTV too. Let's hope we have a day full of surprises to look forward to.
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