I received an email from Apple yesterday with the subject heading "Introducing iPhone 4." Within the email, a simple photo of the device was shown beside some very confident text: "This changes everything. Again."
I checked the device out. High-def video recording, multitask app functionality, a higher-res screen, and video calling. Which is all very cool, and makes for a solid upgrade to the iPhone 3. But does it really change anything? I'm impressed by the device, but not by Apple's marketing.
They've gone stale. Their last marketing effort, for the iPad, touted the touch-screen tablet as "magical" and "revolutionary." Really? I didn't know it took a magician to make a larger iPod Touch. And come on, revolutionary? It hurts my insides knowing how much that word is overused by companies with small budgets—can't Apple afford some more creative minds than that?
Don't get me wrong: I like most of what Apple makes. But they're almost lying to us with how magnificent they make everything sound. As their exaggerations have, over time, become downright hyperboles, they've also garnered the stigma of the boy who cried "wolf"—who can take them seriously when every new upgrade to a device is officially the world's greatest technological achievement?
Not everything you make is a global phenomenon, Steve.
But I suppose I shouldn't be surprised in their lack of marketing originality. After all, the company is founded and run by a man whose keynotes ("boom") are as similar as his outfits.
Oh well. Whatever works, right? Will you be buying the iPhone 4?
Knowlton Thomas
Knowlton is the Associate Editor of Techvibes.
A Vancouver-based writer and author, Knowlton has been published in national and has also appeared on television and radio. He has written two ebooks are more are in the works.
Previously, he was an editor for New Westminster weekly The Other Press and served on its board of directors.
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