Photo by picjumbo.com from Pexels

Earlier today, Apple announced their all new MacBook Airs, a long overdue redesign of the Mac Mini, and the latest generation of the iPad Pro. It could have been an Apple Event like any other, but this time something seemed changed. The presentation was paced much faster than usually and the speakers cut out much of the pathos and the usual swipes against their immediate competition. Less doesn’t mean none though, and there was still plenty of both.

But the overall theme and the way Apple presents themselves seems to change. The introduction video of the new iPad(in the link, scroll down a little) strikes me as a good example. While it’s just a regular product video, it feels as though Apple allows the viewers to look a little more behind the curtains and how they worked on the device.

While the video starts out like many other Apple videos, the presentation form immediately feels more playful, more approachable and more human. Phil Schiller’s little winks and him not taking everything as serious as Jony Ive is refreshing and suits Apple good. They don’t need this image of the untouchable, perfectionist company anymore. Instead, they want to create an image of a playful, approachable company that knows what their creative users want and need to get their work done.

While it’s true that since the passing of Steve Jobs the company made some arguable bad decisions, like not paying attention to bugs in their iOS software or the introduction of some questionable charging methods for the Apple Pencil or Magic Mouse, they are getting back on track. Not only that, they keep improving and developing their products to higher standards. iOS 12 breathes back life in old hardware and shows how much software optimization matters. The new Apple Pencil charges magnetically and doesn’t need any ports.

Paired with this now introduced playfulness this shows that Apple emancipates itself from its old image coined by Steve Jobs’ secrecy and perfectionist approach. Even though Apple is on the top of the hardware consumer market, this shows that they understand that they cannot get lazy and rest on their previous success, just like many companies before them did and eventually tripped. In fact, they may have learned from their own history. Before Steve Jobs returned to the company, Apple almost went bankrupt.

In a previous article, I argued that more competition in the tablet and wearable space would be good for Apple and for innovation in the tech sector overall. But it becomes more and more apparent that Apple doesn’t need a competitor. They iterate and innovate all by themselves. They managed to get Adobe on board for a port of their flagship Photoshop software. The iPad is obviously a powerful piece of hardware. And no other tablet comes close to it, let alone manages to get so much exclusive app development.

This shows that Apple realizes that progress is important. They would rather create competition against their own products than have some other company eating into their market. This is evident through the iPhone basically killing the iPod, and the iPad eating more and more into the entry level Mac market (and, to some extent, into the pro market as well).