There’s no denying the fun and excitement of an Apple event. The tantalizing possibility of something special or unexpected is always there. Absent of that, the product announcements are interesting enough on their own.

Even the dullest Apple events tend to be buoyed by the Apple Bubble Effect, especially if you’re on the Apple Campus. In Cupertino, you’re surrounded by Apple handlers, PR and Apple Shirt-wearing guides and security. Everyone is super helpful and, in general, smiling. They direct your interest and gaze toward the center of all things Apple and the real world recedes into the background.

The actual unveilings are so carefully orchestrated that you feel lifted up and carried along by the experience. You’re ingesting and spitting out information for an eager, Apple Fan public.

It is only with the distance of a day that you can see each event for what it is. Sometimes you realize that the products Apple unveiled and announcements it made are even bigger than you originally thought. You may even discover some critical thing you missed. Other times, you realize that, overall, this was not that big of a deal. Monday’s launch falls into the latter camp.

As Senior Tech Correspondent Christina Warren smartly noted, Apple was kind of distracted. Apple CEO Tim Cook had to address the ongoing battle with the Department of Justice and its commitment to customer data privacy. However, if you look at the actual announcements, as I have, you realize Apple probably didn’t need an event.

Cook: We need to decide as a nation how much power the government should have over our data. #AppleEvent pic.twitter.com/05gKIOw314 — Lance Ulanoff (@LanceUlanoff) March 21, 2016

No one is shocked that the spring event included no new product category entrants. The rumor mill pretty much pegged all we would see: a 4-inch iPhone, a smaller iPad Pro and even the new Apple Watch bands. It was a bit startling that Apple didn’t even deliver new MacBooks. The timing would have been right, and a number of them need updates to the latest Intel Core CPUs.

Apple events are usually pretty predicable and they rarely bury they lede (this is the habit by some journalists of not telling you the most important thing in the first paragraph of their story — count me guilty). However, on Monday, Apple dug a huge hole, tossed the iPhone SE and iPad Pro 9.7 in and then covered it with a lot of environmental news, a robot (not quite as cool as you think), Apple TV and a minor Siri update, a mesh nylon Apple Watch band and a lengthy Research Kit discussion and Cure Kit introduction (an announcement that might have been more at home at WWDC.).

Yes, it's true, an #AppleEvent has hone 15 minutes without introducing a new product. #stillwaiting pic.twitter.com/RGkM4x9uBa — Lance Ulanoff (@LanceUlanoff) March 21, 2016

Every one of these announcements is newsworthy in and of themselves (OK, maybe not the mesh watch bands), but this is a product event and Apple uncharacteristically had us all waiting to see the new products. The best companies model their announcements after Apple, but I don’t think anyone would do theirs quite this way.

Perhaps, though, Apple made the right choice. These devices are, for the most part, rehashes of previous innovations.

Minor new products

The iPhone SE, in particular, shows off how Apple can take current technology, iPhone 6S guts, and squeeze them down even further (though I suspect the only casualty here is battery space). When I posted an early video of the new 4-inch iPhone, my Twitter followers were split between making the obvious observation that it looks exactly like an iPhone 5S and those thrilled to have a powerful, yet tiny iPhone option.

At least the 9.7-inch iPad Pro features a tiny bit of fresh technology — primarily in the screen. Apple did its best to explain TrueTone, which uses ambient light to adjust onscreen colors, but I worry that most potential customers just heard a buzzing sound. It’s unlikely they ever complained about the colors on their current iPad.

Apple is positioning the iPad Pro as product that could replace a PC and work in a professional environment, which may be why it introduced the color verity technology (think artists), but it also clearly wants those who have held onto their original iPads for four years or more to finally trade up. I’m not sure Apple effectively made its case. While I saw a lot of interest and chatter around the tiny iPhone, the new iPad Pro and smaller smart keyboard was met with a collective “meh.”

Too quick

Apple’s product events usually go pretty fast, but this one barely lasted an hour and, as I noted above, things other than products ate up a huge chunk of time. Not only was there no “one more thing,” but I wondered if Apple originally planned to do more, maybe add in those missing MacBooks, but ultimately decided that, considering all the distractions, shorter was better.

Apple's new Apple Watch bands. Probably not news. Image: Mashable, Elizabeth Pierson

When I create my own plan for these events, I usually carve out at least an hour and a half for the actual unveiling. I, along with dozens of other journalists, easily spent more time in the so-called “demo room” where we could try out the new gadgets. The iPhone SE and iPad Pro tablets had huge crowds. The newly $299 Apple Watch and new bands were comparatively quiet.

Even in that room, though, the first thing another journalist asked me about was the FBI case, and when we talked about the products, most agreed they looked good and seemed to work well, but weren’t that exciting.

I think it’s fair to ask if, maybe this once, Apple could have done a week of webcasts direct from the campus to announce the new environmental initiatives and product updates. Millions would have tuned in. Product hands on would’ve been postponed or maybe handled simultaneously in locations in New York and San Francisco.

Considering all the time Apple spent talking about the recycling and renewables, cutting down on journalists’ cross-country flights is the least they can do for the environment.