Bored of Apple’s iPhone launch event? Wait for the iPhone 17.

Are you an Apple user who found the iPhone 16 launch event boring, disappointing and anticlimactic? Did you get the impression that the event focused on niche products like the black Apple Watch Ultra 2 before getting to the heart of the matter… what turned out to be relatively minor iPhone hardware updates?

Then you honestly weren’t the target audience, even if you’re an iPhone user. Your current model probably works fine, and you’re probably attached to its color (like mine, a year-old dark purple iPhone 15 Pro). You’re not willing to shell out for a slightly better device, and all the Apple smarts in the world won’t make you do that.

Wait until the next hype cycle—which in this case is already building around the 2025 model, a supposedly thinner iPhone 17 “Air.” By then, you might already be embarrassed by your phone’s diminishing battery and tiny-looking screen, and Apple’s trade-in offer will suddenly make a lot more sense. Just as owners of the iPhone 14 and earlier models tended to find something to like about the iPhone 16 announcement.

In the meantime … you are secure Don’t want to test your hearing loss (that would require new AirPods) or find out if you have sleep apnea (that would require a Series 10 watch)?

Apple, a $3.3 trillion company, has been at it for some time. The game is called “bring users into our ecosystem.” With each market the tech giant enters, it becomes harder to get existing customers to upgrade individual devices. The more the iPhone becomes a luxury item and the more conscious consumers become of its environmental costs, the less likely they are to upgrade every year or even every two years.

So what would you do if you were Tim Cook and had a fiduciary duty to grow the company?

Of course, you have to make sure you stay on top of new technologies. Cook now has a firm foothold in the virtual space with the Apple Vision Pro. If VR or AR suddenly look like the future, Apple is ready. He also understands the challenge with AI, which (at least for now) is mostly about rebranding your machine learning software so you don’t look like you’re falling behind: that’s where Apple Intelligence comes in.

But your main task as Apple CEO is to make the variety of Apple devices more attractive to every user, even in a world with highly fragmented consumer groups. You find that the possibilities of new hardware-software combinations appeal to more groups: the hard of hearing and sleep apnea patients are gigantic and growing niches in the health sector, which is why hearing aid manufacturers had to accept a slump on the stock market in the wake of the Apple scandal.

Considering the ever-growing number of Apple users for non-iPhone products, it makes much more sense to put Apple events with what are for you a lengthy watch updates at the beginning.

Photo credit: EMarketer

To update a phrase that has characterized Apple since the days of Jobs and Wozniak: Tim Cook’s job is to make sure that everything just works … together. There was a time when it was important that Windows worked well with the Macintosh operating system, and Apple’s walled garden was a millstone for the company. Today, the walled garden is perhaps the company’s greatest asset.

Take the Apple AirPods Max, for example: beautifully designed, extremely expensive over-ear noise-cancelling headphones that come with a terrible name. When they launched, I scoffed: Why would I buy these when I could get a comparable pair from Bose for much less?

I discovered the answer this year: because the Max sockets connect and switch so easy to and between my MacBook, iPad and iPhone – and most importantly, my Apple TV – while providing incredible spatial sound.

I wasn’t looking for regular AirPods because I don’t like earbuds that produce earwax (I use these open-ear Bose models for exercise instead), but the Max turned out to be right up my alley, so much so that I’m now seriously considering trading in my two-month-old green headphones for the new purple USB-C model that matches my iPhone.

I probably won’t do that – at least not in this cycle. My 2024 Apple budget is completely used up. But if Apple releases a purple iPhone 17 next year, then it will almost certainly be time to hook up their vacuum cleaner to my wallet again – no matter what new features are touted at the 2025 iPhone launch event.