It's Showtime!
Monday 25th of March 2019 is around
the corner and that is something I usually don’t write or podcast before the
event in preparing for it… But this time, me and the rest of the internet, has
figured something different is coming. This week went a little different to
many weeks before an Apple event:
Starting Monday 18th and continuing
this full week, they cleared the room of speculation regarding most, if not
all, product announcements. New watchbands and refreshing the iMac could be a
normal course of action to just throw out into the social media world. However,
then came the iPad explosion: iPad Mini 5 and a new iPad Air, both with first
generation Apple Pencil support caught everyone by surprise by being announced
outside an auditorium.
Oh, but wait there’s more! They broke out the
second version (or what I like to call 1.5 update) of AirPods!!! Yeah, one of
the most popular products Apple has made in the last, maybe 5 years. Everyone
was in shock! Rumors are nothing more than that… And here comes Tim Cook with
his love for the use of social media in pranking or informing or even making
fun of his own tweets, and announces all of this the week before the event. So
any doubt that the event would not be about the streaming service coming to the
Apple ecosystem went out the window…
They CLEARED the board of product announcements
to get fully prepared for Monday. I still believe some products could be
announced (a maximum of 2) like an AirPower but this clearly is going to be a
completely unprecedented day. Of course this is not the first services keynote
by Apple (taking into account music and others), but this certainly is a market
in which they have to present something TRULY special to event try and exist in
a world where Netflix is SO far ahead of everyone else.
I don’t have strong expectations because I like
Apple to take the wheel of their own business, especially because this is a
first gen product that is going to scout their strengths and weaknesses to find
its strength. I just hope they have a strong stamp to start with, I hope they
are in as many platforms as possible, that they have a reasonable pricing and
content strategy because THIS IS NOT the smartwatch or the tablet market that
did not have a strong leader. This is like getting into the car market where
there are established and strong-armed competitors in the game and incredibly
promising new players. Netflix is the established and Disney is the ready to
compete new player to also be almost ready to get in the game.
Monday cannot come fast enough for positive
people like me who first listen to the keynote and then decide what the announcements
mean to Apple’s chances. I guess Apple said it best:
