Hello, and welcome to the Wednesday edition of the Insider Tech newsletter, where we break down the biggest news in tech.
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If you've been eagerly awaiting the latest iPad you may have enjoyed Apple's "Special Event" on Tuesday. But to me, Apple's big event was mainly a sign of how the scripted product launches that Big Tech relies upon to control the news cycle are increasingly impotent.
It's not all bad. As my colleague Avery Hartmans noted, the abbreviated, online-only product launch is preferable to the bloated in-person events of years past.
But I think there's something else going on too:
Now that tech is at the center of the biggest political and geopolitical dramas, product launches have become sideshows that can't compete with the main event.
And yes, there's the fate of TikTok, caught in the middle of the US-China tech cold war, which continued to play out in real time on Tuesday while Apple streamed.
Even Apple — at its own product event — couldn't escape the regulatory clouds hanging over its business.
Of course, this may have felt like a sideshow because Apple's event on Tuesday did not feature the new, highly-anticipated iPhone. For that, you'll have to wait until October, when Apple is expected to have another event to introduce its first 5G iPhone.
The iPhone launch is certain to generate a lot more excitement than this week's event. But no matter what the new iPhone can do, and no matter how much hoopla Tim Cook and company bring to the table, Apple will be addressing a different audience — one with a less friendly view of Big Tech and with many other, bigger issues to focus on.
Kim Kardashian West has stopped posting to her Instagram and Facebook accounts to protest Facebook's failure to stop the spread of misinformation on its platforms. But she'll be back tomorrow. It's a one-day boycott.
And remember that advertiser boycott of Facebook that started in July? Well, they made their point and now Facebook VP Nicola Mendelsohn affirms on Bloomberg TV that marketers are coming back to their favorite platform. Mendelsohn says the big brands have returned because they've seen the strides Facebook has made removing hateful content on the platform — except, of course, that notorious Kenosha militia post, or the post by a politician in India's ruling party calling to shoot Muslim immigrants.
The Facebook executive did note that the company was successfully weeding out 95% of the bad stuff. Maybe for big brand marketers, that's good enough...
That's it for this week. Thanks for reading, and if you like this newsletter, tell your friends and colleagues they can sign up here to receive it.
— Alexei