#apple-pr — Public Fediverse posts on home.social

Not covering a new-iPhone event can be a treat

I did not wake up too early from jet lag Wednesday morning in a strange hotel room about 2,400 miles west of home, and then I didn’t have to spend an hour and change watching an extended presentation from Apple before scrambling to write and file multiple posts about a new set of gadgets from that company.

Instead, colleagues at PCMag and Fast Company got to do the honors for Apple’s introduction of the iPhone Duo, the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max, and the newest Apple Watch and AirPod models. I watched the livestream from home… and then I took a nap.

Sitting out Wednesday’s event did deprive me of useful hands-on time with the new hardware, which will instead must wait until these things show up in Apple’s stores. And that meant I had no chance to elevate my profile by covering one of the year’s most attention-sucking tech events.

But I’ve gotten used to these trade-offs from the other Apple product-launch events I have not covered in person–which would be all of them since the iPad 2’s unveiling in San Francisco on March 2, 2011.

I think that’s mostly a function of covering Apple events being assignments that my clients reserve for staffers. The closest I’ve come was when one of my regular contacts at Apple PR seemed slightly optimistic about being able to credential me for the company’s 2012 Worldwide Developer Conference in San Francisco before apologetically saying they just didn’t have room.

But while I miss the chance to glean some non-obvious insight about new iPhones from inspecting them up close (plus the opportunity to catch up with journalist and analyst friends), I’ve grown to appreciate sitting out these media feeding frenzies.

I don’t have to be the 250th journalist to post a picture that morning from in front of Apple Park–a painstakingly-designed feat of corporate architecture that I somehow have still only seen from the air. I can watch other people scramble to write a take and get that published before dozens of other people, many with faster journalistic metabolisms, can do the same.

It’s not that the iPhone isn’t an important piece of consumer hardware. But I’m not obliged to be a one-person personal-tech newspaper of record.

And not having to wonder if I will or won’t get an invitation from Apple PR is freeing in its own way. Knowing that Cupertino just isn’t going to be in my travel plans means that unlike many people in my line of work, I don’t need to think about my standing with that company–and instead can dwell on the same business-model anxieties as almost everybody in my line of work.

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