What is Wrong with Apple Keynote Presentations?

I always look forward to Apple presentations and the WWDC, yet every time the presentations rub me the wrong way. Why?

Did you watch Apple’s WWDC 2021 keynote? Did anything bother you? Me too. Sure there was a lot of cool new stuff. In particular I loved the Universal Control. I so often wished I could just move my mouse cursor over to another device and grab what I want instead of setting up some kind of sharing, email myself or put in a dropbox. Yet the magic was gone and it has been for quite some time. Without Steve Jobs it is not the same. I am more likely to check of a Tesla or SpaceX presentation by Elon Musk.

This has made me reflect upon what exactly it is about Apple presentations that makes me roll my eyes? As an author I have worked with editors, and that experience has made me see more clearly what has gone wrong at Apple. You know what it feels like when you become part of a machine, with checkboxes to mark off.

Look at the presentations given at Apple by the likes Craig Federighi. They all follow the same corporate recipe. It is a formula. They will tell you to present material in a very specific manner. One punchline after the other:

• Tell the viewer about a feature and explain why they need…