This Was the Worst Second of the iPhone Occasion. Why It Was Truly a Good Energy Transfer by Apple

The iPhone launch is without question the most important public event for Apple every year. This applies not only to the product’s impact on business results, but also to general attention and media coverage. Apple did very well at these events, and even managed to produce them far better than most other tech companies during a pandemic.

This is important because the way Apple spends its time says everything about what it thinks is important. The decisions that are made about which additional products to include, how to display them, and who takes the stage are carefully considered and coordinated in a way that most other tech companies cannot.

That’s why it’s so confusing to me that they had such an odd moment on the iPhone 12 launch this week. You couldn’t have missed it. No, I’m not talking about the almost surreal drone shots that fly through campus.

After Tim Cook announced the company was launching the iPhone 12, Apple showed a short video about the iPhone and handed the virtual stage over to Hans Vestberg, Verizon’s chairman and CEO. For four full minutes. By my count, that’s more time than for the brand new A14 chip that will likely power the first generation of Apple Silicon Macs.

Why should Apple do this?

Part of the problem is that Vestberg, who for all I can tell is probably a very nice person – and probably a great CEO – isn’t a great moderator. Certainly not when we measure according to Apple’s standards. Of course, Apple’s default is Steve Jobs, so maybe that’s not entirely fair.

Vestberg is not Steve Jobs. He’s not even Tim Cook, who, despite Jobs’ lack of natural ease and showmanship, is still a very competent host.

At first I couldn’t figure out why Apple would give so much time to Verizon. And that wasn’t the only mention. I haven’t counted the number of times Apple has spoken about how incredible 5G will be on an iPhone. (Spoiler alert: it will likely take a while.)

I asked the question, “What did Apple get for Verizon having its own advertisement during the iPhone 12 launch? Apple doesn’t just sell the iPhone for Verizon. It also sells it through AT&T and T-Mobile / Sprint. So . ” From the perspective of a carrier relations standard, this makes little sense. On the other hand, Apple is betting that Verizon will sell a lot of iPhones.

IPhone growth has slowed in recent years. It’s still the company’s cash cow, but people stick with their devices longer and find fewer reasons to upgrade every year or so. That means Apple has sold fewer iPhones compared to previous years, although it is still making a ton of money from sales.

When most people walk into a Verizon store they might plan on buying a particular phone, but it’s amazing how much influence these salespeople have on the device they end up with. That may not seem likely to iPhone loyalists, but the iPhone still represents less than half of the US smartphone market. There are a lot of people who choose non-Apple smartphones.

I can imagine a world where there was a conversation that went something like, “Sure, you can talk about your 5G network at our event, and we will sure be mentioning 5G a few dozen times as long as your people don’t . ” Don’t stop talking about the iPhone 12 when there are customers in your stores. “

Apple desperately wants them to push the iPhone 12 out the door.

That’s why it’s awesome. Apple definitely gave the impression, at least during the event, that 5G = Verizon, although this is not exclusively the case. You can still buy an iPhone from T Mobile or AT&T and frankly you won’t know the difference, at least as far as 5G goes.

At the same time, Verizon is the largest wireless operator in the US with around 110 million subscribers. I can imagine that in the near future a lot of people will be leaving Verizon stores with iPhones instead of a Samsung Note 20 or Google Pixel 5, for example, at least if Apple finds its way. These phones have 5G too, but they don’t have nearly the same marketing strength as the iPhone, they just don’t.

One final point is that Apple doesn’t host iPhone events for Apple loyalists or even tech reviewers. It is aimed at a far wider audience, many of whom are less concerned with preconceived notions about the appropriate ethos of an Apple event. Giving up that little time didn’t cost her anything with this audience, which is why even the worst four minutes of the iPhone 12 launch could be a brilliant move for Apple.

The opinions expressed by Inc.com columnists here are their own, not those of Inc.com.