Apple finds the AirTag and adds colour to its Keynote

There will come a day when Apple doesn't present anything at its Keynote. It can afford it. Taking up an hour of our time without a new product. The staging of its events is beginning to be a product in itself. It could be nominated for an Oscar. Every shot is as carefully crafted as if it were a Spielberg film. There are Marvel-worthy special effects. It's worth seeing Tim Cook in a Tom Cruise scene in Mission Impossible sliding off the ceiling to steal the M1 chip from the MacBook and put it in an iPad. The world of film and advanced marketing in the service of product improvements that already existed.

For the April 2021 keynote there was little to present. A facelift for iMacs with bold colours. The iPad Pro with the M1 chip. A purple iPhone 12. The ineffective AppleTV 4K. The novelty was the AirTags, whose name had already been leaked, right down to the name of the Chinese man who assembled them in the factory. Nothing new that will break the market. But..the Apple ecosystem goes beyond that. The way it displays its products not only generates need, it puts them in the hands of the buyer before they go on sale t. 

AirTags go on sale out of embarrassment. A tracking system the size of a two euro coin. Waterproof and... with a battery! Apple's sustainability breaks down on the side of the lithium that pollutes forests and water. An environmental disgrace at the cost of not being the laughing stock of the industry that already pointed the finger at Apple when it was unable to release its AirPower charging dock. The whim serves to keep your keys, your backpack or your wallet in sight. It consumes little battery and is surrounded by a world of accessories ranging from silicone to leather to a 400 euro Hermés key ring. Four AirTags for the price of 109 euros. 

Then came the iMac. Apple's desktop product has been revamped on the outside with bright colours reminiscent of its first models. Nothing new, but it's the part that is most visible from the other side and it has to look good. The aesthetics are impressive and the M1 chip allows the screen to slim down to a historic 1.5 centimetres wide. The new heart Apple has added to its computers is the quiet revolution in computing in recent years. Only those who squeeze the most out of these machines know what this chip is capable of. There are interesting details: the rear cable is MagSafe; the charger has an Ethernet port to avoid an extra cable at the back; and the microphone and camera are of a higher quality. The accessories that will further inflate the shopping basket are keyboards, mice and trackpads in the same colours as the iMacs. By the way, the keyboards already have a button to unlock or pay with your fingerprint. 

iPad Pro now has the M1 chip. It's what's been missing from the iPad that most resembles a laptop. It continues to add pointless cameras and sensors to a device that very few people use to take photos or videos. Its only new accessory is a white keyboard case because the Apple Pencil 3 has yet to arrive. A new iPad Mini was also expected but the latest model is holding its own and Apple isn't convinced to stick with that size when its iPhones keep getting bigger and can be touched. 

The AppleTV 4K continues to be refreshed every year. It is incomprehensible that it is still on the market, at least in Europe, when it has been very limited in terms of content and now survives thanks to AppleTV+ and its range of series and films. It wants to enter the video game market with bland Apple Arcade titles and plays at being a grown-up by making friends with PS5 and Xbox controllers. Most interesting has been Apple's stab at televisions. They got elitist to say that no matter how good the TV was, it could never deliver its content in the quality it deserves. The solution is to set the colour with the iPhone to define the environment and adjust the screen. Another touch of Apple quality for a product that, thank goodness, only costs 179 euros because it's not worth half that. 

The first Keynote of 2021 is a foretaste of some loose product that may come out in the summer almost without warning and, above all, of the one in September that will bring the iPhone 13 and the new AirPods into play, if they are not brought forward. 

Apple makes the best technology on the market. Its best-selling products have the perfect form and substance. They are priced to match the quality they offer. The advertising department points out what we should be looking at and disguises the shortcomings. They can't ask for more from a technology-saturated market that is divided between those who try to optimise a Windows PC start-up and those who live for the colour of their new Mac.