Welcome to our weekly Apple Breakfast column, which includes all the Apple news you missed last week in a handy bite-sized roundup. We call it Apple Breakfast because we think it goes great with a Monday morning cup of coffee or tea, but it’s cool if you want to give it a read during lunch or dinner hours too.
Apple’s fourth revolution
A week before the Macworld San Francisco keynote kicked off on January 9, 2007, Apple updated its website on New Year’s Day with a cryptic message that read, “The first 30 years were just the beginning. Welcome to 2007,” an obvious tease for the expo. But until Steve Jobs took the stage and said, “Every once in a while a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything,” no one had any idea what was coming.
It’s hard to believe in an age where everything leaks, but we really didn’t know Apple was planning to turn the mobile phone industry on its head with the iPhone. There were rumblings for years that Apple had experimented with an iPod that could make calls—there was even a joke slide in the keynote about it—but nothing had risen to the level of imminent release, so it wasn’t clear what the tease was referring to.
This time we know. When Apple writes “Code new worlds,” and “A new era begins,” there’s little doubt that it’s referring to its new AR/VR headset that has been rumored for years. And even though we know what’s coming this time, it’s no less of a monumental event.
The launch of Apple’s headset might feel like an eventuality or a foregone conclusion, but watching its unveiling today will be one of the pivotal moments in Apple’s history, along with the iPhone, the iPod, and the original Macintosh. The iPad, Apple Watch, and AirPods are all huge category-defining products for Apple, but they don’t sit with the big ones. The headset will.
Even if it isn’t clear at the start, the headset is one of those devices that could fundamentally change Apple’s direction. Like the iPhone and iPod, it will endure its share of ridicule for its high price and derivative functionality, people will complain about its design and point out its deficiencies. But in a year or five, the rest of the world will catch up to Apple’s vision.
Much like the iPhone and iPod, the headset we see today will be a lot different than the one that breaks through and becomes the one everyone wants. But make no mistake, today is as big of a keynote as the one on January 9, 2007; the only difference is this time we know it’s coming. There are plenty of unknowns—the design of the device chief among them—but today’s keynote won’t be a surprise on the level of Macworld San Francisco 2007. No matter. It’s still one of the four most exciting announcements in Apple’s history.
Time will tell if the headset will be as big as the revolutions that preceded it, but those arguments are for another day. Today, let’s just enjoy the show.
Foundry
Trending: Top stories
WWDC 2023 begins today, and that means two things: Selling the future and buying time.
The Apple silicon transition has made a mess of desktop Macs.
A lot will be announced at WWDC, but wearables will steal the show.
Leaked prototypes reveal the colorful Apple accessories we never got.
The rumor mill
What unbelievable luck: we managed to find a copy of the script for WWDC 2023.
An Apple Reality Pro leak reveals a seriously high-res display: 4K for each eye!
Apple is set to open Mac Studio and M2 MacBook trade-ins next week as WWDC rumors swirl.
We now know why Apple needs to make the iPhone 16 Pro a little bigger. (Hint: it’s not about the size of the screen.)
Podcast of the week
The biggest Apple event of the year is almost here! In this episode of the Macworld Podcast, we preview what’s in store at WWDC! Operating system updates, Apple watch enhancements, new Macs, a new way to see reality, and more on the show!
You can catch every episode of the Macworld Podcast on Spotify, Soundcloud, the Podcasts app, or our own site.
Software updates, bugs, and problems
Apple Music Classical lands on Android–but iPad and Mac users hear crickets.
If you haven’t moved from My Photo Stream to iCloud Photos, time is running out.
And with that, we’re done for this week’s Apple Breakfast. If you’d like to get regular roundups, sign up for our newsletters. You can also follow us on Twitter or on Facebook for discussion of breaking Apple news stories. See you next Monday, and stay Appley.
Author: Michael Simon, Executive Editor
Michael Simon has been covering Apple since the iPod was the iWalk. His obsession with technology goes back to his first PC—the IBM Thinkpad with the lift-up keyboard for swapping out the drive. He's still waiting for that to come back in style tbh.