A Brief History of Those Apple Event Invites
Let's prep ourselves for the January 27th event by remembering how Apple alerted us to previous product launches.Posted by Harry McCracken | Tuesday, January 19, 2010
September 7th 2005
By this time, Apple invitations were distributed as graphical e-mails. This one gave a nod to the original iPod, which might or might not signify a music event. Educated guesses about the announcement included the much-discussed Motorola “iTunes phone” and a video iPod.
It turned out to be: the soon-to-be-much-malgined Motorola ROKR. But then Steve Jobs said he had one more thing. And that turned out to be the flash-based iPod Nano, the sliver-like replacement fo the iPod Mini. Nobody but nobody predicted it–but the invite, with the 1000 songs reference and art showing a tiny jeans pocket inside a larger one, was full of hints. It remains the most compelling evidence that Apple invites sometimes include secret clues.
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Interpreting Apple Invites Says:
January 19th, 2010 at 2:37 am[…] about Apple invites as we wait for next week’s Apple product event to come around. “A Brief History of Apple Event Invites” recaps eight years of such invitations: what they said, what people thought they said, and […]
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And That’s What You Missed on Technologizer Says:
December 31st, 2010 at 12:34 pm[…] Prompted by Apple’s invitation to what turned out to be the iPad launch, I examined the tough-to-interpret artform known as Apple event invites. […]
January 19th, 2010 at 6:14 am
Not only is the latest invite colorful, it is also going outside the lines. Does this indicate outside the box thinking or some new kind of display not limited to the normal bezel? Or perhaps a new piece of software to compete with Photoshop?
January 19th, 2010 at 7:19 am
Apple Canvas ?
January 19th, 2010 at 8:15 am
Thanks for the recap. Following the structure you showed–there’sat least one clue in the words and one clue in the visuals—and knowing that it’s a tablet–I think you are spot on about the color being used to distinguish Apple’s product from the Kindle et. al. I also think the multiple colors symbolize the multi-gesture aspects of the new product.
But more importantly, Apple uses the word “creation” in the tagline. Given Steve’s preference for creating rather than consuming (hates TV so no products have the native capability to receive TV signals, for example) I believe that we will see a major push on the 27th for the product’s ability to easily create artwork. MacDraw/MacPaint 10.0 here we come!
January 19th, 2010 at 9:04 am
Did I miss the launch of the iPhone in all of this? What happened Jan 2007?
January 19th, 2010 at 9:27 am
@CaptainWizz: The iPhone was unveiled at Steve Jobs’ Macworld Expo keynote. As far as I know, those generally have not involved teaser invites, although the Apple.com site has sometimes previewed news with graphics in a similar format.
–Harry
January 19th, 2010 at 9:38 am
There was no invite for the MacBook Air?
January 19th, 2010 at 10:17 am
@IcyFog
I believe there was. If I remember correctly, it showed one of Apple’s buildings with clouds in the sky, and it said something like “There is something in the air.”
I’m not completely sure though.
January 19th, 2010 at 11:16 am
I reckon maybe the paint/ink splashes refer to a new kind of screen that works a bit like the greyscale electronic ink screens that the kindle etc have, but in colour. Colour electronic ink?
January 19th, 2010 at 12:29 pm
Notice that the latest art has a subtle outline of a box — or a screen, just as the #11 slide showed the subtle corner of an aluminum screen that morphed into the spotlight on the Apple logo and signaled the introduction of the unibody MacBook design.
Clearly, this invite depicts colors replacing underlying gray values. It signals a color touchscreen tablet that will replace existing e-Reader concepts that the rest of the industry wasted energy and resources on…
January 19th, 2010 at 1:10 pm
The paint at the box edge also suggests something about the dimensionality of the surface. Maybe it won’t just be 2D? Something completely new like a surface with programmable tactile feedback as in detectable edges for keys?
January 19th, 2010 at 1:19 pm
Ah, shucks! I was hoping that this story was going to show us a series of past invites– you know the actual invitations, with the graphics, the tease, the caption rather than a generic overview with a random pic from the event!
Or did I miss something?!
January 19th, 2010 at 1:32 pm
@robinson: The first few items have images from the events, because I couldn’t find the invites (and as far as I can tell, there weren’t any of the graphical emails that Apple now uses). For the later items, the invites are there.
–Harry