[joakleaf]

It feels fake, because they speak in a way that sounds unnatural and overelaborate.

It is so long, with so many unnecessary sentences. And it feels like everything is said at least twice; First a generic statement about the new feature. Then a specific example, or a deeper explanation of what the first generic statement was. Then a demo. And then a conclusion to the future.

The old Steve Jobs keynotes focused on the most interesting things, but now it feels like they are afraid not to include everything. So everything gets diluted.

It would help a lot if they would stop saying the same lines:"And now...", "We cannot wait for you to try our new XXXX ... ", or "We could not be more excited to...", "We are excited to... ".

"With that, now over to person-X"

[theshrike79]

To me it just sounds so very American. Using so many praising adjectives they stop meaning anything anymore.

If everything is fabulous and great and you’re always excited or proud, that becomes the baseline.

[wuliwong]

That is not how regular Americans speak. I think it's some weird American corporate speak that has metastasized in Apple keynote presentations. ꉂ(˵˃ ᗜ ˂˵)

[spacedcowboy]

It is, however, how a lot of Silicon Valley speak. Source: lived there for a couple of decades.

And to an outside ear, it does just come across as completely fake.

Jobs' "reality distortion field" was just the conviction in his voice as he spoke. There is no, none, nada, zero conviction in the way Apple deliver these missives. It reeks of corporate America and is therefore not trustworthy.

I'm also kind of surprised that no-one there has altered the format. There are a lot of smart people at Apple...

[saagarjha]

That's how people speak in presentations. If you talked like that in normal conversation you'd very quickly get odd looks.

[spacedcowboy]

We are talking about presentations, though, right ? I thought that was taken as read.

Even outside presentations, "awesome", "super-awesome", etc. were far more prevalent than one might expect within the reality I lived in, though.

[Freedom2]

Curious how this trait is American? Is there something about the way Americans speak that is fake?

[comboy]

If I share a project with an American friend and he says it's awesome, I still don't know whether he liked it or not.

If I share it with a Polish or German friend and he says it's "not bad" then I know he is really impressed.

[wuliwong]

And somehow Americans are able to give and receive criticism amongst themselves, iterate, and make progress!?

[ruszki]

You can do that with and without fake discussions.

One of the main reasons that killed my desire to move to the US was the amount of fake questions during - on a paper - friendly discussions, when the point of those questions was just, and only just, visibility. An average American non corporate discussion is worse than a non-American corporate one. And that seems to be pretty global to me.

My brother and my sister-in-law watched “Somebody feeds Phil”, and we watched together the Sydney episode and after that some others, because I’d just announced that I’d move to Australia soon. That Sydney episode had quite normal discussions for us, Europeans. Of course, people had agenda, but they still reacted to what response they got. Even if things were cut, most times people seemed to react to something else from before. Then the next episode was from Las Vegas. And it had full with questions where nobody responded to the answers, nobody cared what the response was. And they kept those in the episode. There was a point when Phil asked the people in a line one-by-one what they work. And they basically just listed it, Phil had zero responses to any answers. Zero reactions from anybody. The point wasn’t to engage with the answers or the people. There was another case, when a girl talked about her shop. There wasn’t a single sentence which was organically connected to another. Phil and the girl had different agenda and they had to perform based on those, no matter what. And I was enough now there to say that that happens way more frequently than elsewhere. The next one was from Manila. And there were organic discussions again. I’ve never seen that clearly this phenomenon which bugs me. Of course, the usual scripting which happens with these shows, even helped to make this more announced. Probably, the people talking in that episode were way less interesting, but still as a visual to what annoys me is quite good.

Of course, I had good conversations also over there, and I had bad ones elsewhere in this sense. Heck, I did similar things before, but maybe this is the exact reason why I’m so sensitive to this, because it annoyed me greatly when I did it. But on average, it was the worse over the pond. Especially on the extremities. But even in day-to-day discussions. It was annoying that I have to peal down an additional layer with anybody to get real answers, which is not needed basically anywhere else.

[overfeed]

It's not "fake" - it's cultural differences where what is intended to come across as polite by Americans[1] can be seen as insincere by people from elsewhere. On the flip side, Americans often view foreign behavior that's intended to be neutral as unfriendly, uncaring or cold.

1. e.g. lots of smiling, use of superlatives like "great"/"amazing" to describe mediocre items/effort/results

[robotresearcher]

Oh yes.

Execs are ‘super excited’ about everything. There is no dynamic range at all. They appear to have no opinions and no judgement because their opinion is always that everything is awesome. When the audience knows that stuff is either normal-level ok or actually fucked up, this message is insulting to receive.

Worse, it trains people downstream that shiny happy is the only valid comms. Hard to escalate a concern when you don’t know how to start the message with how super excited you are about it.

It drove me crazy during my corporate period.

[Slow_Hand]

Yes. Zero dynamic range.

If everything is at a “10” in linguistic intensity (“Incredible”, “Legendary”, “GOAT”) then nothing is exceptional.

It’s the linguistic equivalent of a Dorito chip.

I’m American and this marketing/corporate speak drives me up the wall. I have a harder time respecting the judgement of people who thoughtlessly speak this way.

[_kb]

It’s the linguistic equivalent of the loudness wars.

[zchrykng]

Not American as much as it is "corporatese".

[dijit]

Yeah, absolutely.

At least to my British ears, Americans rarely sound authentic.

Its always grandiose statements and elaborate smiles.

[kirubakaran]

Ah yes British, the famously direct people who say things like "Maybe I haven’t explained this very well", "I’ll bear it in mind", or "How interesting!" which anyone unfamiliar with the culture would interpret to be the opposite of what was actually meant.

"I may be wrong", but perhaps 'Americans rarely sound authentic' to you simply because you're just more familiar with your own culture's idiosyncrasies?

Anyway, I love the Brits; no flame intended. I come in peace! :-)

[spacedcowboy]

As a Brit, at Apple, I once got dinged on a performance review because I apparently wasn't a team player - I was apparently always putting down people's projects in the group meetings.

"But, I've never done that. I'm pretty much always positive about things people present. I even said some of them weren't bad"

Yeah, high praise comes in subtle flavours if you're a Brit.

[jimbokun]

Sure but occasionally that attitude leads to men walking on the moon.

[2143]

I think this “awesome”, “amazing”, “super exciting” phase came much later than the moon walking era. Remember it’s been over 50 years since humans walked on the moon. Much has changed.

See these old videos, where people talk in a straightforward way:

Car transmission https://youtu.be/JOLtS4VUcvQ

How to dial your phone https://youtu.be/PuYPOC-gCGA

The dial comes to town https://youtu.be/p45T7U5oi9Q

Now go watch that Apple video again and you’ll see what I’m talking about.

[sph]

Great selection, another of my favourites: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yYAw79386WI

This is the type of people that sent us to the Moon. No non-sense engineers.

[mark_undoio]

Speaking as a Brit, our national trait is generally too understate things. So even saying what you mean, directly, comes off as a bit immodest and hyping it up in sales pitches sounds shady.

Americans generally say what they mean a bit more, so I think their mid point is just different.

[TheOtherHobbes]

We do say what we mean, it's just either carefully coded in mutual assured understatement, or buried under expletive-laden exaggeration.

Any native knows that "Interesting, but perhaps we should reconsider" means "You're an idiot and I don't understand how you ever learned to breathe."

The pinnacle is "Not bad", which can mean either deep approval or blistering contempt, depending on tone of voice.

It drives foreigners insane. But of course it's not our fault if they never learned English.

[mft_]

Speaking as a Brit, I couldn’t disagree more. I have no trouble understanding a wide variety of Europeans in a corporate environment, but sometimes struggle to even understand the basics of what Americans are trying to communicate, let alone the nuances of their position.

It’s like ‘American corporate’ is a totally different language that I don’t speak. The words sound the same, but that’s about it.

[wpm]

This is true for a lot of Americans too. God help me if I have to sit and listen to my CEO talk about anything and have to explain it to someone afterwards. It's just Buzzword Buzzword Agentic Buzzword Great Buzzword Exciting Buzzword Future Buzzword Growth Buzzword Great Great Great Exciting Exciting Exciting Buzzword.

[PetitPrince]

As other comment suggested, the way I see it Americans are addicted to hyperbolas. Instead of "Thank you" it's "Thank you so much". So when you genuinely want to thank someone because that person went above and beyond (saved your life, avoided you a substantial hassle, etc.) then it's difficult to convey that.

[cassianoleal]

As a Brazilian, I also find that annoying and unnatural.

[jimbokun]

Beyond just American, they are trying to emulate Jobs style without his genius for presenting in a compelling and attention grabbing way.

[wuliwong]

I really think this is it. It's crazy how flat and disingenuous it all feels.

[2143]

For example when I buy coffee in America the barista says “awesome!”

I think they mean well. But it feels weird.

[arrowleaf]

American or corporate? I'm surprised that corporate talk overseas isn't overly enthusiastic! As an American, most of the stream has sounded very 'California' mixed with corporate.

[andrewl-hn]

A lot of corporate speak is developed in the US and then companies all over the world spread it around. Often the adoption happens without deep understanding of the concept, and without adaptation to local realities. And thus it feels much more unnatural.

[naikrovek]

As an American with autism, I see it too.

Small talk is all lies. Almost all praise is fake. And it all drives me insane. I can fit in at work just fine, I can appear joyful and excited to come to work, I have 30 years of practice with it. But I avoid it whenever possible because it is all lies.

Americans appear to oversell everything because people get mad if you don’t.

“Why can’t you just be positive?!”

Because I’m not going to lie. I can’t fake praise, and I won’t even try. Being positive while lying is immediately obvious and it undermines the positive attitude that you’ve painted on. If anything, I take a negative message when I see someone faking a positive manner of speech.

[jackp96]

So I'm not personally on the spectrum, but I definitely get the frustration with "this is so fake; why are we all pretending it's not?" experiences.

But "almost all praise is fake" and "small talk is all lies" feels like a pretty depressing place to end up?

Why do you feel like that's the case? How do you differentiate sincere praise from "fake" praise?

[naikrovek]

> But "almost all praise is fake" and "small talk is all lies" feels like a pretty depressing place to end up?

No, not really. I just see it as a tool that normal people use to keep themselves happy. And that's not depressing, to me. It's kind of ... annoying that people are so fragile that they have to do that in order to have a "normal" day, but I can't fault anyone for doing things that make them happy. I wasn't given that opportunity; I was weird and if I didn't conform then I got in trouble. Yet normal people LOSE THEIR FLIPPING MINDS when asked to consider my behaviors normal and to consider my various physical movements as normal and tolerable. You have never seen such orchestrated and immediate pushback in your life, I promise. But I was forced to do what they refuse to do, which is to accommodate the other side. So, if anything, I'm angry about it all. Not depressed.

I don't need those platitudes to feel happy or normal, I need to be alone to feel happy, most of the time.

Praise given in private is usually legitimate. I value that. I feel that. Praise given in front of others (like ceremonies and ritual award reception stuff) are the fakest fake activity known to humanity. The ceremonies are for normal people. People like me can simply be privately told "well done" and given a piece of paper that they can look at, and maybe a raise, and that's enough. And maybe a mention during the ceremony that I will not be attending so that people know about it, if they're interested.

[mft_]

Move to Europe, friend - a weight will be lifted.

[naikrovek]

I have wanted to for 20 years, but my children would not understand if I left them.

[InsideOutSanta]

One thing about Jobs is that he was genuinely excited about much of the stuff he was showing, and even if you knew he was showing some useless BS (like coverflow, something I remember he absolutely loved), it made it interesting to watch. If today's presenters are in any way excited about what they're showing (or, more likely, talking about), that excitement has been polished away by all the takes they probably had to film.

[TheOtherHobbes]

They're not genuinely excited. Because there isn't much to be genuinely excited about. The "incredible new super-exciting developments" are usually "okay, I guess."

Once in a while you get something like the M series chips, but the rest is reliably mid - functional, maybe a few nice tweaks, probably some better-than-average design, but nothing revolutionary.

So all of the "We know you're gonna love it!" doesn't land, because it's literally scripted and rehearsed, not spontaneous.

Jobs was rehearsed and passionate, which was part of the appeal.

It's debatable if Cook has ever been genuinely excited about anything.

[wpm]

Cook is excited about shaving a few dollars off the BOM, a few days off fulfillment times, and adding a few basis points to the stock price. It has made him a great CEO for Wall St., Apple employees with equity, and a lot of retirement funds.

But I can't recall him ever using a computer. I cannot, in my mind's eye, conjure an image of him sitting in front of a Mac and using it, whereas fuzzy black and white images of Jobs' messy-like-mine home office with a Power Mac G5 shaped external hard drive on his desk next to a 30" Cinema Display are trivial to remember. Like, when was the last time we saw him organically using any of the products the company sells?

Maybe it's just because he doesn't have the rizz, so I've just never seen the pictures, but he just feels like a dude who never goes into the Settings app and tweaks anything.

[jimbokun]

They try to imitate Steve's diction and mannerisms, without replicating his ability to concisely focus on the few things he wanted to stick with the audience.

[andrekandre]

  > imitate Steve

somehow i feel that describes the entire tech industry in some way...

[whywhywhywhy]

That parental controls presentation felt like the same 3 bullet points delivered 4 times over with the vibe of a group presentation where every team member had to present but there was only 1 slide of content between the bunch.

[proxy_skate]

It's a well known fact that it is quite difficult for some parents to setup and use parental controls, I believe it was just to fully explain it to people that might not know much about how parental controls work.

[whywhywhywhy]

its a developer presentation not a consumer one. Save it for the iPad refresh when parents are watching rather than wasting dev time on it.

Even then it could have been 15% of the time with literally the same info.

[rafram]

It used to be a developer presentation. Now the main WWDC keynote is just another product-focused Apple event (since it might as well be one if the tech press is already flying out for it), and the more in-the-weeds developer talks are held on other days.

[greedo]

And how many parents are watching a WWDC presentation?

[weikju]

More than you think. This stuff also percolates into the news, blogs, YouTube videos, etc, and that also reaches more parents.

[dkdbejwi383]

Maybe not the whole thing, but bits a pieces will filter down in clips on other social media platforms

[afandian]

Lots of governments. In the UK this has come up again in the past few days.

This came across as part lip service, part cheeky “this should be the parent’s job, not the state”.

[quentindanjou]

I also noticed the "And now" it appeared way too often in that presentation!

[Klonoar]

If they would stop all doing the exact same hand pose it might help. Feels like watching a cult. Been this way for years too.

If you didn’t notice it before, you’ll definitely notice it now.

[robotresearcher]

I hate it too. But watching untrained people nervously fidget with their hands or stand like stiffs has its own cringe.

A few of the keynote people kinda forgot how to walk normally on camera. It happens to me.

[CharlesW]

Apple presenters are coached on how to speak, how to stand/move, what to do with their hands, etc.

I can understand how it might seem culty, but it's in the service of clear communication to a global audience. Anyone who represents a company to important customers and/or the public goes through similar media training.

[Klonoar]

Yes, thank you for explaining PR 101 to me.

The comment is about how everyone in their videos does it. The over-use of it is the issue, like when you say a word too much and your brain stops understanding what it means.

[avazhi]

It’s basically LLM-slop in presentation form.

[faizmokh]

> It feels fake, because they speak in a way that sounds unnatural and overelaborate.

I’ve been to a few official Apple Developer events. What I’ve noticed is that they all have the same presentation style, to the point that it feels almost cult-like.

[wpm]

Which has always allowed shows like Severance and E Pluribus to get that added irony bonus.

What is Apple but Lumon with a less mysterious CEO and a rounder HQ?