M.G. Siegler, writing on his Spyglass blog:

Close your eyes for a moment. Imagine the year is 2034. Apple has just held their event to unveil the iPhone 26 and the iPhone 26 Pro and the iPhone 26 Pro Max. They are powered by the A28 and A28 Pro chips. Perhaps an A28 Turbo Bionic for the iPhone 26 Pro Max Ultra. That chip is similar to the M14, but different. All of these devices run iOS 26 featuring Apple Intelligence X. Also new this year: the AirPods 14 and the AirPods Pro 11 and the AirPods Max 7. Most of these have the H8 chip, which can run Apple Intelligence 7, but some have H7 which runs Apple Intelligence 6. And we have the Apple Watch Series 20. And the Apple Watch SE (6th generation). And the Apple Watch Max 8. These all either run on the S20 or S19 or S18 chips. And they run run watchOS 21, which features Apple Intelligence 8.

This is a joke but it also feels pretty likely to be true! And it’s illustrative of my point. It’s great that Apple has hit a groove with such wonderful products. But hit that groove enough times and it wears down and out. I’m not saying Steve Jobs would have killed the iPhone 16, I’m just saying he would have figured out a better way to package it and market it and present it.

At some point, Apple needs to stop focusing on pushing out iterative updates at marquee events that people will tire of – some already are. At the very least, they need to stop focusing on too-slick video presentations and focus on the energy of live events again. There’s a reason the Steve Jobs movie was built around three separate live events, not video demos.

M.G. is killing it on Spyglass. It’s one of my favorite daily reads. What a great take.