Apple Announcement via Tim Cook Interview with Gayle King Tomorrow on ‘CBS This MORNING’
I can’t quite imagine what this could be. There are a few things I think it could be, but none seem any more likely than the next.
King made it a point to clarify that Apple’s announcement is not necessarily related to Cook’s comments about holding Donald Trump accountable, and that this announcement/interview was already scheduled. It wouldn’t be like Apple to just whip something up in the days following the attack on the Capitol; this is something they’ve been working on for a while. That said, it did seem relevant enough that they made room in the interview for questions about what should happen to Trump and others who incited the insurrection, so that leads me to think this is something related to politics. Some people think it will be COVID related, but that just doesn’t seem likely to me. Apple has already done the contact tracing thing, and it was rather poorly received. I can’t think of much else they could do in that realm, especially things that would be more well-implemented.
If I’m correct that it will be more related to politics than COVID, there are a number of projects I would like for Apple to be working on that seem within their wheelhouse and could solve some of the problems with our politics. A search engine or social media network that actually values privacy and doesn’t lead people to misinformation would be great, but those both seem too close to “products”, even though they aren’t products in the physical-device sense.
If I had to guess what we’re going to see, I would say they’ll announce something along the lines of a software framework or program that is designed to spur citizens to take more initiative in shaping our politics. Maybe some sort of donation program, or a way to contact legislators and share feedback. Highly unlikely given the challenges of working with 50 different state governments, but what if they’d worked out a secure, verifiable platform for digital voting; that would be revolutionary and absolutely more exciting than any product they could announce.
Time will tell, but I’m very excited to hear what they’ve got to say.