For practical purposes, summer is over. Kids are back in school, football is on TV, and only the straggling, least-favored flavors of hard seltzers remain in the fridge (a rotating cast of local Oktoberfest brews has taken center stage). All of these things signal that “Techtember” is upon us.
Techtember is defined - according to the authoritative and reliable Urban Dictionary - as, “a time period in Autumn and Winter where the majority of new tech is announced.”
I’d argue that the time period does not extend to winter, and is completed by very early October, but at any rate, Techtember is now here. It is so-named due to the general ramping up of the consumer tech news cycle, beginning in September, and the season’s goal is to build up excitement, just before the world enters the consumerist holiday season.
But the excitement doesn’t seem to be there. At least in my opinion, the 2023 news cycle feels a little mellow to me. For example, take the hallmark event of Techtember, Apple’s creatively named “Apple Event,” in which they unveil their new lineups of products.
Apple is expected to unveil the iPhone 15, which we’re already reasonably sure will be just subtly different from the iPhone 14, which was only very subtly different from the iPhone 13, none of which are radically different from the iPhone 8.
There’s nothing at the Apple Event I’m excited, or even interested, to see. I can’t imagine why anyone should care about this event, and yet, journalists traveled there today (Monday) just so they could witness it all live, in person. Feels a bit more forced than usual.
I’m not just picking on Apple. This criticism extends to Google as well, who have their event (the “Made by Google Event") on October 6 (which some are erroneously claiming falls in Techtober, failing to understand the Techtember encompasses the full tech hype cycle, irrespective of the Gregorian calendar). Google is having a whole event to hype the next iteration of their phone (Pixel 8) and watch (Pixel Watch 2). I’m going out on a limb and predicting that 99.9% of the world’s population will be unable to distinguish last year’s Google watch and phone from this year’s new watch and phone.
In short, I have a total lack of curiosity - much less enthusiasm - about these product announcements. All of these devices are little more than cosmetic alterations of the their predecessors. There’s nothing getting released this Techtember season that I’m going to want to go to the store and look at in person. Maybe next year, I’ll at least hope that I’ve got a wealthy friend who lets me try their Vision Pro headset - that thing is at least interesting, whether it’s the future or not. There’s nothing remotely magical like the Vision Pro hitting the shelves this fall though.
Why is this Such a Boring Techtember?
We have hit a bit of a wall with consumer tech innovations, it would seem. So, what’s going on?
Well, one explanation is that maybe all these electronics companies are doing a little bit of catch-up from AI. After all, ChatGPT was only sprung upon us about a year ago. I have been told, ad nauseam, that AI large-language models will rapidly transform the world, with infinite and unfathomable innovations. Perhaps there are some mind-blowing and fun toys coming down the pike, but still in development. Could it be that all of our Techtember 2023 projects were tabled and cancelled back in January, as the teams at Apple, Google, Sony, Nintendo, etc., set off to make revolutionary new products for 2024, with the new AI tools at their disposal?
That seems like an overly optimistic take. For all the hype, I’ve yet to see much of a real-world, fun, or practical application of ChatGPT in my life.
Another, more pessimistic explanation might be the polarization of our economy. As in, there are some fun new toys out there, but only for the very wealthy. As I mentioned earlier, the Apple Vision Pro is compelling; but that device is starting at $3,500 and is entirely out of reach for normal people. On that note, there’s a whole market of cutting-edge gadgets and technology for sale right now: I’m talking about EVs. EVs are the most fun and exciting toys on the shelf, but those are generally considered “luxury” cars, and thoroughly outside of my budget, for sure.
So it could be that all our brightest engineers are now catering exclusively to the yacht-owning tier of the economy, and moving away from us common people.
Still, that seems like a little bit of a dramatic take. A third and more reasonable possibility is that I am getting old, and losing my child-like wonderment at the world. As I write these Substack articles, I periodically re-read my preceding paragraphs, in an attempt to give the article a good flow, and here’s the thing - reading this article, I can’t help but hear it being read in the voice of Andy Rooney. Now that I think of it, my eyebrows are starting to have some rogue stragglers that are growing to alarming length.
So it could just be me. Then again, maybe, at the upcoming Apple and Google events, they’ll shock the world and announce some new, fun, well-kept secret device, in which case, I’ll happily do a follow-up article, and take back all I’ve said above.
In the meantime, maybe this Christmas I should just hope for a nice eyebrow, nose, and ear hair trimmer set.