Apple, Photoshop, and Focusing on the Wrong Thing

I’m over most of the big product announcements companies do anymore. I don’t need to watch a company parade it’s new thing out for two hours when I can read about what they’re releasing in a fraction of that time. I don’t care for the spectacle, just the specs. So when Apple had their annual iPhone/iPad announcement last week I just went about my day, one of my coworkers filling me in on the cooler parts as the event went on. And then he sent me this article: #Smilegate! Adobe Demos How To “Fix” Resting Bitch Face During iPad Pro Event”

As the day went on, I started seeing articles like this pop up in my social feeds. So now I had to go watch the Apple video (thanks for that, jerks) to get the proper context. As I was clicking around to find that part in the video (spoiler alert: the context is of creating a magazine, and editing photos would be part of that use case) I found something I wasn’t seeing a ton of people talking about. Women giving presentations during the event. Not some celebrity talking about how much easier tech makes being a mom. But women doing presentations on functionality of the device.

• Irene Walsh was showing how the company she works for, 3D4Medical, is going to use the iPad Pro to improve doctor visits.
• Michelle Peluso, CEO of Gilt, was showing off the new Apple TV’s dedicated app store with the Gilt app.
• Jen Folse, Apple Senior Design Producer, lead the demo of the new Apple TV.

These women being on stage, showing off core functionality of products at arguably one of the biggest tech announcements of the year, says more about how we’re moving forward than one short little clip about a magazine editor editing photos. Apple featured women in positions of power, talking about technology and features the same as any other presenter. To me, that’s huge. Do we have a long way to go? Absolutely. Even though there were women presenting, the people on stage were still pretty homogeneous. But we are moving in the right direction.

As an aside, if Apple forces One Republic on my iPod, I’m going to riot.