Apple, Please Don’t Enter Middle Age With Me: WWDC Left Aspiration Behind

There was something missing from Apple’s WWDC keynote this year. And no, it wasn’t Craig Federighi jumping out of an airplane, but that certainly didn’t help matters. It was the fact that there were no exotic locations, over-the-top demos or fancy transitions. Just casual walking shots around Apple’s campus with real-life scenarios that had an almost alarming air of relatability for anyone who’s entered the “responsible” years of adulthood. It’s almost like Apple took its 50th to heart and was trying to personify its actual age. 

As an older millennial in the throes of parenthood, leaving my 30s behind and staring hormonal changes in the face, it felt less like the future and more like Apple sitting us down for a chat: we see you, you’re overwhelmed — and here’s some help. Apple’s usual we’re-cooler-than-you posture was mostly absent this year.

There was a solid 10-minute stretch dedicated to parental controls and Apple’s Screen Time, including how to manage kids’ device usage, set allowances, blur out disturbing content and approve apps and contacts. That’s all super useful stuff in this weird, slightly unhinged digital landscape we’re all being forced to parent in, but by the end of it, I’m convinced Apple had lost the Gen Z crowd.

And once “perimenopause” entered the chat, any remaining stragglers very likely checked out mentally. Menopause, as it turns out, is not a moment but a years-long hormonal transition that’s only recently been properly mapped as perimenopause. It’s a very buzzy topic for older millennials approaching their 40s, and apparently now part of the Health app story. Great for consumers like me, less great for youthful tech vibes.

Apple even managed to take arguably the coolest AI feature to come out of the entire keynote and make it seem tailor-made for the suburban minivan crowd. Spatial Reframing gives you the power to change the angle of a picture after it’s been taken. The subjects look the same, but the perspective shifts based on where you wish you would’ve taken it from in the first place. It seems truly useful, especially because you can apply it to older photos, too, and even photos taken with other phones. But during the WWDC keynote, instead of demoing it with some cinematic shot of an edgy model posing alongside some epic natural wonder, the demo was the presenter’s kid’s last day of school photo in what was very clearly a suburban backyard. That was literally my reality last week — and it hits a little too close to home. 

If the intent was to make this year’s WWDC more relatable, then they certainly accomplished that. Google recently got some flak for being completely out of touch with the average person. My colleague, CNET editor at large Andrew Lanxon, appreciated that Apple was speaking to the tech owner next to you, rather than one in the private plane far above. But I missed the old “this is the coolest company on Earth and you want to be part of it” that made Apple’s developer conferences stand out. I spent years trying to become Apple’s demo user, but now that I’m here, I’m not entirely sure I’m enjoying the experience.

Until this year’s WWDC, Apple’s entire identity was built on aspiration. It sold you the version of yourself that was cooler, more creative, more free. The genius of its marketing was always the gap between who you were and who the product implied you could be. It’s not that I don’t appreciate what the tech giant has done; it’s just that watching the company close that gap entirely, though pragmatically useful, is aesthetically a little disappointing. Part of me still wanted Apple to sell me a cooler life, and I wasn’t prepared for it to show up as a reflection of the one I’m already living.