Today, Apple used a rejected stock photo to announce that it’s having an event on September 7. The company is all but guaranteed to release a new iPhone or two, along with possibly unveiling a new Apple Watch and/or new Macbooks. It’s all pretty straightforward.
But, because it’s Monday afternoon on the internet and we still have over a week to wait for the actual event, let’s speculate wildly about what those colorful dots might actually mean.
DON’T MISS: Here comes the iPhone 7: Apple just sent invites for a big event on September 7th
Luckily, Twitter is ON IT with a bevy of #hottakes:
I see a pair of eyes from some colored-light creature, with a monobrow pic.twitter.com/HVF5ez7KYK
— Scott Stein (@jetscott) August 29, 2016
https://twitter.com/pierce/status/770293206839799808
Seriously though, this looks like the show flyers I designed for my friends’ local band in high school. https://t.co/sVlsqsqfMR
— Carl Franzen (@carlfranzen) August 29, 2016
https://twitter.com/geoffreyfowler/status/770293223038316544
New Apple event on September 7th. Probably for iPhone 7. See what they did there? pic.twitter.com/nMlO7Jahwr
— Marques Brownlee (@MKBHD) August 29, 2016
https://twitter.com/jjvincent/status/770295188052905984
The invite for Apple's new iPhone event shows photo bokeh. The possibility of iPhones w/ depth of field is exciting. pic.twitter.com/St7gxum68a
— Matt Galligan (@mg) August 29, 2016
Phil: “Tim doesn’t like the bokeh iPhone event invitation graphic.”
Me: “What!? Why!?”
P: “BECAUSE IT LACKS FOCUS!”
Me: “Fuck you, Phil…”
— ᴺᴼᵀ Jony Ive (@JonyIveParody) August 29, 2016
Amongst all the navel-gazing over an event invite, there are actually some details we can tease out of the event invite. It’s basically a stock photo for bokeh, the effect you get with a camera with objects that are out of focus. Good bokeh (like you see in the invite image) is traditionally the preserve of expensive cameras with big lenses, exactly the kind of thing that’s missing from smartphone photography.
So, the obvious deduction is that Apple is planning a major camera update. Leaks have shown us camera modules with two sensors (and two lenses) on the iPhone 7 Plus, so it’s very possible the bigger iPhone will have a better camera that can produce, uh, very pretty event invites.
Nothing else jumps out from the event invite. The location and time are exactly in line with previous Apple events, and there’s precious little else I can tease out from the event image. But if you can channel your inner Da Vinci Code, there’s probably some Illuminati symbols waiting to be found.
