Apple’s iPhone 16 Event Needed a Celebrity Cameo

Apple’s September event is always one of the biggest tech events of the year, and this year is no exception. Today’s Glowtime event unveiled the new iPhone 16, Apple Watch Series 10, a new black finish for the Watch Ultra 2, AirPods 4 and AirPod Max. We’ve also got a more in-depth look at the new photo, video and audio updates that will be able to run with iOS 18 and Apple Intelligence.

Tech events like these are a big deal for users and tech enthusiasts. To nobody’s surprise, AI has been the dominant theme at this year’s slew of events, especially for developer-centric ones like Apple’s WWDC and Google I/O. A new wave of mobile AI means that AI-powered software features took a seat right next to next-generation smartphones, which are usually the stars of the show.

During the lead up to Apple’s event, I was wondering who Apple might bring out to spice up its event. Taylor Swift seemed unlikely given her schedule (but a girl can dream!). Maybe someone from the NFL since football season just began? Charli XCX, with some kind of brat reference? I might even settle for OpenAI’s Sam Altman taking the stage with Tim Cook to talk about the ChatGPT integration coming with Apple Intelligence — CNET did spot him at WWDC earlier this year, after all.

Unfortunately for me, the answer was no one. It’s made extra disappointing by the fact that Samsung and Google absolutely knocked it out of the park earlier this summer with celebrity cameos.

Samsung’s Unpacked event in July featured its ambassador Sydney Sweeney, who made a surprise cameo during a demo of a new AI image editing tool. Samsung Unpacked was held at the Louvre in July and introduced many, many AI features included with the new Galaxy Z Flip 6 and Fold 6. Even if Sweeney didn’t look overly thrilled to be there, her unexpected appearance brought some fun into a deluge of AI features. 

Made by Google, which introduced the new Pixel lineup, also had some fun star surprises. Keke Palmer popped out on stage during an AI demo to plug the company’s official after party that she hosted. Jimmy Butler also popped out to showcase how the Add Me Pixel camera feature could merge multiple people into one photo.

Apple was on the right track when it showed a clip of The Weeknd’s new music video that used its visual intelligence. But the clip was only a minute and didn’t inject any life or personality into the presentation, which is the whole purpose of including a celebrity cameo. It’s hard to imagine Apple couldn’t pull off a cameo if it wanted to — last year’s event featured Octavia Spencer in one video — which means it must not have wanted to. We could’ve had someone like Olympian gold medalist Stephen Nedoroscik, who was seen in the demo room with Tim Cook.

That makes it even more disappointing that today’s presentation was given by a rotating cast of executives with prerecorded spiels. That’s fine, but given that the summer’s events had live demos and celebrity guests, it made today’s event monotonous and boring by comparison. If tech companies are going to make us sit through two hours of jargon-laced and AI-heavy sales pitches, we should at least get a celebrity cameo to liven things up.