More importantly, however, with the world up in arms over the "rumour" that the ubiquitous headphone jack would be removed from the iPhone 7, everyone was curious to know how Apple would explain killing off this star character.
Phil Schiller’s answer? "Courage. The courage to move on and do something new that betters all of us." If this was meant to be a comedy, it would have been a blockbuster but, sadly, our film metaphor comes crashing to an end with this statement.
This was not courage, it was hubris; and a sign that the reality distortion field may have gone too far.
In the past, Apple has led the charge in abandoning antiquated technologies, such as the floppy drive, based on understanding the needs of its customers but, this time around, no real problem was being solved beyond how to create an ongoing accessory revenue stream.
A social storm
Reaction across social media has been vicious and has resulted in the creation of several memes. Kickstarter campaigns have been started to fund battery cases that bring back the headphone jack.
And perhaps the most telling sign of all that this product missed the mark is the fact that, over the past month, we have begun to see Apple’s competitors call out the launch in an attempt to exploit the situation.
For example, Google recently announced that its flagship Pixel has a "3.5mm headphone jack – satisfyingly not new". When you have a great product, your competition will go to great lengths to advertise that they have the same features and, when you don’t, they will spend even more time pointing out how they differ.
So how is this actually hurting Apple? Without sales figures reported, it is difficult to say but observers are estimating launch sales to be down more than 20%. These estimates ring true because, beyond the headphone debacle, the improvements to the devices were marginal at best and make an upgrade difficult to justify outside of the natural replacement cycle.
Parting advice to Apple? Treat this as a wake-up call. Stop making feature films and get back to developing innovative products that people actually want while you’re still a market leader.
(The author is chief technology officer, international of DigitasLBi. This article first appeared on CampaignLive.co.uk)