While the New York Times continues to give slobbery kisses to Apple and its iPhones every chance it gets, there has been some inevitable criticism following yesterday's splashy September product unveiling. First among the concerns is the new iPhone feature called Live Photo, which as Gawker points out, means that the camera app is quietly recording audio and video of you all the time unless you opt out of this feature.
Apple spins this as being able to enrich your photos with "living memories" and all "the moments just before and after it was taken, captured with movement and sound." But yes, it does sound like that means constant surveillance when the camera app is open, and way bigger photo files if they all have video attached. Did anyone ask for this?
Other backlash has come in response to the Adobe presentation of their new apps for the iPad Pro, in particular the moment when Adobe designer Eric Snowden demonstrated how the app Adobe Fix can "fix" a model's mouth to make her smile more. As the Sydney Morning Herald and others have noted, this stirred plenty of Twitter unrest over concepts of female beauty and the offensive penchant of men telling women to "smile" in order to be more attractive or friendly looking.
Also, as ABC News reported, there was plenty of internet snark in response to the stylus they've dubbed the Apple Pencil, in particular because Steve Jobs once upon a time threw some snark at phones with styluses, in order to brag about the original iPhone's touch interface.
So glad so many people are wasting breath on a product unveiling when there are a few important things going on in the world. But here I am doing the same.
Previously: Apple Unveils Revolutionary Updates To TV, Rose Gold iPhone, New iPad Pro [Liveblog]