The Launch Avalanche No One Asked For
Apple has lined up ten more products for release in the coming cycle. Ten. Because apparently, the cure for market stagnation isn’t innovation—it’s attrition. If one shiny rectangle doesn’t hypnotize you, surely ten will.
The list reads like a fever dream of incrementalism: a faster Apple TV, a refreshed HomePod mini, AirTag 2, an M5 iPad Pro, a slightly improved Vision Pro, an iPhone 17e, MacBook Pro and Air with M5, a mini-LED Studio Display, and a long-rumored smart home hub. Ten reminders that everything you own is already outdated.
This is Apple’s new formula. Not “one more thing,” but “ten more things, and please stop pretending you can resist.”
Apple TV: The Box Nobody Asked For
First up, the faster Apple TV. A17 Pro chip, N1 networking, Wi-Fi 7, revamped Siri. All inside the same anonymous black rectangle you will forget exists behind your television.
Apple has been trying to make Apple TV matter for a decade. Every update promises revolution, and every consumer answers: “We already own a Roku.” This year, the difference is faster chips and a Siri that still thinks “play Succession” means “search for soccer drills on YouTube.”
But that’s the point. Apple TV is less about streaming and more about charging you $200 for an HDMI dongle with couture branding. P.S. I love mine.
HomePod Mini 2: Alexa in Prada
Next is the refreshed HomePod mini. It gets a new S-series chip, UWB support, and probably Apple’s N1 just so your weather updates require the processing power of a small country.
It will still play music. It will still misunderstand you. It will still cost twice as much as the Amazon Echo you stuffed into a closet.
But Siri will now sound smug while ignoring you. Ask for Beyoncé, get Bon Jovi. Ask for Bon Jovi, get silence. Call it the Apple touch.
AirTag 2: Now With Louder Panic
AirTag 2 is coming with three times the range, new anti-tamper speakers, and the same moral queasiness of explaining to friends why your devices keep ending up in their cars.
This is Apple’s stalking solution: louder beeps. Because nothing says “safety” like turning your potential nightmare into surround sound.
Apple doesn’t care if you lose your luggage or your dignity—only that you keep buying small metal buttons that prove your paranoia belongs in their ecosystem.
iPad Pro M5: The Professional Netflix Clipboard
The iPad Pro with M5 promises dual front cameras and more processing power than a desktop workstation. None of it will make the iPad less of a cursed middle child between iPhone and MacBook.
For years, Apple has tried to convince us the iPad is a computer. It isn’t. It’s a $1,200 clipboard for streaming television and signing PDFs you pretend to read.
Dual cameras? So you can video chat from two flattering angles while wondering why you didn’t just buy a laptop.
Vision Pro Speed Bump: Space Black Delusion
Vision Pro will get an M4 or M5 chip, a new strap, and maybe—if you squint hard enough—a Space Black option.
The strap fix is Apple’s way of admitting the original felt like a sleep apnea mask duct-taped to your skull. The new finish is Apple’s way of distracting you from the fact that it’s still a $3,500 scuba mask for checking email in mixed reality.
Yes, the chip will be faster. Yes, you’ll still look like a cyborg intern at Best Buy.
iPhone 17e: The Rectangle That Won’t Die
The iPhone 17e arrives with the A19 chip, faster, thinner, glossier. It looks like the iPhone 16, which looked like the iPhone 15, which looked like the iPhone 14.
The “e” presumably stands for “enough already.”
Every year, the camera bump shifts by two millimeters just to make your old case obsolete. Every year, the bezels shrink by a hair so you can feel inferior. It’s not a phone anymore—it’s an annual humiliation cycle you willingly finance.
MacBook Pro and Air: The M5 Redemption Tour
The MacBook Pro and Air will both get the M5 chip, ensuring that anyone who bought an M3 last year is now a digital peasant.
This is Apple’s true genius: monetizing obsolescence. They don’t sell you performance; they sell you shame. You’ll buy the upgrade not because you need it, but because the thought of your laptop compiling 0.3 seconds slower than someone else’s fills you with dread.
Studio Display: Finally Worth Looking At
Apple’s Studio Display is finally getting mini-LED. Translation: it may actually look like it deserves its $1,600 price tag.
Until now, it was essentially a glorified iMac screen duct-taped to a stand. Now, it will at least achieve the visual quality of a mid-range LG TV from Best Buy. Apple calls this innovation. The rest of us call it catching up.
Smart Home Hub: The Digital Chaperone
The long-rumored smart home hub is finally on the way. It will sit in the middle of your kitchen like a judgmental roommate.
Lights, locks, cameras, thermostats—it will run your entire house. More importantly, it will report your bedtime routine to Apple Intelligence, so the algorithm can decide if you’re a real adult or just a renter with delusions of grandeur.
This isn’t a hub. It’s a parole officer.
The Ten-Product Gospel
This is Apple’s strategy now: drown you. Don’t create one product that changes the world. Create ten products that remind you your current life is obsolete.
Apple no longer innovates. It curates inadequacy. Each device seeds Apple Intelligence into another corner of your existence. The TV, the hub, the tracker, the watch, the display—every launch is another tether.
Not to delight you. To exhaust you.
Summary: Obsolescence as a Service
Apple’s upcoming slate of ten launches is less about innovation and more about attrition. A faster Apple TV, a new HomePod mini, AirTag 2, an M5 iPad Pro, a speed-bumped Vision Pro, the iPhone 17e, MacBooks with M5, a mini-LED Studio Display, and a long-rumored smart home hub are designed to make your current devices feel inadequate, not to deliver wonder. Apple’s true product isn’t hardware—it’s humiliation, packaged as progress. The company no longer sells “one more thing.” It sells the inevitability of obsolescence, ten times over.