iPhone 6: What does Apple’s invite mean?

A sundial, a sine wave or simply a tease? Matt Warman unpacks Apple’s iPhone invite

Will Brussels force Apple to pay more in tax?
Will Brussels force Apple to pay more in tax? Credit: Photo: Reuters

When Tim Cook takes to the stage at Cupertino’s Flint Center on 9 September to announce the new iPhone, it will be 30 years since Steve Jobs announced the first Mac at the same venue. Apple is returning to where, folklore claims, their founder started a revolution. It's a conscious raising of the bar of expectation.

As soon as the invite hit inboxes, speculation began to abound on what it meant – zooming in on the Apple logo, some see a sine wave indicating a focus on health. Others perceive the tip of a finger pressing a button, emphasising identity, or a sundial indicating a watch. Then there’s the fact that the date, 9/9, is two sixes upside down, indicating two models of the iPhone 6. But the tagline probably says everything Apple is willing to: “Wish we could say more.” There is no teasing this time round, despite a long history of cunning and cryptic invites to previous Apple launches.

Apple's invitation to the exclusive event

Apple's invitation to the September 'special event'

The rumours suggest that Apple will announce a phone with built-in near field communications (NFC) which could be used for payments, as well as models with a larger screen, and an iWatch, which will act in all likelihood as both a remote control for the phone and as a fitness monitor. But with so many rumours, some of them conflicting, and a two-year wait for the iWatch, Apple has little need to further stoke the fires. And in the invite the company clearly has the willpower to resist doing so. They don’t really wish they could say more; Apple revels in saying nothing.

This is the first such invite to be sent out since the retirement of veteran PR boss Katie Cotton, and some will look for a change in tone: she left Apple just before the worldwide developer conference in June, and many detect that the famously secretive company is opening up slightly. While the invite shows none of that, it shamelessly attempts to pique the interest of an already salivating public.

And the company has certainly succeeded. But in going back to the Flint Center, Apple has made sure that journalists, shareholders and users will accept nothing less than a truly ground-breaking new product. With any other brand, one might think that all the other venues were booked. But with Apple, precious little is accidental. On September 9, Cook will need to make it clear that Apple is ready to foster another revolution; even arch rivals such as Samsung will relish the prospect of Apple setting itself up for such a fall, but they will also – more importantly – fear where they will be left if Apple succeeds. They, of all people, wish the company would say more.