Indecent Pro-posal: iPhone 11 & the Fiction of the Professional

On Tuesday, 11 September 2019, Apple announced its latest tranche of new iPhones: the iPhone 11, the iPhone 11 Pro and the oddly named iPhone 11 Pro Max. After using the monicker ‘pro’ for its MacBook and iPad lineups, Apple finally gave in and affixed the suffix to its latest, greatest, iPhone.

There has been a lot of talk online about Apple’s definition and use of the term ‘pro’. Tech’ forums, hobbyists and creative professionals have all got themselves into a furore around the word, especially following the introduction of the iPad Pro in 2016. The peace treaty following all the bellyaching: we’re all pros at something, so let’s all get along. The thing is, by bringing the term to the iPhone, Apple is showing what it really means by the term ‘pro’ and it reveals a great deal about its business and its changing values as a company.

I decided to watch Phil Schiller’s part of the keynote presentation and count the number of times he said ‘pro’ (excepting the times when he referenced the product name). Schiller had clearly been told to pump up the audience after a dire performance from his colleagues and he referenced the word ‘pro’ nineteen times during his time in stage. Every transition slide had the word ‘pro’ added to it.

This is nothing new for Apple. One recent brand analysis cited the word ‘pro’ as the most commonly used ‘unique adjectives’ in Apple keynote presentations. Unfortunately, for Schiller, I think something in the messaging this time was wrong.

Here are two of the most jarring examples. Schiller referred to the phone’s new shade of grey as ‘very pro’ and, in my highlight at 1h 25min, referenced the updated typeface in the camera app (itself a mildly revised version of their San Francisco font developed for Apple Watch) as ‘so pro’. I estimate that five people in the room laughed after the words awkwardly tripped from Schiller’s lips.

So, what does this mean? Perhaps this was all filler as other key product announcements were removed from the keynote a the last minute. Certainly, the iPhone 11 Pro product website doesn’t contain half the weird references to pro-ness. As you can see below, the language is far more circumspect.

Schiller announced that the use of the word ‘pro’ denotes ‘for us…a device pros can count on to get their word done’. Alternatively, it is something to which the rest of us, mere mortals, can aspire. This last part is the key.

Take the items that Schiller and the developers arrayed on stage during this part of the keynote described as ‘pro’. Almost all of them are available on the less expensive, and considerably less pro, iPhone 11: the camera app, the wide angle camera lens, the immensely powerful A13 Bionic chipset, the wireless architecture, the new sound system. I could go on. Yes, iPhone 11 Pro has a few standout features but these do not fundamentally alter the premise of the device. What was key here was that the Pro was being used to produce a halo effect in the product categories that sit beneath it. Keen observers have noticed how even Apple is doing very little to differentiate these products in its promotional material.

As John Gruber pointed out, ‘sometimes [pro] just means premium’. Certainly, plenty of MacBook Pro and iPad Pro owners just want the best, shiniest, thing (as my partner told me once ‘all the gear, no idea’). Moreover, as Gruber points out, some folks do work professionally on both products. But these fluid rules don’t apply to the massively expensive Mac Pro (unless you are, and I mean categorically, an imbecile). There’s something more problematic: while people can argue about the definition of ‘pro’ workflows, I think we can all agree that a superb camera system only covers one, very specific, type of workflow.

So we’re back to the halo effect. But why do you need a halo effect on a product as well-known, and loved, as the iPhone? Well, this is a tacit admission that brand strategy is now easier to come by and cheaper for Apple to execute than its returns on iPhone sales. This marks a moment in a longer chain of events that show that Apple has ceased to be the iPhone company and will invest in other areas of interest (especially service revenue).

There’s a problem with this approach. Granted, Apple has always been good at the reality distortion field, but it has usually given users the products they knew they were buying. This time, at least for this generation of iPhone, I think they have deployed the term one too many times. This sort of strategy is based more on making money (shock horror) than thinking about what customers really need. It also contributes to Apple’s two-tier luxury strategy, where functionality no longer dictates price, but aesthetics, style and external appearances. Invoking the fiction of the ‘pro’ is a key part of this trend.

Steve Jobs spoke of bicycles for the mind. And unless I’m getting the metaphor totally wrong, I don’t think those bicycles were made from different materials depending on your income.