What Does ‘Awe Dropping’ Even Imply? Decoding Apple’s iPhone 17 Occasion Announcement

Apple’s massive fall occasion is lower than per week away, and we’re nonetheless puzzling over the tagline and animated emblem that accompanied invites to the Sept. 9 “Awe dropping” gathering. Is the enduring Apple emblem on fireplace? Does it portend a brand new heat-sensing characteristic of the Vision Pro that may make you’re feeling like a Predator searching prey by the jungle? 

Or possibly a designer at Apple simply got here up with a cool-looking impact and thought it could be enjoyable to make use of it? Nah, the corporate has a historical past of enigmatic teases, so there have to be a purpose. Until we all know for positive, it is open-season on hypothesis.

Why does Apple tease its occasions like this? Obviously, one purpose is to encourage articles just like the one you are studying. But additionally, in an surroundings the place particulars about what’s coming invariably get leaked forward of time, it is a solution to pique curiosity and add a way of — sure, I’m going to say it — magic. It’s no bombshell like Taylor Swift getting engaged, however we are able to nonetheless have enjoyable scrutinizing Apple’s hidden clues.

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The hottest occasion of the season

One 12 months in the past, Apple teased its upcoming fall occasion with “It’s Glowtime” and an Apple emblem design that highlighted the brand new Siri glow as a part of Apple Intelligence. Unfortunately, the precise “glowtime” acquired pushed out just a few weeks, for the reason that AI know-how wasn’t able to ship with the remainder of iOS 18 and the iPhone 16 line. And the truth is, Apple Intelligence itself turned out to have much less of a glow and extra of an disagreeable aroma because it didn’t ship what Apple hyped. (To be truthful, I’ve discovered a number of Apple Intelligence options to be useful on a day-to-day foundation, however they do not dwell as much as the corporate’s imaginative and prescient on the time.)

So now we’ve a design that evokes a warmth map, notably once you view it animated; go to Apple.com to see it in motion. Not solely that, it is interactive: Press a finger (telephone or pill) or pointer with the mouse or trackpad held (on a pc) on the brand to make a vivid orange “warm” spot seem, then drag it round. Also discover that the perimeters of the brand behave the best way Liquid Glass objects in iOS 26 do, with the sunshine bending based on the contour of the glassy form.

What does a warmth map evoke within the context of recent Apple merchandise? Heat is the nemesis of cell electronics, which shut down after they get too toasty. Perhaps the rumored A19 Pro chip is so highly effective that it simply runs scorching, resulting in Apple flipping an issue into a chance: “At Apple, we believe that overheating phones are a feature. It’s the evolution of Screen Time parental controls, but designed for everybody: When you’ve been on your phone too long, it shuts off to force you to do something else.”

I notably preferred considered one of my colleague’s options that the iPhone 17 fashions will get “Predator vision,” a sensor that reveals close by warmth signatures. Surprisingly, that is not such an outlandish thought. You should purchase thermal cameras that hook up with a telephone and may reveal hotspots that you simply would possibly in any other case miss, corresponding to within the dwelling.

Although not as visually thrilling, the Pixel 8 Pro, Pixel 9 Pro and Pixel 10 Pro every embody a thermometer amid the digital camera array that can be utilized to test floor temps of issues like meals, cookware or different telephones whereas enjoying video games on them.

Still, I can not think about Apple placing a temperature sensor on the iPhone, a lot much less one that will generate a warmth map of the encircling space.

Perhaps I’m being too literal. Could the orange and blue colours trace at two attainable new colours for the iPhone 17 Pro?

Dropping some awe-someness

The slogan can also be a curiosity, seeing as how the very last thing you need to do with a telephone is drop it. The iPhone 17 Pro is rumored to characteristic an aluminum shell this time round, supplanting the titanium chassis of the iPhone 16 Pro, so maybe the brand new fashions shall be extra resilient to the on a regular basis knocks that our telephones endure?

Of course, “awe dropping” may simply be a pun of “jaw dropping,” provided that Apple will definitely make the declare that this 12 months’s merchandise are the perfect, quickest ones the corporate has ever made. Somewhere at Apple Park there have to be a robust government who cannot let an excellent (or dangerous) pun go un-shared. Consider “It’s Glowtime” for the iPhone 16 and Apple Intelligence, “Wonderlust” for the iPhone 15, or “Far Out” for the iPhone 14 — all groan-worthy performs on phrases of frequent phrases.

Apple’s invites weren’t all the time so coy — or punny. Here’s a set of former invitations starting from 2008 by 2013 that had been extra simple however nonetheless entertaining.

Like any good puzzle, many of the enjoyable is attempting to determine it out. Hopefully, what Apple reveals on Sept. 9 shall be well worth the wait.