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Comment by dreamer7 | Hacker News Reader

One interesting thing to note is how much more high-budget Hollywood style Apple's event feels in comparison to Google's event. Having watched the two events on successive days, some things stand out -

Apple throws numbers repeatedly at you through out the presentation and you end up remembering quite a few useless statistics (55.7 billion transitors in M1 Max)

Apple makes a much bigger deal about each device with lots of close ups and pseudo x-raying of the product. Google just throws in a Pro with an extra camera that you can barely make out on the dark glass.

Apple spends several minutes talking about their SoC. Google says it spent years on Tensor and just leaves it as a shiny golden box.

The weirdest thing in the Google presentation is that several sections had presenters talking to a different camera than facing the screen. That just felt very strange.

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"The weirdest thing in the Google presentation is that several sections had presenters talking to a different camera than facing the screen. That just felt very strange."

The camera director is probably living in a different decade, these side shots were used a lot 20 years ago, and it was still annoying then.

Yeah it's amazing how other companies are unable to generate hype or awe in their presentations. I consider most Android/Windows products quite ugly but even the pretty ones are just not marketed or shot well. Notice how Apple always has their laptops displaying some stunning photo? Or how it shoots the phones to emphasize the shiny, reflective metal? It's so simple yet other companies utterly fail at it.

I remember reading about how Jobs would rehearse product releases for months, even going as far as to demand that the fire exit lights be turned off. I don't advocate for putting your audience at risk but it does demonstrate the fanatical obsession with presentation that has remained at Apple.

> Notice how Apple always has their laptops displaying some stunning photo? Or how it shoots the phones to emphasize the shiny, reflective metal? It's so simple yet other companies utterly fail at it.

I'm looking at the Pixel product page, and the pictures are a mix of blurry - pixelated - showing compression artefacts, banding, in addition of the pictures being super bland and boring. Even the animations are stuttering. It's mind-blowing...

EDIT: Just looked at Samsung's page and it's not much better.

> The weirdest thing in the Google presentation is that several sections had presenters talking to a different camera than facing the screen. That just felt very strange.

B-Camera angles are common in interviews. It's to help create a less formal and less stuffy 'presentation' like feel. It's intended to be more of a "you're standing there, somewhat behind the scenes" feel.

It is also one way to obscure the fact that someone's using a teleprompter because it is more difficult to see that their eyes are moving back and forth.

From what I watched of the presentation, there was also a fair bit of moving around. In my studio, we primarily used it as a way to hide main camera adjustments in the edit, usually from the interviewee changing positions, slouching, etc. Generally, a high enough quality production will never rely on a single camera regardless.

I went back and checked Apple's keynote and noticed that all their presenters faced the camera. But the camera itself was panning slightly which helped, as you said, to feel less stuffy. Nice!

Apple has next level processors, it makes sense for them to brag about them. Tensor is good processor, but nothing special, except for the TPU in combination with their ML. So they focused on the UX enabled by that.

Is this also a difference in audience though? Yesterday's event was geared mainly towards creative professionals who are both more technical than average as well as have specific technical needs. Today's is towards the average consumer for a consumer device (even though it's called the "Pro").

Apple has many products aimed at general consumers, all presentations and webpages are held to an equal standard as far as my experiences goes.

Any presentations from Apple after quarantine is really well made.

>The weirdest thing in the Google presentation is that several sections had presenters talking to a different camera than facing the screen. That just felt very strange.

Not sure if that is reassuring or a sign of carelessness or a very well planned stunt.

This is a common technique used in film when someone is reading from a teleprompter. It is meant to draw attention away from the speaker's eyes moving from side to side.

Which makes the Apple presentations all the more impressive. The camera is head-on, but I don't notice anyone's eye's moving as if reading a teleprompter. I think they've memorize it

In Apple's presentations they are almost always far away e.g. several metres from the camera.

If you look at Craig's OSX section where he is closer you can clearly see his eyes slightly move left to right as he is reading from the teleprompter.

They did that last year too, it feels more like a documentary/tv show than a keynote.

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