I also noticed that every developer was from one gender and even commented to my partner at the time, at which point I remembered it was international women's day and perhaps this was Apple showing their support in an unvoiced/non-bombastic way.
Does this make me a misogynist? For noticing something?
They've taken it so far that in a way, they've swung to the other end of the extreme. Less diversity by emphasizing diversity too much, if that makes sense.
Since discussing gender and skin color always gets people worked up, let me pick a less controversial one: wealth.
When you check Apple's adverts and see the actors using their products, they're clearly living the Valley lifestyle. They're all young, fit, filthy rich, have fantastic work spaces and living rooms, carefully designed by fashionable architects, lead an inner city lifestyle where they hop on Ubers to go to Starbucks, you get the idea.
...none of which represents even a fraction of the actual customer base. The working class is not featured, rural people are not featured, other countries are not featured, which leads me to conclude that Apple's signaling is not diverse. It's fashion for the elite, with a vast distance to their actual users.
Apple's products are desirable enough for it to not matter, but it's fine to spot it. It's hard to miss.
Just don't misread it as anything but optics. Have a look at leaked tech memos to understand how Apple really thinks. They're predatory towards competitors. They'll do anything to dodge taxes and bypass consumer protection laws. They sabotage open standards. They rely on exploitation for their manufacturing. They make secret deals so that employees can't switch. They treat their store staff as garbage.
Apple is a deeply unethical, predatory, neoconservative company. Yet if you feature lots of black women in your ads, you optically look progressive and good.
Woke capitalism from the world center of hypocrisy: California.
I agree completely. I also believe that hackernews is the exact target audience for Apple products. People who can argue that $250,000 for a non-manual, 9-5 job is somehow not a good salary.
Apple like to show people (all people from all backgrounds) as if they are normal or average rather than the hyper-elite that they are. If Apple had an advert with the average family in an average home it would probably be distressing to most people.
I'm lucky enough to be in the top 20% of earners in my country and I am in my 30s, but I still would never be able to afford a house as depicted in Apple's advertising. Or have the budget to spend $5,000 on a computer for my work.
Where is the correct place for this "strange note"?
I think you are attaching some message to the author that wasn't there, labeling it as "strange". It was a conscious decision by Apple during a presentation that is ostensibly one long advert. The goal is for people to talk about their products and their brand and their "image". Goal achieved because here we are.
[1] https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Noticing
I realized that...
I became aware...
That's without even looking for a thesaurus. Not that I'm supporting this alt-definition of noticing, but your question seemed pretty trivial to answer.
Maybe it's better to assume that most people in the world aren't evil degenerates unless there's hard evidence to the contrary.
I don't particularly care if a normal word, which is in plenty of dictionaries, is co-opted by a small group of people. My friends won't know this secret meaning, my family won't know that, whatever is on the TV, Radio, or Cinema won't know that.
And now this conversation is completely off topic.
The internet is so hyper partisan that even normal, boring usage of the English language is now weaponised as shibboleths.