mijustin

When I think back on Apple's public-facing persona over the years, I think about moments like:

- The infamous (and edgy!) 1984 Super Bowl ad - The countercultural push of campaigns in the 90s and early 2000s, like "Think Different" and "Here's to the crazy ones." - The iPod ads that featured dancing silhouettes listening to iPods, contrasted with the white cable of the EarPods - The "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" ads were funny, and also positioned Macs as "the computer for young, cool, creative people."

All of these campaigns felt like they resonated with the Gen X and Millennials of the time as "edgy, cool, relevant."

But watching Apple's recent events (WWDC, announcements), looking at how they show up on social media and in their print ads, it all feels corporate, safe, and more than a little cringe.

I know that statistically, most Gen Z prefer iPhones.

But I'm wondering what today's Gen Z and Gen Alphas think about the brand. Do they think it's cool? Do they think it's cringe?

I'm curious about what's going on in the agency world right now.

I worked at web agencies for a lot of my career, and I'm thinking about the kinds of projects we would get: build a website, build a simple app, build internal tools, maintain a WordPress site, build a website theme, etc...

It feels like a lot of that is being taken over by LLMs and tools like Claude Code? Are agencies feeling cooked right now?

If you're at an agency, what's happening in your world?