Instead of feeling like a legendary tech reveal, it felt like I was trapped in a late-night talk show nobody wanted to watch. Jimmy Fallon as the host? Really? The forced banter, the planted audience reactions, the sit-down interviews about phone specs - it was awkward from start to finish. If I wanted to watch an hour and a half of staged chatter, I’d turn on late-night TV. But I don’t. I came here to see the future of technology, not reheated monologues and fake clapping.
And here’s the thing: yes, Steve Jobs’ presentations were scripted too. In fact, when he unveiled the first iPhone, it wasn’t even a fully working device. He had multiple prototypes hidden under the table - one that could make calls, one that could show photos, one that had GPS - and he carefully switched between them like a magician. That keynote was tightly choreographed, but it didn’t feel fake. It felt thrilling because what he was showing was genuinely mind-blowing. The audience’s cheers weren’t scripted; they were real.
Google’s event, on the other hand, felt like the opposite. The scripting was obvious, the laughter was hollow, and the cheering felt like it was prompted by someone holding up a neon sign that said “APPLAUSE.”
Now, don’t get me wrong - I do appreciate that Google tried something new. At least they didn’t just give us another “guy on a stage with a clicker and a slide deck” routine. But this wasn’t it. Reinventing the tech keynote is a good idea. Doing it like this - with awkward skits, forced enthusiasm, and Jimmy Fallon desperately trying to make phone specs sound funny - is not the way forward.
The products themselves looked solid. The Pixel 10 seems like a worthy device, and the AI features actually sounded impressive. But all of that got lost in the noise of the presentation. Instead of walking away thinking “Wow, I need this phone,” I walked away thinking “Wow, that was rough.”
So here’s my advice to Google: congratulations on realizing the standard keynote formula is getting stale. But please - try something else. Not this.
Because if I’m going to rewatch a tech presentation ten years from now, it’s still going to be Steve Jobs walking on stage in 2007 holding a little black rectangle that changed the world. Not Jimmy Fallon telling me to clap for the Pixel 10.
