Apple Falls out of Love with Annual Releases
At the end of 2024, Apple gave up one of its more identifiable traits – the release of new products on an annual update schedule.
The move was received positively in tech circles but the outcome is perhaps not what people expected. Launches will arguably become more common, rather than less, but individual lines like the Mac and iPhones may no longer be bound to the calendar, resulting in more “complete” products and fewer delays.
Short-form Media
To date, Apple’s process has generally involved a sneak peak in June followed by releases in the Fall. This isn’t unusual in tech or even adjacent industries like entertainment. In 2023, chip manufacturer NVIDIA announced plans to support annual launches for its graphics cards, a decision it repeated later with its AI chips.
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Games make use of frequent product releases. Casino franchises such as Fishin’ Frenzy have become expansive and even involve sequels. Developer Big Time Gaming recently boosted the series with Fishin’ Frenzy: The Big Catch 2. There’s even a festive version of the slot. Of course, regular events suit short-form media like casino games. It’s not always easy to justify the same for the basic iPhone 16 model, which retailed for $799 at launch.
A Singular Goal
Annual releases do have their proponents. Discussing Apple’s 2024 pivot, Bloomberg stressed that the yearly upgrade cycle gives employees a singular goal, keeps investors informed, and ensures that marketing is easier to plan. It’s also a magnet for fans and the press – with all the extra income that comes with exciting the customer base.
It’s easy to see how the author might be putting a brave face on things given the problems that come with a launch schedule. Tech website CNET insisted that yearly phone launches “need to stop for more reasons than one”. Included in its complaints were that too much useless tech harms the environment and that phones had become boring, as creativity fell to something we’ll talk about next.
Crunch
The tech world’s biggest bugbear in recent years is an avoidable one – crunch. A combination of poor management, tight launch windows, and sky-high expectations creates a scenario where products chase deadlines. Software is a major contributor to this “culture”, although any business with deadlines risks burning their employees out. A writer for the magazine website Medium described junior developers in particular as like a “battery farm”, noting that 63% of them consider their escape from tech in five years.
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Apple’s move toward a more unpredictable future puts products back into the hands of the tech giant, rather than leaving them at the mercy of the calendar. The shift wasn’t immediate. Apple released products in May 2024 and January 2023, suggesting slow warming to a new way of doing things.
MacBook Air
Fast forward to March 2025 and it’s already clear products are only destined for shelves when they’re ready. Accompanying the iPhone 16e this spring was supposed to be the new MacBook Air. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. We’re now creeping up on the release of Apple’s new M5 chipset but the latest iteration of the MacBook Air laptop should’ve joined the other M4-powered products in Apple’s catalog about ten months ago, according to Forbes. 
A delay to a scheduled product launch isn’t an ideal first step, largely because all the marketing has been done and any buzz risks getting drowned out by something else. This is presumably what Apple aims to avoid with its sack of annual releases. Yet, as hinted at with NVIDIA’s example earlier, rapid releases are still popular in the industry.
How Apple will compensate for the lure of FOMO (or the Fear of Missing Out) in a more measured release cycle is anybody’s guess.
