SAN FRANCISCO: Apple CEO Tim Cook strode through a slickly produced video Tuesday to launch a new iPhone, with few hints of the exceptional string of troubles facing his company including policy reversals, a spyware attack and legal fights.

Cook, from an empty, darkened auditorium, raved over upgraded cameras, brighter screens and new features for some of the Silicon Valley giant’s other devices like the iPad.

“These are the best iPhones we’ve ever created,” Cook said, noting Apple’s work to design the “very best products and services to enrich people’s lives”.

Yet a head-spinning series of problems have occupied the recent public discussion of one the world’s most valuable companies.

Due to a long and loud fight over its online app marketplace, a judge ordered Apple last week to allow developers to sidestep its hefty commission on purchases.

It delayed a plan to scan its customers’ devices as part of a child abuse prevention move, after privacy advocates howled over the risk of opening a backdoor for government surveillance.

And then on Monday it was forced to roll out an urgent fix after cybersecurity researchers found a weakness that allowed Pegasus spyware to infect Apple devices without users so much as clicking a malicious message.

That said, Apple still possesses massive reach in the digital world and beyond, and manages to be worth over $2 trillion.

Its fans cheered the release of the updated products on Tuesday, including analyst Daniel Ives who noted “the supercycle for Cupertino”, referring to the California city that is home to Apple’s headquarters.

“Apple remains in the midst of its strongest overall product cycle in roughly a decade,” he added.

Published in Dawn, September 15th, 2021