Tim Cook, on X:

Get ready to meet the newest member of the family.

Wednesday, February 19. #AppleLaunch

Most people are guessing, I think correctly, that this is about the iPhone SE 4. We’re also right on schedule for the M4 generation of MacBook Airs, but I don’t think MacBook Airs would qualify for “newest member of the family”. They’re more like an updated version of the current member of the family. But the next-gen iPhone SE is going to be a very different iPhone SE — it will mark the end of the Home button and Touch ID. Maybe it won’t even be named “SE” but given a new name?

The “#AppleLaunch” isn’t merely a hashtag, but a “Hashflag” — a paid promotion with X that includes a custom emoji icon. For this one, it’s a shiny liquid-metal treatment of the Apple logo (screenshot). I don’t know what these “hashflag” promotions cost now, but when they launched a decade ago, AdWeek reported that the price started at $1 million. And you’ll never guess who has interrupted his busy day running the federal government to retweet it.

I don’t really get Apple’s angle on this return to advertising on X. Placating Trump through flattery and his “inauguration fund” racket, I get. He’s the president of the United States now and he’s nakedly corrupt and such a profound narcissist that simple abject obsequious flattery works on him. But why appease Musk too? Because Musk has Trump’s ear, I guess? (Feel free to substitute another piece of Trump’s anatomy if you think ear doesn’t properly convey their apparent power dynamic — which, in turn, might answer my question re: the need Cook sees to appease Musk.)