"Apple said they invented this"

There is a very specific thing you see quite often in online discourse around Apple, which is that people think Apple claims they invent everything or Apple says every little update will change your life. Apple does get excited about things that they release, and they speak highly of them, but I find this critique to be people projecting onto Apple more than Apple actually saying these things.

After the iPhone Duo was announced last week, I saw countless posts on social media (even in my very brief time dipping in as I'm on a social media break) with people acting like Apple said they invented the folding phone. It's such an odd critique in particular because Apple spent so much of their presentation talking about how they were making the folding phone hardware and software better than what already exists. The specific context they were using was that you know folding phones exist and here's how theirs is better.

Then today I was watching Dave2D's overall quite good video going over the iPhone 18 Pro, and he said this about the updated Dynamic Island:

It's about 25% smaller than the previous generation. […] It's not a massive difference. I know they pitch it as a life-changing experience – it's a little smaller, which is kinda cool.

Here's what Apple said about the Dynamic Island:

iPhone 18 Pro also features an upgraded Dynamic Island. Redesigned to be smaller, more useful, and even better for seeing live information at a glance. It can now show 3 live activities and help you keep track of multiple things at once, like your flight status with Flighty, navigating with Maps, or simply checking your timer.

That's it. That's the entire segment about the Dynamic Island. If it really was something they were pitching as life-changing, I'd have thought they would spend more than 23 seconds on it in an 80-minute presentation.

Meanwhile, it's only mentioned once on the marketing page for the phone where they say:

Redesigned Dynamic Island. See up to three Live Activities at once and more information at a glance — like live sports scores, navigation, and music.

This isn't meant to bash Dave in particular, he's great, but I do think that a lot of this "Apple said they invented X" and "Apple says Y will change your life" reactions out there are based on something other than what Apple actually does when pitching their products.