Evolution, not revolution, was the tone of today’s low-key Apple event. Smaller is better, says Apple, with two big product “reveals” that show off compact new devices with impressive internals.
While most of the announcements today have already been discussed and dissected, like the 4-inch iPhone SE, new Apple Watch bands and a smaller 9.7-inch iPad Pro, there were a couple of surprises.
Here are the biggest takeaways from Apple’s oddly low-key “Let us loop you in” event.
Tim Cook just finished a week-long tour of China, complete with stops at new Apple Stores across the country, as well as a visit to the elementary school at Communication University of China, and a meeting with China’s Vice Premier.
Cook created a Weibo account earlier this week to announce Apple’s new green initiatives in China, but the Apple CEO didn’t stop there. Rather than posting to Twitter, Cook stayed active on the Chinese microblogging all week, posting his interactions with customers and colleagues. In just five days, Tim has amassed over half a million Weibo followers (he’s got 1.3 million on Twitter) by keeping Chinese fans updated with seven posts during the trip.
Take a look at Tim’s awesome Weibo travelogue:
Apple is leading the charge in environmental responsibility, and it’s only just getting started.
That’s the message from the company’s 2015 progress report, which details all the ways Apple is striving “to leave the world better than we found it.”
When you’re the richest company in the world you can afford to do crazy things: build a spaceship campus, start secret electric car projects, or buy an entire forest.
Apple announced today that it’s buying up 36,000 acres of private forest land that will be sustainably harvested and used for its packaging.
The land is broken into two tracts in Maine and North Carolina and will be managed by the Conservation Fund. Combined, the two tracts are more that two times the size of Manhattan. The pulp from the trees will go toward Apple’s packaging needs, but other companies will be able to buy fiber from them too.
To go along with its Diversity week celebrations that have included Tim Cook taking an icy bath, Apple has added a little diversity to its executive leadership page today, by adding a new tier full of fresh faces.
The Apple executive profiles page has been expanded to include five of the most notable VPs at the mothership, including VP of Environmental Initiatives, Lisa Jackson, and Denise Young Smith who serves as VP of Worldwide Human Resources and the narrator of Apple’s new Diversity video.
The city of Claremont, North Carolina, has approved a new development that will allow Apple to build a new sustainable solar farm.
With an initial investment of $55 million, Apple’s latest solar farm will be a massive, 100-acre, 17.5-megawatt project, likely to take five years to complete.
Elizabeth O’Connell is waging war on Apple from an iPhone 5C with a cracked screen.
O’Connell, campaigns director for Green America, is part of an 80-strong group of environmental and human rights groups that recently fired off a 17-page letter to Apple’s vice president of environmental affairs Lisa Jackson. At the core of the question are known carcinogens, benzene and n-hexane, the chemicals that make your iPhone screen so shiny.
As former head of the Environmental Protection Agency Jackson, protest organizers say, should know better. The effort is part of Green America’s “Bad Apple” campaign, which features a mock app. At this writing, over 2,000 people have signed up for the “app,” which sends an email to Apple asking to cut the noxious chemicals. Organizers say another 20,000 people have signed a traditional online petition.
Hearing an Apple executive talk about their work in a relaxed setting is pretty unusual stuff, but that’s what happened earlier this week when Lisa Jackson, Apple’s VP of Environmental Initiatives, spoke as part of Fortune’s Brainstorm Green conference.
The 16-minute conversation, with Fortune Senior Editor (and former Apple author) Adam Lashinsky, touches on various topics related to Apple’s desire to go green — including some potentially revolutionary plans for its 400+ chain of retail stores.