The Critical Thinker
Last Tuesday, Apple held an event to unveil new iPad Air and Pro models. I’ve long wanted to do a deep-dive into the language that’s used in these public presentations because of how well-crafted and deliberate they are. In this issue, we’ll go over examples of adjectives, adverbs, sentence lengths, and anchors and see how they’re used to persuade us to buy something. (The Hemingway comparison is in section 2.)
(Full disclosure: I worked at Apple from February 2017 to April 2024 solely in engineering and design roles. None of the information in this issue is based on any internal knowledge of what goes into the making of these public presentations. I don’t have the faintest idea what goes into them.)
An adjective modifies a noun. For instance, “This cup has a mighty design.” An adverb modifies an adjective, a verb, or another adverb. For instance, “This cup is incredibly strong.” 1
What both of them do is make us feel a certain way about the cup. Incredible strength brings to mind a certain feel-good image (say, a character from a comic or a movie), which in turn evokes a certain feel-good emotion. Once in that emotional state, we’re more likely to make the leap and buy the cup.
