For years now, the company has held wildly popular media events to show off its latest products and software. At times—such as the introduction of the iPhone in 2007 or the iPad in 2010—these events have felt momentous, and have, in fact, heralded huge changes in the consumer electronics market. The events are part of the company's identity. Bits of the showmanship popularized by Apple's late cofounder, Steve Jobs, such as his "one more thing" line, are well remembered. And Apple-style product events have been mimicked by many other companies. But these days, just before Apple's 40th birthday (which falls on April 1), it's harder to get the feeling that Apple events mark the start of something huge anymore. That's the opinion of MIT Technology Review writer Rachel Metz.

Metz further wrote in her report that "at an event Monday on the company's Cupertino campus presided over by CEO Tim Cook, the biggest news was a smaller iPhone, the iPhone SE, which with its four-inch display is essentially just a throwback to the iPhone 5 in terms of its form; on the inside, it's much the same as the iPhone 6S. It starts at $399 for a version with 16 gigabytes of internal storage space. Really, a press release and some high-resolution images would have sufficed, and that's what most companies would do."

Of course years ago, Steve Jobs took a blogger or two to court for spoiling an event with detailed leaks. Steve Jobs was determined to keep a surprise or two up its sleeve for each event. Do you remember the Gizmodo report titled "Apple Gestapo: How Apple Hunts down Leaks."

Today, it's all different. Someone at Apple in-the-know leaks the majority of anything new to one blog and one particular writer as if they were ordained from on high. Apple's CEO Tim Cook yawns and this practice continues unabated till this day. So when a new event actually takes place it's a real yawner for fans. Why did we even tune in some would say. We knew about every major product that was to be introduced and even the product's name months ahead of time.

Cook has said on many occasions that Apple fans love a surprise. Yet he's done little to ensure there is. In yesterday's event, the word surprise couldn't be used if you tried. So is Rachel Metz correct? Have Apple events become calculatingly boring because of leaks? Weigh in below in our comment section pro or con and let's see what the jury says.

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