Apple, stop advertising things we can't use!

Like many of you, I like to watch all the tech events and get hyped over the new features companies like Apple and Google introduce to our smartphones.

Apple in particular is very, very good at marketing, with its heavily rehearsed, pre-recorded (meaning not actually live), professionally edited events. The stunning visual presentation and transitions almost distract you from the fact that most, if not all of the features Apple boldly announces and overhypes are probably not going to be available, for a while. Especially if you don't live in the US, but, say, the EU, like I do.

I guess I keep missing the tiny footnotes, if there are any, that every single feature I get excited about won't be available to me.

Regardless, I don't like this trend of features the whole world gets excited about that don't actually make it to the whole world, or at least the major regions.

Let's talk about all the cool features Apple managed to excite me for, only to disappoint me soon after, when I attempted to try them out.

The AirPods hearing test – how cool is that?

We're not talking about just gimmick features that don't really matter. This one definitely does.

We're not just phone users, we're all real people, with real human problems, and when Apple dedicates a spot on its presentation about how it's going to grant us AirPods users a hearing test feature, my ears perked up; pardon the terrible pun.

I was like "oh awesome, I have the compatible AirPods Pro 2, I shall be taking this test as soon as possible!"

Well, "as soon as possible" wasn't an option for me. I had to wait. And it took a while, but the hearing test feature has since become available in many regions (notably not the UK, yet), including mine, and it was indeed worth the wait.

If you're interested in trying it out – just know that if available to you, the test takes a while and you'll need a really dead silent place to do it in, but in the end, it makes your AirPods Pro sound better for your particular needs.

I personally am slightly hard of hearing in the left ear, as I wasn't too careful when it came to loud music in my teenage years, and have worked at electronic music festivals in my 20s, so – evidently it all took a toll.

I don't like the fact that I was forced to wait until my excitement for this feature kind of died out, but hey – at least it eventually came out; the next ones we'll talk about are still unavailable here.

iPhone mirroring – simple, right? Well…

When I heard about this feature I was excited to boot up my somewhat overlooked MacBook and try it out. Basically, this feature lets you see and use your phone's screen from your laptop, without having to switch constantly between the two devices, over different app notifications and messages.

So I boot up my MacBook, I open the iPhone mirroring app, and… a message pops up, telling me that this feature isn't available in my region. Great.

For this feature in particular Apple offers zero clarity on if, or when it might come to the EU.

The thing is, over the years I've gotten pretty sick of seeing similar popup messages when I try to use an Apple thing – "not available in your region" – and somehow I've only always had this problem with Apple.

Fine, I get it, some features can't roll out everywhere at once, there are regulations, among other complications, that prevent Apple from doing so, but at least provide us with some useful information, besides just that it's "not available in your region."

The Apple Vision Pro, and its app store…

If you're a PhoneArena regular, you might have noticed that almost all of the AR/VR headsets and AR glasses we've reviewed were covered by me – the resident AR/VR enthusiast. I've used virtual reality and augmented reality headsets and smart glasses for about a decade now, I've gone through almost all of them, and I love this tech.

So when Apple finally decided to enter the AR/VR space with the Apple Vision Pro, I was understandably excited to use the headset. Except, it only launched in the US.

Fine, we imported it. Now can I use it? Nope, the Vision Pro app store still shows that all too familiar "not available in your region" message. This is yet another product Apple boldly announced to the world, but did not actually release to the world.

I'm having a really hard time understanding how the Vision Pro is meant to compete with industry leader Meta and its Meta Quest headsets, when it costs around $3,000 more than those, and remains available in only a fraction of the regions Meta's headsets are.

Apple Intelligence

It's not exactly a brave statement to say that the iPhone 16 series has only one thing going for it, and it's Apple Intelligence – the Cupertino company's response to the AI trend.

When you take Apple Intelligence out of the iPhone 16 series, you have basically the same phones from last year, and it's a hard sell.

And as you know, Apple Intelligence was hyped up to high heavens in every Apple event this year, yet it remains unavailable to most of the world.

Even the US – Apple's main market – got this feature just literally days ago, despite the fact it was announced in June; five months ago. And even in the US, Apple Intelligence doesn't come with all of its promised features yet.

Now imagine what kind of wait us in Europe, let alone users in other regions, have in store for us.

At the very least, Apple said people in the EU can enable this feature on their MacBooks already, just not iPads or iPhones. Well guess what – I tried to enable it on my MacBook, and the best I got was being signed up to a waitlist to use it. A waitlist! That's still nothing!

I understand Apple had to rush-announce this feature to keep up with the AI trend and please its investors, but wow, announcing something and talking about it in every event a year before the world gets to use it seems unprecedented.

Besides the fact that I scratched the hell out of my iPhone 15 Plus' display recently, which scratches far too easily by the way, I see no reason to upgrade to the iPhone 16 series, since its crowning feature won't be available to me until sometime next year. Do you?

Why are all those features not available yet? Here's an explanation (but not an excuse)

So, why is this happening? Let's cut Apple some slack – releasing features in different regions is subject to different laws and regulations. It takes time for Apple and other companies to get the clearance needed to roll out privacy-concerning features like Apple Intelligence, for example, especially in the EU, where the data privacy laws are pretty tight.

In addition, again – using Apple Intelligence as an example – the Cupertino company was likely rushing to announce it far before it's ready, in order to keep up with the booming AI trend, and please its investors. I already mentioned that earlier, but unlike the previous reason, this one is even harder to excuse from a user's perspective.

All of these features will eventually become available in (presumably) all the regions Apple sells its products in; the problem is Apple announcing them for the sake of investors, as opposed to the sake of its users. Or announcing them, without making it perfectly clear that rolling them out to all regions will take a while, and giving us an estimate.

What can Apple and other companies do to make things clearer for the users

So, I don't blame companies for their inability to launch a feature to us all at once. As mentioned just now – regional laws and regulations apply. I blame them for their lack of clarification.

What Apple in particular could do is make it perfectly clear during events that the feature being hyped will only be available in X region, and mention when Y and Z regions can expect it. And I do mean make it perfectly clear, not with tiny text on the bottom of the screen, and especially not without zero acknowledgement that there will be a long wait for some, if not all of us.

And when yet another "this feature is not available in your region" message pops up on my Apple device, I'd like to know more than that. Because this message gives me nothing. Have a second line of text telling us if, and when is it going to be available, at the very least.

If you're feeling generous, maybe also a third line on why it's not available, because not everyone knows about regional restrictions. Being a bit more transparent with the user, treating them as a human being that wants to know, and deserves to know what's happening, is never a bad thing.