What Apple didn’t say at its product event

While Apple announced updates for two of its high-profile products, the iPhone and the Apple Watch, it stayed silent on its tablet and laptop.

Apple has departed from its usual annual upgrade cycle for the iPad, now that it has introduced a few Pro models aimed at professionals looking to get work done on the go. Tablet users, though, will still be eligible for an operating software upgrade next Tuesday.

While there’s been speculation that Apple is ready to launch new MacBook laptops, the company had nothing to say about that. MacBooks are popular as powerful machines that remain relatively thin and light, although they face competition from Windows laptops now that several companies have ultra-thin models. Apple’s new Mac operating system, Sierra, is coming soon, but Apple didn’t reveal a date.

The company didn’t announce any new hardware for Apple TV, its set-top box that manages streaming video and other entertainment options.

Apple is hoping its new iPhone and an updated Apple Watch, known as Series 2, will help reverse a recent decline in sales. While the company sold nearly 92 million iPhones in the first six months of this year, that’s about 15% fewer than the same period last year. Industry analysts say the iPhone 6S and 6S Plus, which Apple introduced last fall, didn’t offer many compelling new features over the previous year’s models.

With the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus, Apple may face a similar challenge.

Bob O’Donnell, a veteran consumer tech analyst at Technalysis Research, for instance, considers the changes from last year’s iPhones “modest” overall. A new dual-lens camera in the iPhone 7 Plus may be impressive, he said, but it’s only available in the larger and more expensive phone, limiting its appeal.

“Smartphone advancements are slowing down as the market is maturing, so minor things like look and feel get more attention,” O’Donnell said, noting that Apple spent several minutes of its presentation extolling the virtues of an optional “jet black” finish for the new phones.

Other smartphone makers are also having trouble dazzling consumers with new advances. But Forrester Research analyst Julie Ask figures consumers will appreciate the faster chip and other improvements once they try the new iPhones. And she’s not worried about any backlash over elimination of the hardware jack.

“Apple has a very long history of removing features we all thought were necessary, and then convincing us that we didn’t need them,” said Ask, noting that Apple paved the way in phasing out the use of floppy discs and optical drives in computers. “Three months later, it will be, `Why did we ever have that?”’