Well, that was depressing.

Not the phones themselves. I could easily see my wife enjoying one of the iPhone 5Cs with a complimentary cheese grater case. She does not care much about anything other than camera, and a cheaper price would be right up her alley.

What many seem to keep discounting with these “S” phone announcements with Apple is they focus their iterative updates on the features most people care about: camera, battery life and performance. That’s why many will still stand in line for a new device in a week and a half. 

The most impressive aspects of the announcement come from three different avenues: dual flashes, TouchID and the M7 processor.

While a set of two LED flashes would be nice enough by itself, the real improvement is color balancing from the flash itself without any enhancement post-capture. The one activity I have to perform every time before posting a photo is color balancing. If it truly is possible to capture a more balanced image on the first try, I would enjoy my experience even more. Curious how much brighter the flash is for the subject.

TouchID was something many were saying would be the necessary push m-commerce needed to become more mainstream. Apple did a great job of eating their own dog food by allowing users to purchase from the iTunes store with their fingerprint. Will people turn this feature off just like the passcode lock? Probably, but there are greater ramifications for mobile other than unlocking your phone.

One of the less emphasized aspects of the announcement will be possibly one of the greatest enhancements. A brand new motion-capturing chip, called “M7”, will allow mobile devices to provide apps with even more information than before. The obvious conclusion will be any mobile device will include M7 from here on, maybe with a new product category coming for the holidays?

So why am I so depressed? We heard this already.

The secret police must have been furloughed for an extended break from Apple’s payroll, because the last two announcements have been slowly leaked to press almost entirely in advance. I hate to say it, but I miss “one more thing” badly.

This is not meant to take anything away from the impressive updates to the most used “i” device. Teamed with iOS 7, it gives developers and users some really cool toys to play with. I just wish I had heard some of for the first time today.