Qualcomm remembers what Apple and Samsung forgot: how to be cool

Last week, I was fortunate enough to attend the Qualcomm Snapdragon Summit event. For those who don't know, Qualcomm hosts these summits annually, and it's always doing it in Hawaii, of all places. Don’t get me wrong – I don’t mind that at all!

Actually, I had a blast in Hawaii, and I had a blast at Qualcomm's Snapdragon Summit ‘26, but there is something very interesting about my experience that I want to share with you. It’s not about a new flagship phone or some camera innovation, though.

It is about the excitement and vitality that I think the mobile tech industry lost somewhere along the way.

As media and tech enthusiasts, I think we all want to be excited. Like, me and you both. I think we yearn for this feeling when a company hosts an event, has a stage, does a keynote, and a CEO or some other important company representative comes out, and reveals a new product.

And there’s real magic when all of this is done in such a way that we all go through this experience, and we come out the other end inspired, excited, and feeling like we witnessed something really cool unfold right in front of us.

This is what Apple's keynotes under Steve Jobs used to be. He pioneered this stuff. Many other tech companies try to replicate these experiences, and some, like Microsoft back in the day, had their strong moments: "Developers, developers, developers."

Samsung has also had strong showings. Maybe not so much in the keynote space, but in terms of marketing messages and convention presence. They used to, at least.

More often than not, live keynotes and demos come across as unconvincing, and dare I even say, cringe. And sadly, this is more true today than it was years ago.

But why?

I have some theories. I’ll quickly go through them and then return to why I think, based on what I’ve seen so far, Qualcomm is such a cool company.

Reasons why today’s tech keynotes are cringe

Reason #1: They’re done by corporate operators and not real product people

I really like Tim Cook, and I think he was brilliant for the role he had to play at Apple, but I think it's obvious to everyone that he has way more passion for Apple, the company, than for the actual phones and computers.


Unfortunately, this is also 100% my experience with Samsung keynotes. The overarching vibe I got from the last few Unpacked events was that the people presenting on stage didn't know much about the products they were presenting.
There are some who do, for sure, but most of them are there just to read their lines from the teleprompter, look presentable, and be done with it. They can never go off script, because to go off script, you need to have internalized knowledge and expertise about the subject matter.

To get a good show, you need to have people who deeply care about the products – the product people, as we like to call them. The problem here is twofold: 1) tech product people are often engineers and they don’t necessarily like to be in the spotlight, and 2) product people often lack the type of expressive personality needed to efficiently present on stage.

Reason #2: Lack of artistic talent and charisma

I don’t think its about stage fright. Many of the people we’ve been watching introduce new products on stage have years of experience at this point. Yet, their performances don't get better, and it's not just Samsung.

Take a look at almost any Google I/O presentation. I’m sure at least some of the people presenting there are real product specialists, but the delivery is always so stiff. It just makes you wonder: is that even meant to get anyone excited?
I’m sure this isn’t a surprise, but to get a good show, you need a little showmanship. It has to be in your blood. You need at least a little bit of artistic talent. And herein lies the problem: since many tech people don't have that, they become over-reliant on the script and the teleprompter.

And this would have been okay if the scripts were actually good. Unfortunately, you've probably noticed that most of these script-based keynotes read like press releases. There are people on stage saying the words, but the words sound like they were meant to be written in a formal corporate communication, not spoken by a real person in front of other real people.

Hence, the keynotes that we’re always so looking forward to turn into stiff, inauthentic, and cringy pseudo-professional stage shows. There’s something endearing to this awkwardness, to be honest, but the standard should be higher.

Reason #3: Going full-on defense mode

Yes, there’s some risk to a live show. Stuff can go wrong. Buggy prototype hardware may fail during a demo. An executive may mess up their speech.

But this is all part of what makes the live experience so real and memorable.

When companies get as big as Apple or Google or Samsung, when you are a market leader, the tendency is to go into defense mode. You want to protect what you already have and you’re not as interested in going radical, bold things.

This is only natural, and I think it partly explains Apple’s unwillingness to go back to live events. Ever since Covid, Apple switched to pre-recorded, pre-produced product launches, and it never bothered to go back to normal.
I get that. Recording and editing everything in advance is the safest possible way to introduce a new product. A demo gone wrong? A bad take? No worries – just cut and try again until it works.

And voilà! We have a perfect demo. Perfect delivery.

Or do we? Because in the quest to get rid of any risk and imperfection, I think we’re left with a sterile video clip that lacks any degree of excitement and suspense.

Sure, you can do some cool transitions and some light post-processing, but I don’t think the tradeoff is worth it.

Why Qualcomm put on a better show than Apple, Samsung and Google

My colleagues at PhoneArena have heard me complain time and again about the lifeless keynotes we’ve gotten used to these days. The bottom line is: I’d love to see more vitality, charisma, and energy on stage. I want someone to come out and have some edge.

Make it cool. Make it bad-ass! That’s all I’m asking for.

And so, that is why I was really inspired by the keynotes at Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Summit last week, because they gave me exactly that.
Take a look at the very beginning of the show – a dominating red (Snapdragon color) background illuminates the dark room. A massive countdown timer appears and commands attention. As a viewer in the audience, this creates excitement – it means something big is coming.Then the timer runs out and the whole room goes dark for a second. And then – boom! Light and music. Not just any corporate-approved pop track, though. It’s a carefully picked tune that creates just the right type of vibe, mood and hype.

There is musicality, there is some edginess to it, and it ends on a deep, bad-ass braam sound that pumps you up and tells you something awesome is coming.

Someone might say: “Well, that’s being self-important. It’s too much show for a chip company!” But look, we all complain how phones are getting the same, how things in this industry are not as exciting as they used to be. There is internalized cynicism at this point – we expect to be disappointed!

But the thing is, this state of affairs depends on our attitude, on whether we take these amazing products for granted, as well as on the vibe of the companies that participate in the industry. If they don’t believe they are cool and important, no one will.

And this is why I thoroughly enjoyed Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Summit keynote, because it convinced me I’m part of something cool.

Qualcomm has a strong roster of impressive people

And then there were the presenters on stage. Now, there were many people presenting over the course of three days – obviously, not all of them were super-inspiring. But many of them were, especially the opening line-up!

CMO Don McGuire opened the show with a subtle dance move and a whole lot of energy. A smart, upbeat guy who seems very much in his element on stage.

Cristiano Amon, Qualcomm CEO, followed up with a very strong performance, and while his speech was very content-dense, he managed to deliver it in a well-structured and accessible manner – all without using a script. During his speech, the teleprompter was only displaying the important bullet points he wanted to hit. He was joined by Google’s Rick Osterloh, whose upbeat and lively aura makes him a rare corporate executive who we actually like watching and listening to.

Chris Patrick, Qualcomm’s SVP and GM of Mobile Handset division (basically the mobile chips chief), brought a slightly more structured attitude to his exposé, but was every bit as energetic, present and entertaining.
Finally, Lekha Motiwala, who is the Senior Director of Product Management for Qualcomm’s mobile chips, went into the technical depths of the Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6. The content-rich nature of this segment meant there wasn’t too much space for entertainment, but Lekha has a very light, pleasant aura about her that somehow makes even the most technical speech pleasant to listen to.

Needless to say, I got to meet all of these people at Snapdragon Summit ‘26 and was impressed by how pleasant and reasonably approachable they were.

They just felt like a down-to-earth, hard-working group of people who belong in this company, who possess an impressive depth of knowledge about the subject matter, and who are simply so cool that it makes you excited about their product.

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