Steve Jobs' reality distortion field has finally run out of juice

Apple has finally become an ordinary tech company.

That's the overwhelming response to Apple's annual spring press conference in which the company asked the world's tech press and pundits to gather to see ...

• The iPhone SE, which features a 4-inch screen - the same size as the nearly four-year-old iPhone 5. 
• A smaller iPad Pro - it's got a 9.7-inch screen, the same size as the original iPad introduced in 2010 - complete with the same old barbs thrown at Microsoft Windows in which Apple believes Windows PC users should ditch their PCs for an iPad Pro. 
• A few new bands for the Apple Watch, along with a $50 price cut for the cheapest version. 
• Another app development platform for writing health apps.

Perhaps the coolest thing Apple showed was a robot, named Liam, built to recycle old iPhones so their spare parts could be reused. That's nice, but it doesn't make a person lust for a new Apple device.

There was no "one more thing." There was no visionary new product. There was no amazing new technology in an all the existing products that made you hate your current Apple device (or your Windows or Android phone), and immediately place an order for the new one.

There wasn't even a lot of cheering and hooting and hollering from the audience.

In other words, it was an entire press conference dedicated to iterating on the same old products. It feels as if the famous Steve Jobs reality distortion field has powered down and dissolved.

Or as Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak said last week, when dissing Apple's only new product under Tim Cook's leadership, the Apple Watch: "Well this isn't the company that Apple was originally, or the company that really changed the world a lot."

Not surprisingly, much of the tech world responded to today's event with a yawn: