There wasn't much we didn't already know about the new iPhone by the time it was raised up on its motorised plinth from the conference stage.
The audience craned forward, struggling to make it out - that's the problem with launching the world's thinnest smartphone - it's quite hard to see.But as the details were laid out, it started to feel very familiar - in fact, almost exactly what the tech blogs have been predicting for the last couple of weeks.
So yes, it's slightly taller, the screen is slightly larger, and it's made of aluminium and glass, the dock connector's smaller, and the headphone socket has moved to the base, but that's what we thought we already knew - where was the big reveal?
Even the name - the imaginatively titled 'iPhone 5' - was precisely as billed.
"I'm not overwhelmed, I'm not underwhelmed, I'm just whelmed," said Nate Lanxon, editor of Wired magazine, outside the London launch event.
The truth is, it's a perfectly nice phone - it's thinner, it's lighter, and its metallic finish is pretty sleek.
What it's not is a radical departure. They haven't reinvented the wheel here, they've just brought out a slightly slimmer, ritzier version that's made of better stuff.
Which is not to say Apple's fans won't already be forming queues outside its stores, desperate to get their hands on the first batch on September 21.
But Apple's problem is not preaching to the converted. The world outside this conference hall is very different now and Apple doesn't lead the smartphone market, Samsung does.
"It's the biggest thing to happen to iPhone since iPhone," Apple CEO Tim Cook said on Wednesday night.
That may well be true but it's also still an iPhone. Apple need to come up with their next big, new idea to get us more than 'whelmed'.
:: One other point worthy of note is Apple's 4G deal with EE in the UK (EE is the new name for Everything Everywhere, which is what T-Mobile and Orange merged to become).
EE secured permission from Ofcom last month to begin offering 4G on a spare part of its spectrum by the end of the year - its rivals will have to wait for the 4G auction next year.
EE's competitors will not have enjoyed that part of the speech.
