Why iPhones are Absent in ‘Severance’

In February 2020, Rian Johnson gave fans a peek behind the Hollywood curtain with a crucial detail affecting how mystery movies play out. The Star Wars director confessed to Vanity Fair that bad guys can’t have iPhones in mystery flicks. It’s a game-changer! If you’re ever in doubt about a character, just check if they’re holding an iPhone on screen. It could give the plot away. This rule isn’t new—it goes way back. Remember the Macs and PCs in 24 back in 2002? Good guys use Macs. Bad guys have PCs.

Enter Severance, the mind-bending Apple TV+ show rife with mysteries. When the lead character, Mark Scout (Adam Scott), was spotted with an Android phone, fans wondered if he might be hiding something sinister. But here’s the kicker: there’s not a single iPhone in Severance! Apple products are strangely absent from the show, sparking questions about why. But this iPhone blackout might just be more intriguing than any spoiler.

Not everyone on Severance is glued to a smartphone, not even an iPhone. Season 2 sees Irving (played by John Turturro) making calls from a payphone. And in Season 1, Mark’s coworker Petey (Yul Vazquez) shows up with a tried-and-true flip phone. But modern smartphones do exist in the Severance universe. Mark’s pesky brother-in-law Ricken (Michael Chernus) is seen with an Android-like device. Mystery deepens when Mark’s boss, Seth Milchick (Tramell Tillman), flaunts a slick, Android-style satellite phone.

So why are iPhones totally missing from Severance? We tried getting answers, but Apple TV+ stayed mum. Could there be a spoiler at play? Is the show subtly messing with our minds? Maybe the absence of iPhones is a deliberate choice to create a world that’s familiar yet unsettlingly different from ours. Severance seems to exist in an alternate reality, complete with a state all its own—Kier, PE. And while it’s not our world, it’s set around the same time.

And Severance isn’t alone in creating these alternate worlds. For All Mankind, another Apple TV+ hit, rewrote history on a grand scale. In its dramatic new 21st Century, technology and space exploration unfold differently. It’s a reminder that in the world of TV, sometimes reality needs a twist.