It can’t have been easy being Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple at the company’s latest launch on Wednesday. After all it was just a year ago that Steve Jobs unveiled the re-vamped iPad2 with such aplomb, to much admiration and applause. Mr. Cook’s unveiling of the iPhone4s last year won him some plaudits, a more staid performance than one Mr. Jobs would have delivered, but enthusiastic nevertheless. Could he match it at the launch of the new device?
There were certainly many elements of showmanship that his predecessor would have respected. There was the build up. It took a fair amount of time for him to get onto the matter that everyone had gathered for, as the impatient audience sat through a run through of the achievements of the past year (new shops including in Grand Central Station, 172 million “post-PC devices” sold), and a Steve Jobs-esque knockdown of the iPad2’s rivals. There was a light dose of humour: Everyone was wondering who’d come out with a tablet to rival the iPad, he told the audience. “Well stop wondering! We are,” he declared, to laughter. And there was enthusiasm: the new device would “redefine” the category of tablets, he promised, firmly gesticulating to emphasise his points. It would deliver an “amazing improvement on the fundamental features” of its predecessors, he said. Only Apple was capable of such innovation, he added.
Perhaps one thing he could have made a bit clearer was the decision and the rationale for calling the new tablet, not the iPad3 or iPad HD as many had been expecting but simply the iPad. “So what’s it called then? The New iPad or just the iPad?” a couple of journalists mused around me at the end of the launch. Twitter was equally unimpressed.
The launch matters a lot: the iPad accounts for around a fifth of Apple’s sales, and it must continue to keep the Kindle Fire at bay, and contend with any new tablets that do emerge using Microsoft’s Windows 8.
Some commentators have bemoaned Cook’s lack of showmanship, but I’d argue this criticism is a bit unfair. Any attempt to mimic the master of showmanship would have fallen flat, so he did the only thing he could have done: delivered in a style of his own. And at the end he added a dose of intrigue for good measure. The company’s followers would see a lot more of Apple’s aptitude for innovation this year, he pledged. “We are just getting started,” he said.