I’ve been listening in to Apple launch events for many years. I knew that the first in a long while that didn’t feature Mr Jobs would be difficult. In the event Tim Cook performed well and I was impressed that he introduced a number of his managers. It was right to try to show that Apple is more than just one guy.
The ‘problem’ was that even if Jobs had run the show, I doubt he could have made it exciting.
The first part of the show was all about boasting how great Apple had done in the past. 5% of all the 1.5b mobile phones in the world now from Apple, 300m iPods, 60m Macs globally, 250m iPads representing 3 out of every 4 tablets sold in the US, every State in the US planning/using iPads in schools, iOS accounting for 61% of all mobile browser usage, 500,000 Apps of which 140,000 specially for the iPad, $3b paid to developers (or, put another way, $1.28b in commission earned for Apple)
But that’s all about the wondrous gadgets of the past. What of today?
Cards? Moonpig beware. You can now create your own greetings cards on your iPhone and get them mailed by Apple (yep, posted…) Or the Mickey Mouse clockface for your iPod nano? Or iTunes Match which streams (not downloads) your music to whatever Apple device you fancy. A rather scary Find my Friends App. Nothing earth shattering yet.
But we had all anticipated the iPhone 5. What we got was the iPhone 4S. Now, I accept that it’s ‘all new inside’ with everything faster or higher spec. But I suspect most Apple iPhone users want their friends to notice they have a new model. Externally, the iPhone 4S is identical to the 4. Indeed you can upgrade most Apple kit to iOS 5 and get many of the new features.
The ‘one more thing’ (although Cook didn’t utter Jobs legendary phrase) was Sari. Everyone seems to be moving to voice activated stuff nowadays. In a demo, Apple’s Scot Forstall asks "do I need a raincoat?" and the iPhone 4S replies "it sure looks like rain today”. Now I can’t even do that when I type in the question, so it looked like a ‘fix’ to me! I’m a very old analyst and people have been saying that voice activation/input is the next big thing for decades. Maybe this is it. But please excuse me if I am skeptical.
Apple's share price fell 3.6% when the show ended and the Twittersphere is awash with underwhelmed-type comments.
‘Must do better’.