Spoiling the broth
Cook doesn't have that aura, no does he have Jobs's charisma. For as long as Apple keeps churning out products as successful as the iPad and iPhone have been, that needn't be a problem. But what about when things go wrong, as they must do eventually? When that moment of truth arrives we'll see the measure of Cook as a CEO.
Take the ‘antennagate' drama last year, for example. Yes, it was blown out of proportion by the media, but Apple gets a huge amount of free PR from the fact that we know we'll get a lot of traffic every time we write about Apple, and it has to take the rough with the smooth. But it was a big deal at the time and threatened lasting PR and sales damage for Apple.
At first Apple tried to brush it off, saying all phones suffer some degree of reception issues if you hold them in certain ways, but when Jobs realized a more robust response was required he held a special press conference. His style grated with me at the time - belying a corporate arrogance that turns many people away from - but the fact that Jobs was being seen to take the matter seriously, together with the supply of free remedial rubber cases to any iPhone 4 owners who felt the need for them, made the problem go away.
You have to wonder if Cook (pictured below) has the charisma to pull off such a press conference, or if it would even occur to him to stage one at all. Everyone inside Apple seemed convinced this was a non-issue, so why not just wait for the problem to blow over? That might have worked, but then again it might not. Apple is the focus of so much attention that I feel it can't afford to be laissez faire about media frenzies.
Another moment of truth will be the next big product launch. Not the iPhones expected to arrive in a month - they will still bear the mark of Jobs - but the iPad 3, or the iPhone 6, or a subsequent shiny thing. If these don't demonstrate sufficient innovation, if they're not ‘magical' enough, people will start muttering that things just aren't the same at Apple anymore.
And what if Apple doesn't come out with a new epoch-defining product in the next few years, as it has several times in the past ten? People will point to the fact that Cook's strengths tie in dull processes such as supply-chain management, rather than ‘changing the world'. We now have a grim, efficient, ruthless Apple, more intent on defending its position by stamping on the competition than innovating, people will say.
Cook was understandably keen to reassure the troops in an internal email leaked to Ars Technica. "We are going to continue to make the best products in the world," he insisted, with typical Apple understatement. Many analysts point to "...a full pipeline of Jobs-grade products that should see it through the next few years," which it may well need in order to fend-off re-invigorated competitors, emboldened by Jobs' departure.
But yet another look at post-Jobs Apple has this quote from an analyst: "The path between the iPad and iPhone can carry them a long way. But at the same time, you have to ask, is there something beyond the iPhone? Is it in the living room or a blend of the PC and the tablet? Do they have that next defining great product?"
Apple's market cap is currently larger than Exxon Mobil's, making it the world's biggest company by that measurement. You could argue the only way is down from that position, and such is Apple's tendency to polarise opinion that there will be a lot of commentators just waiting for the opportunity to put the boot in when Apple slips up. How Cook handles that moment will define his term in office.
I'll leave you with the video Apple produced to introduce the iPhone 4, which is apparently by far and away the most popular Apple viral clip. It's slick and persuasive, but if you decide not to suspend your disbelief can also be viewed as smug, conceited and messianic. Cooked Apple could well be at that fulcrum in terms of public perception, and the new CEO has the power to move things in either direction.
