Choreography of the Apple event

antartikaraya.blogspot.com - When Apple CEO Tim Cook took the stage Wednesday in San Francisco, perhaps to introduce the world to the iPhone 5, everyone knows what's going to happen.

As a company that has decided to sharpen the image of a multi-billion dollar science, Apple has developed detailed guidelines for product announcements. Stagecraft rarely, if ever, deviated from the script tried-and-true.

Reporters are invited and others will crowd into the auditorium was decorated with banners cryptic tease something vaguely interesting. Some rocks edgy but accessible, from Dylan to whine rival indie stylings of The Shins, will greet the audience as they settled into their seats. Then the show started.

"Tim Cook will tell us all about Apple," said Rene Ritchie, editor-in-chief of the iMore, an Apple-centric blog focused on mobile devices. "(Marketing vice president) Phil Schiller will come out and show us a new iPod then (vice president) Scott Forstall will come show us software .."

Finally, after nearly an hour of mounting expectations, come big reveal. This time, it will be the iPhone 5, but the company has done a hoodwinking unprecedented proportions.
Steve Jobs smart to build anticipation for it \
Steve Jobs smart to build anticipation for his "One more thing ..." surprise announcement of a new product.

Predicted? Yes. But boring? Not in the eyes of the hordes of Apple fanatics that will depend on each word.

Because when perhaps the most secretive companies in the technology holding an event, everyone thinks they know what to expect - but no one knows exactly what will happen.

"It's like the Super Bowl and Oscar technology all rolled into one," said Ritchie.


A message discipline

If that sounds over the top, then consider ways-CEO Steve Jobs unveiled the hitherto unknown called the iPhone in 2007. Playing off of the pre-event rumors, Jobs announced that Apple will indeed introduce the phone, along with a mobile Internet device and "the best iPod we've ever made."

"Did you get that?" he said finally, after saying "iPod," "phone" and "internet communications device" repeatedly audiences began cheering like a crowd of college football on game day. "These are not three separate devices This is one device .."

In recent years, the introduction of technology products has come to look almost the same. A senior executive with a wireless microphone pace back and forth across the stage, spouting hyperbole while the slide show impressive sales figures or pictures of the new products.

But analysts say Apple has taken stagecraft to a higher level. Jobs's famous keynote speech brings emotion and build anticipation for his "One more thing ..." surprise announcement of a new product.

"Discipline in the way they convey their message is quite remarkable," said Van Baker, research vice president at Gartner. "All you have to do is contrast the Apple event with Microsoft event you go to an Apple event and they say three things and they reiterated about three times and there's one more thing they throw at the end ..

"When people leave the show they know exactly what was announced, and they know exactly what they are supposed to take from it and what's the message."

Ritchie put another way. "They tell you what they will tell you, they tell you, then they tell you what they say."

The Apple event flips the script on traditional means "do not bury the lead" news pushed out. Instead of making the first major announcement, Cook and others will likely run out of smaller news list.

The number of new Apple store opened. Update to Mac and mobile operating systems. Freshen-up on products such as the iPod or Apple TV.

In an age of Twitter and live-blogging, this is the way to put the details in public that might be buried under the big news.

But small things disappear when the big reveal-all begins.

(There are some occasions it may be "revealed" this week. Addition there is talk that the iPhone "iPad Mini" less likely on the way. Essentially the conclusion of the previous iPhone 5, which could be a candidate for a Cook Jobsian "One Thing More ... . ")

The company has not refused to schtick a bit to help them by revealing, either. Sometimes, the Jobs will riff joke at events such as the "funeral" 2002 for Mac OS9 or 1999 chat with HAL 9000 from fame "2001".

Oh, and about the cheering crowd: They crash well.

"They're ahead of where the stock ones Apple and Pixar are excited about it," said Ritchie. "It was very carefully staged It's laid out very carefully to create a story .."



Distortion of reality



It all made complicated, but oh, so simple.

"Actually, for anyone who has been through an MBA program, it is marketing 101," Baker said. "But most companies, especially in the tech industry, just do not have the discipline to be able to do it .... Most of them are driven by a culture of engineering rather than marketing culture and they want to talk about everything that is in the product, and that leads to the dilution of the message. "

Details formula has evolved over time. In the early days of Apple, Jobs led for the entire event. But in recent years he began carrying the deputy as Cook, Schiller and Forstall to share the stage - in effect setting up a new generation of leaders.

Observers joking (or in the case of some rivals, mad) called late effects of this Apple event "reality distortion field." The level of excitement was contagious and hammered home the message in a way that even normally skeptical tech journalists are not immune.

"They kind of get you where they want you to be and then they spoon feed it to you ...," said Ritchie. "It's easier for us to regurgitate it, whereas with the other companies, they make you think about it and it's easier to study it."

Criticism of the product usually does not come until later, from outside the event space. They have ranged from technical problems, such as the antenna problem on the iPhone 4, light-hearted reflection on whether more women in the Apple engineers may have saved Apple tablet from the so-called "iPad."

But for at least one news cycle, probing questions are more likely to get buried under a wave of breathless reports about the Apple event.

"It's almost like an exercise in Sun Tzu for business presentations," said Ritchie, a reference to "The Art of War" author.

Among the famous quote from the ancient Chinese manual: "Everyone can see the tactics whereby I conquer, but what it can not see is the strategy out of which victory evolved.". (dyt)