Look at Phil "Mini-Me" Schiller

If new Mac are presented Monday night, as seems to be emerging, it's a safe bet they will be announced by Phil Schiller. The "Senior Vice President Worldwide Marketing" Apple has rightly entitled to his portrait in BusinessWeek.

An article that said that his involvement in Apple goes far beyond simple advertising campaign management (although with $ 933 million budget the key to last year). We know for example that he was behind this ingenious idea of ​​a scroll wheel at increasing speed on the first iPod.

Faithful lieutenant Jobs - until the keynotes where he gladly donned the role of the clown in this duo - it was internally nicknamed "Mini-Me" (smaller version of the clone villain Dr. Evil in Austin Powers movies). He was also, says BusinessWeek, one of the quickest to defend the project of a tablet, while other executives were more reserved about his potential. It is also nicknamed "Dr. No" for his ability to sort unceremoniously in the suggestions and ideas proposed.

Jobs and if Schiller were in some respects very different - Article evokes the passion of the first to sport (Hockey) and his collection of beautiful sports cars - the two men were nonetheless very similar. Schiller was one of only two people present with Jobs when it wrote in 2004 the press when he announced his cancer.

He knows how to direct enough, as evidenced by an anecdote. The leader of an association of child welfare came to Cupertino to present its content rating methodology. Schiller replied "Ok, I have five minutes. We already had the necessary "before finally give him half past two when he saw that all was not so perfect in the Apple system.

Schiller, at a time, is repeatedly mounted to the front to defend or excuse certain discharges of applications on the App Store. It is to him that this recommendation should be fairly straightforward in the contract application developers’ iOS: "If your app gives the impression of having been cobbled together in a few days, or trying to set the Store your first hack to impress your friends, get ready for rejection. We have many serious developers who do not want their apps to be surrounded by quality of amateur work. "

As with all senior executives of Apple since the disappearance of Jobs, the question is how the role will evolve Schiller (he lost in passing the word "product" in its title, which hints at a surface responsibility much wider). Some fear he lacks the necessary creativity and flair to push products and aggressive marketing campaigns. Four former executives of Apple, interviewed anonymously in the article, they consider too conventional in his leadership. They fear that this is reflected also in how to communicate with Apple and to invent new products.

This is perhaps forget that Jobs, despite all his talent, has not always had his nose and hollow that successful products are born against his original opinion: he refused, for example the idea of ​​the arrival of native applications on iPhone, before being persuaded by dint of hard by his lieutenants and members of the board. We have also seen the fiasco of the G4 Cube, despite the technical prowess he represented.

However, to accredit this change of tone in how Apple communicates BusinessWeek points to the recent commercials for the iPhone and Siri that depict personalities (John Malkovich, Samuel L. Jackson and Zooey Deschanel so far).

Apple, even after the return of Jobs, has had the opportunity to put faces known in pubs: Think Different, Mac vs. PC characters, some clips iPod and iTunes. But she had done recently and notably for the iPhone and the iPad. Siri for the last three are considered fairly average by a measurement specialist Popularity interviewed by BusinessWeek. The one with Malkovich asking Siri earned a satisfaction index scores quite low compared to usual Apple. We must be careful however, a final judgment by too from a couple of clips. A host of products are in the pipeline, Apple (OS X Mountain Lion, iOS 6, new iPhone, new Macs) as among its competitors (Windows 8). With them many opportunities to communicate, and thus, to observe how each will play its part.