Apple Names New Chairman

angry tapir writes "Arthur Levinson, former CEO of biotech company Genentech, is taking on the chairmanship of Apple's board, filling the role that Apple founder Steve Jobs vacated when he died last month." El Reg notes that Disney CEO/President Robert Iger was also appointed to the board, and that this marks the first time since the return of Steve Jobs to Apple that the CEO and board chairman were different people.

Comments

Will the reality distortion field last?

[elrous0]

These are pretty conventional corporate appointments, which leads me to wonder how much longer the Steve Job's aura will last. I think they would have been better off appointing a very charismatic figurehead as CEO (as the *public* face), and then letting the business folks quietly run the show behind the scenes. It's hard to believe that fans will one day cry like their daddy died when Tim Cook or one of these corporate insiders leaves. And Apple has always relied on a certain degree of devotion from their fans (I'll resist the cult comparison) and an image of hipness.

Re:Will the reality distortion field last?

[Anonymous Coward]

These are pretty conventional corporate appointments, which leads me to wonder how much longer the Steve Job's aura will last. I think they would have been better off appointing a very charismatic figurehead as CEO (as the *public* face), and then letting the business folks quietly run the show behind the scenes. It's hard to believe that fans will one day cry like their daddy died when Tim Cook or one of these corporate insiders leaves. And Apple has always relied on a certain degree of devotion from their fans (I'll resist the cult comparison) and an image of hipness.

The vast majority of iPod/iPhone/iPad owners have never met Steve Jobs; they've never watched an Apple video stream of a Steve Jobs keynote. They may have seen him on the cover of Time once, but they never read the article, because that's boring business-stock-market-computer-geek stuff. They haven't even read the tell-all biography that every tech news site has been posting exposes on, because, well, nobody reads books anymore.

The Steve Jobs posse came out in force on the Internet when Steve Jobs died, but they're a tiny, tiny majority of Apple buyers in real life. Apple has been so successful because it appealed to regular people. The Apple fanboys were just the highly visible cheering section; the stands were filled with regular people.

Re:Will the reality distortion field last?

[flyingsquid]

Steve Jobs' followers don't need to be huge in number to make a big difference, if they're the type of people who set trends. Stephen Colbert is always sporting the latest iGadget on the Colbert Report, or making a big deal about how his love affair with an Apple product is ended by the release of a newer, shinier, thinner version of the same gadget. Apple products feature prominently in movies and TV, because in the same way the director wants the character to have fashionable clothes and a sleek car, they want them to have the coolest, trendiest gadgets. If your friend who is always quick to pick up on technology trends has ditched his Kindle and is now sporting an iPad, that may not make you run out to the Apple Store but it will make you consider whether it's something you should buy. So if the people who follow Steve Jobs are the people the rest of us take our social cues from, the Reality Distortion Field can have a huge effect.

Could be a good fit

[walterbyrd]

Like Apple, Disney is nearly obsesive about protecting it's IP; while ripping off everybody else's IP.