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

please

[Anonymous Coward]

please let him be some jacked roid raging hairy chested mans man. every time i look at an apple product i felt like watching the view and eating some ice cream

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.

Re:Will the reality distortion field last?

[morgauxo]

Don't worry. They are just waiting for Steve Ballmer to become available.

Re:Will the reality distortion field last?

[f()rK()_Bomb]

I think you may have been living in a cave for the last 10 years or so :p What about the ipod? Or the iphone, losing market share doesnt mean that the devices dont appeal to regular people. It means theres been a huge influx of cheap android devices. Market share is not a zero-sum game for phones. And although the market share of mac in the pc space appears small, if you go to a university or coffee shop and look at how many people are sporting macbooks, it seems clear that regular people like apple products very much. Apple products are expensive, hence not everyone who wants one can get one, but they certainly appeal to regular people because they are simple and clean. I think you may be confusing yourself for a regular person. If you read slashdot, you are not a regular person :p My sister would be a regular person, her and all her friends are obsessed with apple products. They think android is clunky. Yet she has an android phone, because its really cheap.

Re:Will the reality distortion field last?

[Bing Tsher E]

Any group of fans who refer to 'the others' as 'the haters' is a fucking cult.

In comes all the scumbags

[Anonymous Coward]

Maximizing profits to boost short term share price will be the #1 focus of the company going forward.

Lack of customer focus?

[vlm]

So, the biotech place only sells R+D to megacorps and their customer experience is designed for PHDs in ChemEng, Chem, Bio, MDs, and of course, beancounters.

The Disney guy thinks he should own our culture in perpetuity and the government should enforce and extend failing business models, admittedly a widely held belief.

Who, if anyone in their leadership, cares about the general public actually buying their stuff?

I could see this resulting in a big push for "ItunesU", or tablet/phone electronic medical records, or maybe an even more draconian DRM setup. Any way this team could benefit the general public?

The best I can come up with is something like a real world highly integrated "medical tricoder" that is DRM locked down so you/your doc/your med insurance has to pay apple each time they want to look at your records, forever. Also the tricoder only works with Apple-approved MRI units, Apple-approved IV pumps, etc.

I'm disappointed

[Anonymous Coward]

I think Apple should have tapped Job's Disney connections so his corpse could be brought back in animatronic form.

Could be a good fit

[walterbyrd]

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

First time?

[homsar]

this marks the first time since the return of Steve Jobs to Apple that the CEO and board chairman were different people.

...except for that period after Steve resigned CEOship but was still Chairman when Tim Cook was CEO... (Reading TFA, it seems that the error is in the paraphrasing rather than the original.)

From some one who knows Art

[kungfool]

I don't understand all the Art bashing here. I worked under Art when he ran Genentech research, and later when he was promoted to CEO. He was a genius at getting other geniuses (and no, I'm not counting myself in that category) to give their best, most creative work. He made Genentech a fun, exciting place to work. We all worked hard (very hard), but were well rewarded and felt the work was vital and exciting stuff. I think he has exactly what it takes to help guide Apple. He's not some bean-counter, suit wearing executive. He's a scientist at heart, and as hard-core a geek as any one could want (he was known for using UNIX mail even after the company rolled out a custom mail interface).