Now playing Steve Jobs, Scott Forstall

Apple's Scott Forstall proved Tuesday he pull off a Steve Jobs-style presentation.

(Credit: James Martin/CNET)

Apple's second major event of 2009 without CEO Steve Jobs at the helm was much more interesting than its first, and shed a bit more light on what Apple's presentation strategy sans Jobs might look like.

Jobs, of course, is on medical leave until June, and therefore wasn't present to host the iPhone 3.0 software event on Tuesday. So Apple's Scott Forstall, senior vice president of iPhone software, did the majority of the talking during Tuesday's event, accompanied by vice president of iPhone and iPod marketing Greg Joswiak and senior vice president of marketing Phil Schiller.

Unlike January's Macworld event hosted by Schiller, Tuesday's event had actual major news, the first time Apple has rolled out major news without Jobs present in recent memory. One of the key questions around Jobs' medical leave was whether or not Apple could continue to pull off its signature marketing bonanzas without Jobs, perhaps the most dynamic public speaker in the tech industry.

Forstall is no stranger to the stage, having played prominent roles in the demonstration of Mac OS X Leopard in 2006 and the iPhone 2.0 software event last year. With Tuesday's performance, he established himself as Apple's iPhone spokesman for some time to come, perhaps even after Jobs returns.

It's not that he was dazzling, or distorted everyone's reality. In January, everyone's attention was on the fact that Schiller, and not Jobs was before them on stage. On Tuesday, Forstall kept the focus on the new software by demonstrating an ability to smoothly explain complex topics (and gloss over shortcomings) with confidence and a sense of humor.

Most members of the public would be hard-pressed to name more than a handful of executives at any tech company, but Apple has for almost a decade made Jobs its single-most visible executive as part of its marketing strategy. Now, with Jobs sidelined, other Apple executives are having to step up.

Jobs is irreplaceable as a public speaker, salesman, and leader, but Forstall showed Apple COO Tim Cook that he can be counted on to be the public face of the iPhone.

Now all Apple has to do is find someone who can do that for both the iPod and the Mac.

[Mr. Dee]

You bring up an interesting point about the Mac and iPod. Phil has shown he is not good at marketting these products. Forstall is still mainly OS X, iPhone and Touch. Maybe this is what Apple needs to do, focus more on the software and less on the hardware. WWDC was never Jobs thing I always say. I remember when Forstall did the Time Machine demo I was impressed, so maybe more of those heavy stuff concerning software he will do in the future and maybe a more convincing person will do hardware and iLife.

[cardfan1212]

If they need such a salesman maybe the product just isn't that good?

[scott2400]

Spoken like someone who doesn't use the products. I don't buy because of the salesman, I buy because I like the product.

[kelmon]

? Please find me a company that is not in need of a good salesman/saleswoman. Sorry but that has to rank as one of the silliest comments that I've read for a while.

[iertry]

You mentioned phil schiler was there but when I watched the video it was just joswiak and forstall. Did they cut schiler out of it?

[Tom Krazit]

Schiller made a brief appearance during the Q&A session, but otherwise didn't deliver any of the presentation.

[iertry]

Thanks

[Randys2cents]

I like Scott Forstall. I think he is currently the best man for the job.

[daedbird]

The problem was there was nothing announced at Macworld...If they would have at least launched the updated Mini and iMac, Schiller would have gotten better marks.

What always seems to be lost is that Jobs built up the rep of always having the next big "one more thing" to announce, and spun it like the master he is. Forstall had a lot of good updates to talk about during this announcement.

I can remember when Apple launched the HiFi - there didn't seem to be much reality distortion going on at that one

[aMUSICsite]

"Most members of the public would be hard-pressed to name more than a handful of executives at any tech company".

Most members of the public have just about heard of Bill Gates and may know Steve Jobs works for some tech company. But these shows and events are for the hardcore tech fans, hacks and the like.

Most people will hear about it first on the BBC or CNN sites/TV shows or see them in the shops.

It's the products and sales pitch that sells things not the people hosting tech seminars.

[elllroy]

i would say that Greg Joswiak did a pretty good job, too. better than phil schiller at macworld.

[kelmon]

In some respects I would argue that the product launches at MacWorld were bigger news than the iPhone OS 3.0 announcement yesterday. When it comes down to it there really wasn't that much of interest announced, particularly when compared to other announcements such as the iPhone OS 2.0, unibody MacBooks, etc. Essentially all that was really announced, aside from some pretty good sales figures, was end-user features that fill-in the gaps people have complained about for the past couple of years, new ways to spend money with Apple, and enhancements to the APIs that we'll have to wait about 6-months to see the results of. Certainly Scott wasn't required to do something exciting like produce a computer from a manilla envelope or discover that an iPod fits in the change pocket of his jeans...

I really don't want to sound negative but the iPhone 3.0 software update is not a major event. Rather, I think the press hyped this one up more than was necessary.