The mystique of the next iAnything

Otherwise known as "Its all about Steve."This Tuesday (Sept 9, 2014), Apple will unveil its next iPhone, the long rumored and much speculated iWatch or whatever its going to be called and possibly the next generation of iPad. For the past few weeks, the press has been drooling over the small bread crumbs they have spotted and the media frenzy is starting to hit fever pitch. But this post is not about that event or products, atleast not in the way you think it is. I will cover all those products later this week after their unveiling. This post is about the allure of whatever Apple chooses to launch (or sometimes not). This is about the aura of the iAnything.Let me get this out of the way. I am NOT an Apple fanboy. I own and love my Android phone. I have no plans to upgrade to an iPhone. I use a Kindle Fire HDX tablet for much of my media and content consumption and also use a Kindle Paperwhite for my reading. I do own an iPad and my wife uses an iPhone 5S but I am not your traditional fanboy. But I am is a huge fan of Apple's hardware product design and engineering. And more than anything, I am a huge believer in their now self-sustaining hype and marketing machine. It is the best of what one looks in a PR Department- one that communicates so much without really communicating anything. And that is Steve Job's greatest legacy.Steve Jobs was in my opinion, one of the greatest showmen of the 20th (and the still young 21st) century. And his greatest trick was the one he played year after year on an increasing horde of devotees across the world. This is not to say that the products he was hawking were any less spectacular. But they took on a near mythical proportion with his carefully choreographed yet exaggerated unveiling. He was the marketers ultimate dream and Apple benefited so much from it. So much that Apple continues to bask in that glory 3 years after his death.Tim Cook and co. have done wonders with the Apple machine. Over the past three years, with the able support of Jony Ive, Eddy Cue, Bob Mansfield,  Craig Federighi and so many more key folks working behind the scenes, he has ably steered the Apple ship with incrementally well built and compelling products. And for that, his team and he get all the credit. But to Steve they owe the allure of the Apple product that continues to shine bright till today. And nowhere is it shining brighter than the impending launch of the iPhone 6 and the iWatch.The iWatch and the iTV have been the two most anticipated Apple products that no one really knows anything about. There are no leaked shots unlike the regular stream of leaked images and videos of the next iPhone. There is nary a peep of anything that we know for sure. Yes, it will support mobile payments but that could very well be part of the iPhone 6 feature set. Yes, it will support HealthKit but didn't we know that from the iOS8 announcement?What really do we know about how the product looks, how it works and how it will be "Apple magical"? What we do know is this- it will sell by the millions and will spawn dozens of imitators that will scramble to make their own version of the iWatch. Such is the power of an Apple product today. Even if it is an absolute train-wreck, volumes of love notes will be written across the web and fanboys will line up by the thousands outside stores in the cold of the Fall night. Records will be made and broken and a new product segment will be born. It will elicit oohs and aahs and will be the must have gadget for this Holiday. The biggest bragging rights will go to the proud owner of the iWatch or for that matter, the iNext they produce. And this is the highest glory for any marketing machine. Millions of unit sales assured even before the first official word has been uttered about the very existence of it.So how does Apple do it? How did Steve Jobs cultivate such a mystique around Apple's products. And how can anyone unabashedly copy it and actually benefit from it? What does it take to get the Apple aura? As far as I understand, it takes a rare once in a lifetime combination of a visionary CEO, a history of unique and compelling products along with a strong design language that constantly inspires. The engineering excellence starts at the top and flows through the organization. Being one of the most profitable and biggest companies today definitely gets all the eye balls. And yes, the unholy levels of secrecy help. But it still comes down to constant and unfailing execution at the very highest level.So the iWatch may thrill or disappoint. The iPhone 6 will be called out for finally embracing the large screen revolution (and there will be the one handed use jokes on Ive). Yet, the Sept 9th event has already proved with the incredible anticipation it has generated and the media frenzy that will follow with reams of newsprint and many millions of tweets and retweets that Apple is still the King when it comes to launching a product in style. And they are still the only show in town when it comes to that.