Apple shareholder meeting allows Cook to make an encore
Does Apple CEO Tim Cook have an encore for THAT?
After putting Apple's impressive, broad-ranging talent and innovation on display in San Francisco on Monday, Cook will need something big to top it on Tuesday in Cupertino, Calif., 47 miles to the south, during its annual shareholder meeting.
A few stock charts should help, since Apple shares (AAPL) are up a rich 68% in the last 12 months, while the Nasdaq is up just 14%.
Since Cook was first named interim CEO in August 2011, the stock is up 140%.
More dividends might also be on the table. Apple has already returned over $100 billion to shareholders and has pledged to share even more.
Even activist investor Carl Icahn couldn't complain about either of those moves.
Under Cook, Apple is bigger and richer – far richer – than it ever was under Steve Jobs.
And with an impressive display of hardware and software at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts on Monday, the company showed its product design prowess has lived on in Cook's tenure.
Cook's show had more of a big-tent approach, as he shared the stage with a broad range of Apple executives and guests – including the CEO of HBO and a supermodel who'd just run a half-marathon near Mt. Kilimanjaro, wearing an Apple Watch, of course.
The company made major updates to one product line, introduced an entirely new one and even rolled out free, open-source software tools for medical research that protect the privacy of medical consumers (unless and until the federal government outlaws private encryption.)
The event was part a throwing back of the covers on Apple's product philosophy and part throwback to its roots in its gleaming, polished and visually assaulting homage to clean design.
As veteran industry analyst Maribel Lopez tweeted during the event:
"Yes, we are watching a video of stainless steel being forged."
Here's what we've learned in the hours since:
The watch isn't waterproof, which may disappoint more than a few surfers, boaters, scuba divers and other watersports enthusiasts.
Second, the MacBook overhaul is a dramatic – even risky — advance in human-interface design, with new technologies that will let future laptop users experience "Force Touch" pads and butterfly-like keys.
And Apple's seeding of the market for consumer health software with five apps reminds me of the five floppy discs I got with my Apple IIe in the late 1980s.
In other words, the company looks to be in the watch market for the long haul.
The other interesting news on Monday was the cost of the watch, which had been the subject of a flood of rumors prior to its unveiling.
Those predicted the price could essentially be anything, and nearly all were proved true after Apple said its watch would be priced from $349 to $10,000.
That sounds like a marketing experiment, and if it works, the watch may someday become a meaningful driver of revenue growth.
But even if it doesn't, Cook still has a growing pile of cash to share with investors.
Like the new laptop, the new health push and the new exclusive Web TV deal with HBO (also announced Monday,) sharing even more of that pile might do for an encore this week.
John Shinal has covered tech and financial markets for more than 15 years at Bloomberg, BusinessWeek, The San Francisco Chronicle, Dow Jones MarketWatch, Wall Street Journal Digital Network and others. Follow him on Twitter: @johnshinal.