The Apple Beat: 'iPhone 5' launch a landmark moment for CEO Tim Cook

Apple CEO Tim Cook looks to deliver on the promise that 2012 will be product-filled year.

Text and photos by Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

San Francisco - Apple Inc. is expected to launch a new iPhone today as well as possibly new iPods and other updated products. For Apple's CEO Tim Cook, it will mark an important milestone as his first major iPhone launch and the world is watching.

The epicentre of today's Apple announcement is the Yerba Buena Centre for the ArtsThe sombre tone of last year's iPhone 4S launch was understandable.

CEO Steve Jobs, who turned over the reins of the company to Cook, was gravely ill.

Apple's executives soldiered on with their keynote knowing that their visionary and founder was fading fast. He would pass away a day later.

The iPhone 4S was an updated product that was almost identical to the iPhone 4, brought a number of cool new upgrades and features with the Siri voice assistant being the most innovative.

It was just enough of an upgrade to keep Apple in the lead even if it lacked a new form factor or the 4G-LTE data speeds many users were clamouring for.

Apple watchers, and many customers were  really hoping for an 'iPhone 5'.

Even then, the idea of this mythical and revolutionary upgrade over the iPhone 4 was on everyone's minds.

The past year has been all about speculation, a media feeding frenzy peppered by part leaks captured in blurry photos and even videos and models of what the new device will look like.

The next iPhone, whatever it is called, is easily the most anticipated product launch since the original iPhone. Will Apple be able to change everything all over again? 

That's what everyone is wondering, specially as most of its competitors have shown their cards with bold new smartphones on Google's Android and to a much lesser extent, Microsoft's Windows Phone 8 OS.

Tim Cook comfortably quarterbacks the new iPad keynote presentationToday's keynote, will give Tim Cook a chance to go over Apple as a company and as a leader in mobile.

It will be a landmark moment for the affable CEO hinged on a landmark product, possibly the most important product Apple has today because it is the one users want the most.

Cook will no doubt bring out the numbers, which will be impressive. Apple has sold over 140 million iPhones since 2007. The company garnered 43 per cent of its $108.2 billion in sales last year from the iPhone, this is even before penetrating explosive growth markets like China where the product is in high demand.

Cook will inevitably compare Apple against competitors, explain approaches and ecosystems and why Apple's integrated approach works so well.

He'll likely have one of his generals run through the number of iOS apps sold,  the billions of dollars paid to app developers and how the iPhone  and iOS has been adopted widely across the globe.

He might even bring up the recent win against Samsung in the celebrated patent infringement case, one that proved that Samsung, Apple's parts supplier and partner, willfully copied the iPhone. That case will be appealed by Samsung and the courtroom drama will continue but Cook could use the case win in his keynote to great effect.

More than a monumental product launch, today's launch event is a great platform for Tim Cook to discuss what Apple has accomplished so far and more importantly, where it is going in the near future.