Phil wearing a Boston Red Sox hat

This week brought a firestorm of Schiller discussion to the web, highlighted by a rare personal missive from Phil himself, unbounded by the chains of a formal press release.

None other than esteemed web journalist and Apple clear thinker John Gruber was the man who instigated this line public of debate with his excellent Daring Fireball piece on Apple’s unclear App Store approval process. The latest in a long line of links and thoughtful comments on the subject, John’s description really painted Apple’s already controversial behavior as nearly indefensible in this particular case*.

Apparently Phil also didn’t like the way this made Apple look, as he not only immediately personally investigated the case but then also took the unprecedented step of emailing John a long and detailed response with permission to publish the content online. In our opinion, Phil’s statements helped humanize Apple’s behavior in ways their previous silence left open for interpretation and well-founded criticism.

Apple’s goals remain aligned with customers and developers. […] While we may not always be perfect in our execution of that goal, our efforts are always made with the best intentions, and if we err we intend to learn and quickly improve.

Regardless of the particulars of this debate, having Phil respond publicly about a controversy regarding Apple’s notoriously private behaviors is an exciting development. Who doesn’t love it every time an Apple Exec shares his thoughts with the world? Best yet, each of Apple’s higher-ups has such a great personality that is apparent each time they talk. With Jobs’ assured boldness, Ive’s passion for design, and Cook’s no-nonesense approach, Schiller’s marketing-infused sunny-side statements** are both amusing, strategic, and informative.

Not everyone on the interwebs was happy to hear Phil take to his soapbox though. Bordering on sacrilege, Mac Journals posted a piece questioning (with evidence) Phil’s historic reliability. Frankly we feel that their case is not without merit, but a little too esoteric and open for interpretation to get worked up over.

Plus in the end we got to learn a little more about Phil Schiller the man, as his letter to Gruber revealed not only that he was a Red Sox fan (previously we knew Phil, a Canadian and thereby natural hockey fan, was fan of the local San Jose Sharks) but also that he was a regular-enough reader of Daring Fireball to have discovered that John is a Yankee’s fan.

*Related: how has this additional press impacted Ninjawords sales?

**Anyone with a copy of the video from Apple Retail’s Q2 Store Meeting should send it our way, as it allegedly features a classic moment of Phil’s effluent marketing prose that the world would love to see.

Come back later for a comprehensive report of the Schillerness of today’s Keynote.

Update: Watch the entire Keynote here.

By all indications, Phil Schiller is set to deliver an earth-shattering Macworld Keynote Tuesday morning, the likes of which have never been seen. We’re predicting complete annihilation.

We’re going to miss Phil’s typical supporting appearances, but we figure after his Keynote is done it will be pretty clear why Apple is canceling future Macworld appearances: there will be no topping this Schill-note.

Least we forget, this is not Phil’s first time hosting a Macworld Keynote. He also presented the Keynote at Macworld Paris in the summer of 2004, where he introduced the new iMac G5 with it’s new vertical all-in-one design that continues to evolve today.

Update: We aren’t the only ones predicting a massive Schiller “tour-de-force”.

Phil is on stage right now at the Apple “Let’s Rock” event demoing some games for the iPhone and iPod Touch, including the just released Spore. I guess when Phil’s not thinking about Worldwide Product Marketing and hockey he has time for a little casual gaming and biology.

Phil described MobileMe as Exchange for the rest of us, showed how events can be pushed to an iPhone, and demonstrated new web based versions of Mail, Address Book, and iCal. Additional coverage coming soon.

A closer look at Phil’s iPhone Calendar shown during the presentation also reveals that he routinely schedules time to think up new Apple rumors. Clearly there are no limits to the wizardry of his marketing strategies and even Apple fanboy bloggers are merely pawns in his game of puppetry. How’s that for a mixed-metaphor?

In reference to yesterday’s discussion of future Apple leadership, Phil once again demonstrated his competency and comfort announcing new products. No need to worry about the other guest host; Scott Forstall is only ever brought out in front of the geeky developer crowd and just doesn’t have the laugh to be the top dog. We’re all better off with him working with the smart people anyhow.

Phil’s sense of humor was sprinkled liberally throughout his piece: he cracked jokes about older generation phones in reference to BlackBerries, amongst other quips. His best joke was when he dead-panned to that everyone should just “take our word for it, it works” before actually demoing Exchange syncing. What a ham.

Pretty awesome that the first thing out of interviewer Ryan Block’s mouth when he got the chance to speak to Phil was to ask about Schiller-mania. Maybe not the best journalistic move to creep out the interview subject right off the bat, but flattering to us. Phil went on to downplay his fame and give a good personal interview while of course staying on message about the awesome new iPods, iTunes, and the like. I recommend Schiller fans and everyone else take a look.

Daringfireball immediately trashed Engadget of course. Something about a history of bad reporting?

Phil was in the audience with his iPhone submitting photos to the .Mac Web Gallery Steve had just built with iPhoto.

Here’s the wacky photo Phil uploaded!

“It’s not just about Intel Inside. When you buy any off the shelf PCs, the boxes are covered with confusing logos, and messages, and icons. You open it up: there’s stickers to peel off displays and keyboards; they’re all over the place. And then you start it up and you find junkware all over your desktop and in your menus that they’ve littered with it trying to up sell you on junk and that whole philosphy: we try to just give you a great product that you’ll love and you don’t have to peel stuff off to make it look better.”

Link to audio of the question and answer on MacWorld.