Do You Like Tim Cook?

[xxray]

Yes, a lot. I’ve always liked Apple, but I’ve liked where it’s gone, especially in recent years. The mid 2010s were pretty rough there for a while with the 2013 Mac Pro, Butterfly Keyboard, Touch Bar, dongles, Magic Mouse charging method, iPhone XR pricing, being a very closed ecosystem, poor iPhone battery life, iPhone performance throttling, lack of Intel innovation, etc. I guess you could argue that these are all blunders that happened under Tim Cook’s direction, but Apple has changed their strategy since then.

Apple used to act superior to their customers, like they knew better than what we wanted. But they’ve started listening to customers, bringing ports back, bringing reliable keyboards back, opening up the ecosystem, pricing their products better/providing more value, iPhones now have some of the best battery life in the industry, Apple Silicon coming to Mac providing industry leading battery life and performance, etc.. It all started when they admitted they were wrong with the 2013 Mac Pro. 2019-2021 felt like very good years for Apple products. And I just like the general direction Apple has been going.

I also really admire Tim Cook for being openly gay while running one of the biggest companies of the world and pushing for positive change in the world. Like anyone, he’s not perfect, but he’s definitely someone I can look up to that I feel like represents me in a group where I don’t often see representation (CEOs of major companies).

That being said, I do have some concerns as an Apple fan of Apple’s very recent strategy. For instance, iPhone price increases (globally, Plus model, rumors of Pro models increasing next year), confusing iPad lineup with more dongles, minimal changes to the iPad Pro model, minimal changes to the standard iPhone models, a strategy to increase Apple’s advertising business in their own apps, etc. This worries me that Apple is going back to their old ways of providing less value for the money, stupid design choices that are frustrating and more expensive for the user, and even violating their own past philosophies, like regarding ads on their devices.

 

[I7guy]

Well he only cares about making profits and satisfying Wall Street. He rarely visits the design studio unlike Steve who visited the design team often.

https://www.indeed.com/hire/job-description/ceo-chief-executive-officer

"Evaluate and track the success of the company in reaching its goals." That is not the same as the trope about "caring only about profits."

 

[nkgmd]

Over the top and way too harsh. Give the man credit for being hand picked by Steve to see Apple into the future, growing it by orders of magnitude, making products that we love and depend on, and weathering storms that destroyed national economies and international trade. Nitpick if you want about design or feature micromanagement, but the Apple ecosystem is second to none.

I’m not a historian but I recall when Steve came back to Apple, people lost their minds because he made unpopular decisions, like to eliminate the Macintosh licensing agreements, make peace with Microsoft, drop product lines entirely, remove floppy disks and optical drives, not use physical phone keyboards, not support Flash, lock iPhone exclusively with AT&T on EDGE, design antennae that are blocked by human hands, put crooked screens on the LCD iMac, make underpowered desktops, and all the while charging way too much. But at the end of the day to paraphrase Steve, you have to choose which horse you’re going to ride. Tim’s job is to make those choices for Apple and their customers, and we vote with our MagSafe Wallets and Apple Cards if we want to ride along with.

 

[UMHurricanes34]

Third option should be “Yes, but (and it’s a big but)”

 

[fenderbass146]

I can't wait until Tim Crook is in jail. Total phoney, a Benedict Arnold in the truest sense of the word.

Jail…for what exactly. Grow up, yea he’s no jobs, but not many could be. There are far worst options.

 

[LeeW]

I only care about the products, not the people. As long as they continue to produce products that I want to buy, that is all that matters. I have zero interest in the people running the business.

 

[kevcube]

I absolutely loathe the crook. Apple has gone pathetically downhill and I feel like I'm holding on out of nostalgia for the old Apple. Right now I can't work out because these boneheads screwed up WatchOS on the latest update and now every Series 3 in existence is suddenly unusable. I use it as my heart rate monitor for my Peloton. Might as well just keep buying and returning new Apple Watches until these lazy thieves finally get around to un-bricking our watches. I've thought long & hard about filing a class action lawsuit against this clown for what he's done to Apple, I can't believe the estate of Steve Jobs hasn't went after this bozo with litigation of likes the world has never seen.

Absolute moron, lets take a look at what's going on under his tenure and I won't even get into all the BS politics of this Benedict Arnold either which is the worst part.

- He bricked every Apple Watch Series 3
- Jelly scrolling iPad mini
- Vibrating cameras
- Peeling iPad airs
- Released an iPad that still uses Apple Pencil 1 but can't charge Apple Pencil 1 without a dongle
- but said dongle is on an over one month delay
- AirPods max spontaneously combusting into flames
- bad bluetooth on Mac minis
- fired Johnny Ive
- PUT A NOTCH ON A LAPTOP WITHOUT EVEN HAVING FACE ID THEN GETS RID OF THE NOTCH FROM IPHONE
- discontinues mini iPhone and now every phone is so large no NBA player in the world could use it one handed. matter of fact they couldn't use an iPhone mini one handed because they're all too big, but this pathetic scumbag only cares about profit margins so they brainwash people into thinking they want to carry around tablets.
- half of MacBook is squared and half is rounded, terrible design
- fattened the whole lineup of everything making them so complicated and so many stupid names too
- now everyone is fleeing from his tyrannical rein and there are no design experts left

take a trip down memory lane, read it and weep, this guy needs to be fired and kicked to the curb before he destroys whats left of Apple. I'm almost considering becoming one of those people with green texts because of how diasasterous this Nike glasses wearing bum. Take a hike

Seethe bro. Maybe you are the one who needs to take a hike.

 

[Whjuvv]

See?

To be fair I’m fairly ambivalent.
He runs the company and is responsible to share holders, and has a huge team behind him.
In a company of that size it is likely many decisions are made further down the line and he oversees big picture.

Apple isn’t perfect, but for me still gets more right than wrong.

This where people's expectations are now. Apple is just a company!! Heh!!!

iPhone 4 still has my respect and not Oh So Pro-level iPhone 14 Pro max.

Job's products used to felt like a big part of me, like one's lover. And current ones are just products, not EXPERIENCEs any more. They just are better than other products, they are, but nothing more. Doesn't really make me feel anything.

 

[imdog]

Jail…for what exactly. Grow up, yea he’s no jobs, but not many could be. There are far worst options.

For one of the thousands of things he's done that are business fraud. the guy is a con man, a scam artist, swindler, a cheat

 

[Jack Neill]

For one of the thousands of things he's done that are business fraud. the guy is a con man, a scam artist, swindler, a cheat

He is not alone. Those are job prerequisites in todays corporate landscape.

 

[CyberDavis]

See?

This where people's expectations are now. Apple is just a company!! Heh!!!

iPhone 4 still has my respect and not Oh So Pro-level iPhone 14 Pro max.

Job's products used to felt like a big part of me, like one's lover. And current ones are just products, not EXPERIENCEs any more. They just are better than other products, they are, but nothing more. Doesn't really make me feel anything.

It is a company, whatever else it is seen as it is a company.
Whether we like it or not they have to report to a board, investors and shareholders.

And to be fair I still feel an experience with the products I have. I like the Apple ecosystem, and I like the way they interact.
You are of course entitled to an opinion, and we can agree to disagree.👍

 

[Apple Knowledge Navigator]

I’m no Tim Cook fan. Though let me be clear that it is not due to a lack of vision or knowledge of the industries that Apple enters.

He is clearly an intelligent and articulate person no doubt and someone with great integrity. Jobs described Cook as an “enigma” and ultimately a workaholic who just got on with the job - and did unbelievably well at it, helping to transform Apple in the process.

However I strongly believe that his skills were best suited under the leadership of another individual, where he was not challenged creatively.

This is the ultimate problem. Jobs was not a technical wizard, he was not an inventor nor a creative genius: he was a perfectionist and a visionary. His drive, often controversial in the way he treated others, was like nothing else, and he put the user experience before growth. In other words, he wanted to focus on fewer things really well.

As a leader, Cook does not have these qualities. This does not make him a bad person nor unqualified to be a CEO, but his change in direction to Jobs has inevitably altered the very foundation of Apple - for the worse, in my opinion.

Cook has pushed not only his own social agendas to the forefront of Apple, but a wide variety moves that suggest Apple is more afraid of offending people than being realistic. It’s a sad reflection of the times we live in, and frankly I’m sick to death of the paint-by-numbers script from their marketing department… How proud they are of their ‘achievements’ and their ability to count numbers.

Worse still, Cook cannot execute design choices himself. Also, Apple has gone back on its word of only entering markets that it can significantly contribute to or take large market shares and… well, done the opposite.

But let’s not convince ourselves that Apple was significantly ‘better’ under Steve Jobs. To counter your points with a few off the top of my head:

- MobileMe?
- iPhone 4 ‘antennagate’
- Overheating Macs right, left and center
- G5 water cooling failures
- White polycarbonate MacBook cracking
- ‘Hockey puck’ mouse

So, no I don’t like Tim Cook as CEO, but I’m sure he is an interesting individual.

 

[MauiPa]

I can't wait until Tim Crook is in jail. Total phoney, a Benedict Arnold in the truest sense of the word.

Don't you still have to commit a crime to go to jail?

 

[MauiPa]

First, it is better to disagree and not be hateful about something. II find that the less people hate, the better they are as people in general. In my case it definitely keeps me in a better place.



Just to remind people of the accomplishments under Tim Cook’s direction:

• Apple is probably the most successful company of all time
• Apple is environmentally and socially conscious, far more than most companies
• Apple has created the most integrated suite of software and hardware across multiple platforms - no one else comes close
• Apple is the best, or near the best of products in the markets it enters (clearly not perfect, but who is?)
• Created Apple silicon which is competitive with AMD and Intel (at much lower energy levels - again environmentally beneficial) (and is years ahead of Qualcomm), and has helped re-invigorate the chip industry (competition - Gotta love it)
• Has placed security and Privacy as the basics of all products, so much more so than anyone else (just look at all the Android and windows malware). Perfect, I’m really not saying they are - so breathe.
• Has navigated supply constraints, and chip shortages far better than most companies
• Has navigated work from home issues pretty well

So, I am not saying Apple is perfect, so don’t bother spewing a tirade, I am saying is that they as a company have accomplished much.



Now some of my criticisms:

• Why are RAM and SSD prices so darn high? I get that Apple SSDs blow away Dells, but speeds are increasing and prices are coming down. So is it time for a rethink? Definitely
• Internal power supply in the Mac Studio (and original HomePod)? Doesn’t that increase heat and fan use - it seems an external power source would be better
• Why no Wifi and Bluetooth on the Studio display? It could run iPadOS and be used for streaming
• Hey I get unions come in and set up an adversarial relationship, that is their history, but why not embrace unions as a group of dedicated employees trying to make things better. Employees have a right to unionize in most countries, so why not embrace it and make it work?

And oh, I’m totally cool with you disagreeing with me, but facts are facts and feelings are not

 

[TracerAnalog]

I don’t know Tim Cook to have an opinion about the man as a person. On stage he is not the most charismatic person, but that is not his main job. He has to manage a behemoth the likes of which Steve Jobs never saw in his life time. I doubt Tim has the time to have as much influence on the actual products as people might think.

 

[Jumpthesnark]

He's the head of a multi-billion (Trillion?) dollar company - he doesn't know me from adam. I do not like or dislike him, nor does he ever occupy my thoughts.

I've agreed and disagreed with his numerous decisions he's made, but here's the thing - he and his people are the experts, I'm not.

Bottom line, if you don't what Apple is offering, or feel the quality is not commensurate for the price being charged, buy something else. Life is to short to obsess over every perceived misstep or get angry over every policy or product decision Apple has made.

Clearly you miss the point about the internet. We're all supposed to fill ourselves with rage over perceived slights and misinformation, then share that with everyone else, anonymously, in a pathetic bid for attention and the wish that we will somehow make strangers angry. And if you run a website, you nurture and encourage this anger and hysteria in the hopes that more people angrily click on things because you have been told that your advertisers like angry clickbait.

Your approach of seeing things clearly and not getting upset about things at the drop of a hat is a mystery to me

 

[TheYayAreaLiving 🎗️]

I don’t like the fact my vote can be seen by everyone in the public. It was supposed to be anonymous and I can’t change my vote again 😭😩

I’m sorry Mr. Tim Cook. I ❤️ you!

 

[cateye]

Bottom line, if you don't what Apple is offering, or feel the quality is not commensurate for the price being charged, buy something else.

A ray of common sense in the midst of so much ridiculous, juvenile emotion.

 

[Lesser Evets]

- fired Johnny Ive
- half of MacBook is squared and half is rounded, terrible design
- fattened the whole lineup of everything making them so complicated and so many stupid names too

These are the lesser points, compared to how MacOS/OSX went to crap. You can't even FIND things using the FINDER!! That's JOB #1. Once you get over that problem, the whole OS is so bloated and gimmicky, crashes my MacStudio about once a day by slowing it down. Startup and shutdown is slow and tedious.

Apple needs a person up top that emulates Jobs: make it trimmer, easier to use, convenient, faster.

Hardware has had problems, but I haven't had any of them.

Finally: the watch is nothing to brag about. That is a step backwards or sideways. It should never be held out as a front-page item. It's a symptom of the management's myopic style.

 

[StralyanPithecus]

I don’t like the fact my vote can be seen by everyone in the public. It was supposed to be anonymous and I can’t change my vote again 😭😩

Worry not! The "public" will keep your vote secret and secure.

 

[MindYourMind]

We don't find it strange that it makes us feel good when someone says "I like your jersey". But someone was judging the jersey.

Similarly, OP asks “Do you like Tim Cook”, and what follows is an enumeration of products OP is dissatisfied with.

I am confused.

 

[Black Tiger]

It’s sort of irrelevant whether I like him. Under Jobs, Apple had a much smaller product lineup and it was much more of a one-man show, although that was changing in the years leading up to his death. Apple was also still a very niche company in 2011 compared to today. Cook may be the face of the company, but it is the collective work of many people. We are also contending with the pandemic which has disrupted the way everyone works, including Apple. Employees have been working remotely and there have been material shortages around the world. All of this creates problems in finished products. Apple is not immune to this, regardless of who the CEO is.

 

[Sami13496]

This was one of if not the weirdest post I've ever read here.

What does it matter who makes the decisions? Either you like the product or you don't. If you don't like the product, don't buy the product. Buy another product.

When you go to a shoe store to buy a pair of shoes and you see some shoes you don't like, do you sue the shoe manufacturer or CEO of that shoe company? Or do you just look for other shoe models?

 

[I7guy]

I don’t like the fact my vote can be seen by everyone in the public. It was supposed to be anonymous and I can’t change my vote again 😭😩

There’s a footnote that all votes are public.

 

[ElRojito]

He’s been great for my stock portfolio, so… sure.