Extremely Disappointed at Tim Cook’s leadership

[Andrea Filippini]

I see you’ve been using Apple products since 2010. Here’s a bit of a longer perspective:

1: “Weak” how, exactly? The M1 is faster than the models it is replacing (the 21.5” iMac)

2: Before Apple switched to their silver / black Bahaus aesthetic, their products were really whimsical. Look up the iMac G3 if you’re unaware. Even their “Pro” line up, the PowerMac G3, was bright blue and translucent. Ugly is a matter of opinion.

3: Given that they're more powerful than nearly any other Mac in the lineup (for example, blowing away my 2018 15” machine which was more than 2X the cost), what makes you say they won’t last a long time, exactly?

4: You’ve been using Apple products since 2010, yes? Ever heard of the MacBook Air? Plenty of 2010 / 2011 models still going strong, and they were just obsoleted with the last security update to High Sierra last year. That’s literally 10 years of support.

Repairs become much less of an issue with the M1. There isn’t a dGPU to cook itself and die out after a few years, nor an internal power supply which becomes finicky with age (both issues I currently have with my 2011 27” iMac).

Steve’s ethos was simple: Make elegant products and focus on the experience. Subjective design criteria aside, where is your rationalization coming from?

Weak because isn't future-proof.
Do you really think that this type of machine can last for a decade or for a five-year period?
A soldered 256 GB SSD with estimated 150 TBW is your idea of longevity?
A soldered maximum memory of 16 GB is your idea of performance?
The machine is weak and ugly, nothing else to say.

 

[Andrea Filippini]

I think you are confused. These changes will make the computer last a lot longer because less parts are able to fail. My iPad Air from 2013(?) is still alive whereas my wifes old 2011 imac needed a hard drive replaced twice and 1 fan replacement. This is expected cause hard drives die. However a all in one logic board like the iPad will usually outlast the battery and thats ok cause batteries can be replaced for up to 7 years and even more than that via third party. I think you are confused

A soldered 256 GB SSD with estimated 150 TBW is your idea of last longer?

 

[TiggrToo]

I’m not so sure that Apple knows what the **** it’s doing.
My overall confidence in their pipeline and visionary mythology of introducing show-stopping products that are revolutionary and exciting may very well have died with Steve Jobbs.

Never ceases to amuse me when folk talk about "what would Steve do".

The plain fact of the matter is that Cook has allowed Apple to continue its massive climb.

The world today is radically different from the world of Steve Jobs.

The other think that I find so laughable about your post is that under his leadership they had some real turkeys.

In addition, the competition Apple face today is night and day different from the times of Jobs.

In other words, it is only your belief that the Jobs ethos would have continued given all these changes.

What you lack is any actual evidence of this. Ergo your opinion is noted but ultimately pretty irrelevant and pointless.

Jobs' is dead. Move on.

 

[Murgatroyd]

I’m not so sure that Apple knows what the **** it’s doing.
My overall confidence in their pipeline and visionary mythology of introducing show-stopping products that are revolutionary and exciting may very well have died with Steve Jobbs.

Life is not a bowl of cherries, as Erma Bombeck said, 'cuz the future is not ours to see, que sera, sera.

 

[rpmurray]

Ya'll realize, this is the lower end "consumer" machine right?

The successor to the 27" is probably coming in a few months, and THAT machine will likely be more expandable and be far more capable, and most importantly come in Space Grey.

Sorry but the two things most often expanded on an iMac are RAM and storage (SSD). With Apple's Unified Memory and the Tx taking over as the controller for storage there is nothing you'll be able to expand in ANY iMac (except externally). You need to know the maximum you'll need going in and once your needs surpass that then these become destined for a landfill, something Apple doesn't say anything about in their environmental statements.

I have yet to hear much about what's going to happen to all those batteries filled with hazardous materials thet will be powering the "greener" electric cars of the future, when they need to be replaced. And nobody talks about what's happening with the batteries in the iPhones, iPads and MacBooks once they wear out.

 

[I7guy]

[...]And nobody talks about what's happening with the batteries in the iPhones, iPads and MacBooks once they wear out.

One brings them in to apple and either pays for a new battery or buys a new device.

I had an older car and I had to get something repaired. Would have cost $100. I decided to buy a new car instead.

 

[AdamNC]

Sorry but the two things most often expanded on an iMac are RAM and storage (SSD). With Apple's Unified Memory and the Tx taking over as the controller for storage there is nothing you'll be able to expand in ANY iMac (except externally). You need to know the maximum you'll need going in and once your needs surpass that then these become destined for a landfill, something Apple doesn't say anything about in their environmental statements.

I have yet to hear much about what's going to happen to all those batteries filled with hazardous materials thet will be powering the "greener" electric cars of the future, when they need to be replaced. And nobody talks about what's happening with the batteries in the iPhones, iPads and MacBooks once they wear out.

Time to be as irrational as your lame post. What do you do when you discover your computer has run out of space? Throw it out? Or do you buy a new larger drive? Or do you clean it up and remove old files you no longer need?
Personally I always clean it out. And if I have the need for more space I buy an external drive. Like the T5 I have had for a while to keep important files and set it up.
Lastly computers are not meant to last forever. You have no proof that 5 years from now all the M1 machines will just die. But as a former computer repair technician the average life for a computer keeps increasing. 25 years ago 5 years was great. Now it’s 8 years. Just like a car or anything built by humans it will die. As for your bs about landfills and that environment bs. Send it back to Apple. They recycle it. Any other lame crap to say?

 

[SuperMatt]

Sorry but the two things most often expanded on an iMac are RAM and storage (SSD). With Apple's Unified Memory and the Tx taking over as the controller for storage there is nothing you'll be able to expand in ANY iMac (except externally). You need to know the maximum you'll need going in and once your needs surpass that then these become destined for a landfill, something Apple doesn't say anything about in their environmental statements.

I have yet to hear much about what's going to happen to all those batteries filled with hazardous materials thet will be powering the "greener" electric cars of the future, when they need to be replaced. And nobody talks about what's happening with the batteries in the iPhones, iPads and MacBooks once they wear out.

Apple talks about this all the time. They have a big section of their website dedicated to the environment, including information about lithium and recycling batteries.

Environment

Apple 2030 is our plan to use recycled and renewable materials, clean electricity, and low-carbon shipping to bring our net emissions to zero.

www.apple.com

 

[bcortens]

I mentioned this elsewhere but I think the biggest failure of his leadership is a cohesive product strategy and too many distractions.
He isn't a product guy and without a product guy at the helm the stack looks kind of broken.

I've always been really disappointed with selling old devices as new to fill out the price stack (especially when the iPhone SE exists to prove that they don't have to do this).

Watch series 3 is still around to annoy developers despite the existence of the SE...
iPhone XR and 11 are still around...

AirPods battery replacement should be more well thought out (for a product with batteries that will wear so quickly because they are so small this is obnoxious)

The penny pinching and making entry level products hard to recommend also annoys me, they do something great with the M1 MacBook Air but then de-content the base iMac, the two USB ports missing is just insulting in this day and age, why, on a desktop, do they need to limit the number of USB ports beyond trying to get people into the next model up?

The fact that the smaller screen sized devices always seem to get features later than their bigger siblings also annoys me, I like the smaller iPad Pro but it didn't get the new display tech for some reason? They have never worked to make the 13" MBP as high performance as the 15" (though I am somewhat hopeful that may change in with the M1X). The 13" two port MBP should really be named the MacBook since that is what it is. The name has never made sense.

They take years and years to fix obvious mistakes (butterfly keyboard)
Or don't fix them (mouse that charges on the bottom)
Make the same mistakes again (arrow keys on the brand new keyboards for the new iMacs)

Flash storage isn't as expensive as they make it out to be (considering what everyone else charges for fast flash) and this ties into making the products you can get on a shelf useless as recommendations... normal people shouldn't have to manage their storage considering in 2011 we had 500GB base storage on Macs (I know it is flash today but the fact that we still haven't gotten back to that point is extremely irksome).

Products that go years and years without updates but are sold at new prices...
iMac Pro (now discontinued - maybe low sales but what did you expect when you don't update things for years - partially Intels fault but the lack of new Radeon GPUs was on Apple)
Mac Pro 2013 - they claim thermal problems but there were GPUs and CPUs that would have worked even if lower clocked...
MacBook Air (2 years between updates)
Mac mini (2-4 years between updates and sometimes making it worse (2014 update)).

He doesn't manage the product stack well ...

[EDIT]
It's not all bad, the products are usually okay when released (most of the time) and the hardware reliability is fantastic. The environmental initiatives are pretty great as well.

[EDIT 2]
Some of the new products developed under his leadership are actually really good - Apple Watch is great as a health and fitness device, AirPods are fantastic... these new AirTags look pretty great too.
So I don't know if the lack of innovation is the problem rather that he can't seem to manage the product stack as it exists today...

[EDIT 3]
None of this is even mentioning how the App Store pricing models have made it harder and harder to find quality apps to buy - The way most games are monetized is an absolute joke and while it drives services revenue it preys upon people... the reason I rarely game on my iPhone and iPad is mostly due to the prevalence of scummy micro-transactions. Paying real money to buy credits to speed up production in things like sim city or racing games is a terrible experience...

 

[Sikh]

A soldered 256 GB SSD with estimated 150 TBW is your idea of last longer?

You think 150 TBW is going to be used by your general consumer in 5 years? This iMac is not made for professionals. Just like the 21.5" before it, this iMac is for everyone BUT the professionals. The 27" has always been for the professionals. So before you continue about "TBW, MTBF, etc" understand that the normal user will never write that much to the drive.

 

[jafd]

You think 150 TBW is going to be used by your general consumer in 5 years?

I think the system will gladly slurp those terabytes in a single year, courtesy of the brilliant Apple OS engineers, by virtue of excessive swapping, with exactly zero consumer involvement.

 

[Bodhitree]

Apple haven’t had a disruptive hit product in a little while, it’s true. But they’ve been building on where they were. It takes time to take products like the iPhone and iPad and build them into massive global behemoths. And it’s not as if they haven’t had great products in the post-Steve Jobs era, look at the AirPods and the Apple Watch.

It’s different being a 2 trillion dollar company compared to what they were. Now there is an array of hardware, software and services to look after, and their every move is closely watched by an army of commentators, leakers and so on. Their supply chain is even in the news, which is not the case for any other company in the world.

And a lot of that has happened under Tim Cook. He may not have the same genius that Steve Jobs displayed with products, but he has his own qualities.

 

[NotTooLate]

Weak because isn't future-proof.
Do you really think that this type of machine can last for a decade or for a five-year period?
A soldered 256 GB SSD with estimated 150 TBW is your idea of longevity?
A soldered maximum memory of 16 GB is your idea of performance?
The machine is weak and ugly, nothing else to say.

So were you happy with the Intel based Macs of the past ? where we got NON STOP posts about "but I can build the exact same machine for much less !!".

Apple are now competing vs the biggest silicon companies in the world , that's amazing , breaking up the duoply of Intel& AMD is great for consumers.

You also don't understand what is the difference between LPDDR and DDR , the soldered memory has nothing to do with Apple , its just the way LPDDR memory is being sold , but I wouldn't expect you to have any technical understanding , as you call the CPU weak , while it replaced the I3 and I5 quad core of the world , beating them to a pulp.

You need to go read Anandtech in-depth review of the M1 , if you come back and say its "weak" , then nothing we can do will help you.

 

[Mousse]

Timmy's business savvy is why Apple is one of the biggest, if not the biggest company in the world. Timmy kept the trains running on time when Jobs was off dreaming up wild new ideas. Hail, if Timmy had been like that sugar water salesman (John Sculley), there would have been another boardroom coup that would have lead to one of them being ousted. Good thing for Jobs, Tim was on Jobs side.

 

[Starfia]

firefish – Every item on your list of supposed deficiencies in the "post-Jobs" Apple was present in the during-Jobs Apple. For example:

• "Removing a key hardware component, causing an uproar, but swearing it is better off."

Steve Jobs did this with serial and parallel ports, the floppy disk, FireWire, the compact disc, and the list goes on. (You weren't including software here, but I assume you've also heard of Flash.) Steve was always proud of this focus, and this characteristic's continued presence indicates Apple carries this forward.

• "Returning to the older hardware component that was once removed, and now bring it back."

Your example was Lightning (though Lightning has never been absent from the product line since it was introduced). Remember the iPod shuffle? The second generation had buttons, the third generation didn't, and the fourth generation did. Steve explained he understood that people liked the buttons and they brought them back. Again, proudly.

• "Watching the form factor for the iPhones go back & forth between cylindrical then back to rectangular."

I assume you mean "rounded" by "cylindrical." Sure, and the PowerBook once had more squared-off corners, various early MacBooks had rounded corners, and the later aluminum MacBooks brought back more squared-off corners again. Again, Steve featured and described these proudly.

• "Now I'm hearing fingerprint biometric is coming back??!!"

Similarly, Touch ID has never been absent from Apple's product lineup since it was first introduced, so there's no sense in which it's "back." I can't really compare this to Jobs since he died before that introduction, but he certainly seemed to have an eye out for the privacy and security of people's data – a whole other topic.

Anyway. If those indicators are how you measure whether Apple remains as innovative as it was under Steve Jobs, I'd say you've provided a decent case that it is.

 

[tobefirst ⚽️]

I wish people would just let Steve Jobs die already.

 

[Scoob Redux]

Correct. Tim Cook is a businessman, not a visionary. Things that Steve would have looked at and said "that's awful, your're fired" get approved by Tim b/c he just doesn't know better. We end up with an iMac desktop computer with an external power supply and no useful ports (all in the name of thinness, for a desktop!), phones with camera protrusions (again, thinness!) and lock buttons opposed to the volume buttons, the inconvenient FaceID instead of TouchID, the loss of MagSafe, etc. etc. Tim is just some old business dude...he seems like a nice guy tho - just has no clue when it comes to technology.

 

[ed.]

The machine is weak and ugly, nothing else to say.

lol don't buy it! VOTE WITH YOUR WALLET! the complaining is unbearable.

 

[Feyl]

Apparently the majority of people believe that Apple is as innovative as it was under Steve Jobs. I think Apple is still the best, but they're only building upon the great things that Steve's Apple did. If you think about it, basically every kinda new product under Tim failed. The only exception is the Apple Watch, which is sadly not a standalone product and could or should be radically better.

 

[TiggrToo]

Apparently the majority of people believe that Apple is as innovative as it was under Steve Jobs. I think Apple is still the best, but they're only building upon the great things that Steve's Apple did. If you think about it, basically every kinda new product under Tim failed. The only exception is the Apple Watch, which is sadly not a standalone product and could or should be radically better.

Airpods? M1 Chip? FaceId? Not everything needs to be a product...

 

[iRock1]

Yes, Apple has been disappointing under Cook's leadership, but for different reasons I'd say (After all, big, disruptive innovative products come just once in a while.)

The real problem? The lack of long-term vision is self-evident. Some products have had a really good evolution in terms of features, but then others are like, where is this even going?

That without mentioning that there has been just many big mistakes and flops. Yes, Jobs would still make them (for instance MobileMe), but since Cook's arrival they are WAY more frequent and massive.

Just to mention the most important one, having sh!tty laptops with unusable I/O and keyboards for 5 years is just unforgivable.

Worst of all, Cook threw away the cult of simplicity. The mess in any product lineup (iPhone, Mac, iPad) and even branding (X, XR, XS, SE, SE2, 12, 12 Pro, 12 Pro Max, 12 mini, mini max uber pro whatever) is typical HP or Dell (but oPtIoNs...), not Apple.

And don't even get me started on the more than questionable GUI/UX decisions that iOS and macOS have suffered from since Job's departure...

 

[ruka.snow]

iMac, the historical Apple product, reduced to an ugly and weak machine without any possibility to upgrade and repair it later.
These machines aren't able to last for a decade and neither for a five-year period.
Steve I miss you.

Steve's iMac was also intended to be non upgradable. The new iMac is the closest we've came yet to the original vision. In the bubble of a forum, people do talk about upgrading RAM and the like but that isn't what the average computer buyer even considers, most people buy a whole new PC when their computer is slow from a "virus".

The new iMac will serve any consumer for the next 3-5 years as indented and they'll never care how much or how little RAM it has. The original iMac was the same, a nice colourful machine that just plugs in like a toaster and works.

 

[gnasher729]

The 'switch to the M1' is a glorified way to avoid continuing to pay Intel their royalties. That's really all it is.

So you are extremely disappointed with Tim Cook's leadership. First, I think you don't quite understand what "leadership" is. Unless you are an Apple employee, his "leadership" is totally irrelevant to you.

But avoiding to pay Intel their royalties - I would have thought that for Apple Inc. as a company, that would be an excellent move, wouldn't you agree?

So it seems your headline is wrong again. It's not about leadership, it's not about how he is running the company, so what exactly is it that you don't like? Anything wrong with Apple's products? Maybe for you, but many people disagree quite strongly.

 

[gnasher729]

I have yet to hear much about what's going to happen to all those batteries filled with hazardous materials thet will be powering the "greener" electric cars of the future, when they need to be replaced. And nobody talks about what's happening with the batteries in the iPhones, iPads and MacBooks once they wear out.

So what will happen to all those Samsung batteries, unless they explode? Any difference?

Batteries can be recycled. If you return your worn out iPhone to Apple when you buy a new one, it will be recycled, including the battery. Even your Samsung batteries will be recycled if you bring your Samsung phone to Apple when you buy a new iPhone.

The new iMac will serve any consumer for the next 3-5 years as indented and they'll never care how much or how little RAM it has. The original iMac was the same, a nice colourful machine that just plugs in like a toaster and works.

You have to admit though that all the new Macs with an M1 processor work pretty bad as toasters. Not even useful for warming your hands in the winter.

 

[PlayUltimate]

IMO, Apple has gotten so big and is followed by so any people that they are unable to surprise us anymore. Back in the SJ days (2002) Apple's total sales were $5.74B. Today, the 12 months from Sept 2019-2020, total sales were $274B. With that kind of volume, product pipelines/suppliers/manufacturers need to be prepared 1-2 years in advance. Combine that with the massive rumor mill, that we see on this site, nothing that Apple can do remains hidden. Leaks of the iPhone 13 were out within days of the iPhone 12 being announced. Thus it seems that everything that is announced is old news and Apple is not creating anything interesting.

Related: I listen to a number of House Music podcast where pre-release songs come out months in advance. By the time they are released, I've been hearing them for a long time and they are no longer "new." And by the time that make the actual radio, I may have been hearing them for a year.