Just here to add that I feel the same way.
To be fair, I'm not sure how much of this was about Jobs' showmanship and how much really is a lack of innovation on Apple's part? Apple is obviously coming out with new products regularly, and if we're being fair? Taking risks too ... like this latest attempt to move everything to the ARM processors.
But nothing really rings true for me when Tim Cook gets up on stage and gives speeches. It feels like he's just going through the motions, borrowing pages from Jobs' playbook about what to say and how to act "appropriately excited". (And then, he likes to do his virtue-signaling thing on top of it - which I guess he thinks endears him to his audience. But like *all* attempts to inject politics or social issues into business, it only decreases the total number of people happy with him.)
I'm not sure anyone else can really get the level of enthusiasm that Jobs had about the company, since Apple really was "his baby"? But at least, I would be much more pleased with the company if they retained a focus on the Mac being the product that everything else hinges on. They've really moved away from that, even running commercials on TV to convince people they don't even need a computer anymore if they've just got an iPad. And there's so much focus on the subscription services now, from "Apple news" to the gaming subscriptions to all the paid content streaming from Apple TV. I get that it's a huge profit maker.... but the "old Apple" was never afraid to tell people their products were only purchased by a small minority of discerning people, and the goal wasn't to be the biggest with the most sales.
I was fortunate to work at two companies in a row that were very "Mac friendly". (Employees could generally choose whether they preferred to be issued a Mac or a Windows laptop and the split was about 50/50 in both cases.) And I can also tell you that BOTH of the companies are now really struggling with defending that choice to allow and support the Mac. There's just so little upside anymore vs the high cost. (You've got to think -- these places were sold on products like the Macbook Air for most of their employees. Each time it was revised, you could still reuse the same gear with them. They fit in the same plastic snap-on case covers/protectors, used the same USB to Ethernet dongle and video cables, etc. They did change up the Mag-Safe AC adapter at one point, but they even provided a little adapter so the newer adapter could still attach to the older Macbook Airs!) More recently, companies were stuck buying a whole collection of expensive dongles for the machines, which employees were always losing or breaking, and you can't service anything on one yourself anymore. No option to swap out a bad memory DIMM or swap an SSD.
I agree with you.
Tim Cook seems to be a great manager, as I mentioned in my post above. Apple is a $2 trillion company now, and that is certainly in part because of Tim Cook's leadership. If I were Apple's shareholder, I would be very, very pleased.
However, I am only a consumer of Apple's products, as I have bought some of them over the years. Tim Cook has a very different management style, and it shows.
Tim Cook is not a product person like Steve Jobs was. As you mention, Steve Jobs was excited about every product and everything revolved around it. Under Steve Jobs, and since his return to the company, Apple released the iMac, the iPod, the iPhone, the MacBook Air, and the iPad. Each of these five products created a disruption in the business and was truly revolutionary. One may argue that the iPod was not the first MP3 player, but it was certainly the first one that was done right in a mass-appealing way. The iPhone may not have been the first smartphone, but it was the first one that left everyone drooling over. The MacBook Air was not the first thin and light laptop, but it was because of it that Intel inaugurated the "ultrabook" concept.
Apple also released other products under Steve Jobs. There was the Mac Mini, Apple TV, and software such as OS X and iTunes. But the ones I mentioned earlier were game-changers.
Tim Cook is not that kind of guy. No revolutionary product. There are of course new products. AirPods. HomePod. Apple Watch. AirTags. Apple TV+. Apple Arcade. But they are not game-changers, with the possible exception of the AirPods. And still, the AirPods are nowhere near the iPhone or the iPad in terms of overall appeal.
But Apple Watch? It is a smartwatch that Apple released after so many other manufacturers. The HomePod is being discontinued as Apple's attempt to develop a smart speaker following other manufacturers. The AirTags look good, but there is already a category of products like these. Tim Cook launches products that fit in pre-existing categories. Steve Jobs defined new categories. That is the difference.
What to say about Apple TV+, the streaming service nobody asked for? Netflix already does a good job at streaming, and there are plenty of new competitors with great content, such as Disney and HBO. The job is already well done, and nobody needed Apple to step up. In fact, Apple is struggling with competition at something it does not necessarily do better than (or even equal to) any of its competitors. And Apple Music? Perhaps now the Lossless Audio will have appeal to some. I was a subscriber of Apple Music, and there was nothing special about it, nothing to really differentiate it from Spotify. I actually prefer YouTube Music, as it adds something new, the videos.
I have the impression that Steve Jobs was convinced that his products should do things the right way, something that was lacking in pre-existing products. Smartphones with large screens instead of keyboards. Multi-touch tablets instead of netbooks. Light laptops with no CD-ROM drives. All-in-one computers with no cables. Apple was the leader and others followed.
In Tim Cook's favor, I have to say that Apple's existing products seemed to have become better. There is M1 inside Apple's computers now, which is a huge step forward. This is because of Tim Cook's focus on efficiency. Tim Cook does not seem really interested in the final product delivered to the customer. He seems more interested in keeping the company running efficiently, which turns out to benefit the products.
www.howtogeek.com
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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.
