The end of Tim Cook's reign is near.

[6916494]

He is an artist, and the definition of an artist is to make pointless stuff that may make other people think.

My business is part of the art world. In my experience, artists are generally not (deep) thinkers – if they were, they would have become something else, writers or essayists or journalists, or something in another business where serious thinking takes up a lot of time in work and personal life. Of course that's a generalization, but that's my experience from decades of consulting and working with artists. Creating art is a craft and has nothing to do with thinking in the sense of philosophy or contributing to society. The only thing an artist can contribute to society is beauty and entertainment and developing and revealing new facets to familiar themes and stories.

Ive was and is neither an artist, nor a person who can think. When I watched a long an interview a few years ago after he left I was really shocked (and I've not recovered yet from it obviously). Even if you take into account that he might have social awkwardness issues, it's an experience.

 

[Bug-Creator]

if they were, they would have become something else, writers or essayists or journalists,

Them, people like Picasso, van Gogh etc, high fashion designers and those who work for SHein, industrial designers, actors, directors and so on, they all fall under "artist" in that context.

No matter what you think about Ive, he candy style designs (which I despised) and the super clean make it thinner stuff later one was a main driver in making Apple the strong consumer brand it is today. Without him Apple would be just another Dell, Samsung or Huawei (if they would still be around at all).

 

[za9ra22]

It won’t work as people don’t like putting additional things on their head
That’s my point.

I don't think you'e even listening.

But I'll try again: Firstly, I would bet Apple have done far more research on what people do and don't want to put on their heads than you or I have. Intuitively, I'd say you may be right, but in a world moving towards VR and AR, wearing something is inevitable.

Secondly, it's the start of the product's existence, not the end. When computers were the size of a very large room, required scrubbed air and total cleanliness, nobody wanted one of those in their house, and nobody had anything they would want it for. If you had somehow managed to show them a Mac mini and demonstrate what it could do, they would have been totally gobsmacked. That's where we are with VR/AR right now.

Thirdly, while Apple (and everyone else) could develop and develop and develop iterations of VR/AR devices in total private and secrecy, however much they were happy to drive their R&D budgets into the ground, sooner or later they'd run out of money and still not have a product, because there would be nothing to use it on, and no feedback to improve it. Hence the Vision Pro, out now, so that those who have an interest can experience it, develop for it, and feedback to Apple on it. Second generation gets lighter, simpler and cheaper, while being better. And so on.

Fourthly, millions of people worldwide wear spectacles to fix eyesight problems. Many might not like that they have to, but they do anyway. At some point, VR/AR devices will end up much like spectacles, and in offering real-world, real-use benefits to people, will enhance their ability to see, and interact with the world around them. It'll be just like wearing glasses. Vision Pro is (Apple's) first step on that road, but right now, it's the 'computer as big as a room' part of the product cycle.

 

[6749974]

The point I’m making is nobody wants the additional thing on their heads
It’s a waste of time & it won’t work.

That’s false.

First of all, people aren’t averse to wearables on their head. Millions of people wear VR to play games, and hundreds of millions of people wear headphones and headsets.

3D glasses didn’t catch on because families weren't going to run out and spend $2-3K to buy a new TV, and hundreds of dollars on active 3D glasses, just to watch a little rectangle 15 feet away have a slight 3D image. — Where as Avatar in an Apple Vision Pro is even more immersive than seeing a 3D movie in the theater. Apple Vision Pro and '3D glasses for 3D televisions' are on opposite ends of the scale, so how can you make the comparison?

This early on the technology-adoption-curve, it's foolish to claim it won’t work. You’re like the MacRumors members that claimed the iPod won’t sell because it’s expensive and only works on Macs not PCs, and that “regular people” don’t buy mp3 players because they’re annoying to manage. You're not looking more than 6 months in front of your face. You’re ignoring that the design, function and price will refine until mass markets want to buy. Especially as competitors enter the market and economies of scale drives component prices down to dollars and pennies. Not to mention—we wouldn't be interested in our iPhones nearly as much were it not for the applications and services we use on our phone—and that needs to be developed for AR/VR. It's way too early to claim it a failure.

 

[Hails09]

That’s false.

First of all, people aren’t averse to wearables on their head. Millions of people wear VR to play games, and hundreds of millions of people wear headphones and headsets.

3D glasses didn’t catch on because families weren't going to run out and spend $2-3K to buy a new TV, and hundreds of dollars on active 3D glasses, just to watch a little rectangle 15 feet away have a slight 3D image. — Where as Avatar in an Apple Vision Pro is even more immersive than seeing a 3D movie in the theater. Apple Vision Pro and '3D glasses for 3D televisions' are on opposite ends of the scale, so how can you make the comparison?

This early on the technology-adoption-curve, it's foolish to claim it won’t work. You’re like the MacRumors members that claimed the iPod won’t sell because it’s expensive and only works on Macs not PCs, and that “regular people” don’t buy mp3 players because they’re annoying to manage. You're not looking more than 6 months in front of your face. You’re ignoring that the design, function and price will refine until mass markets want to buy. Especially as competitors enter the market and economies of scale drives component prices down to dollars and pennies. Not to mention—we wouldn't be interested in our iPhones nearly as much were it not for the applications and services we use on our phone—and that needs to be developed for AR/VR. It's way too early to claim it a failure.

You wouldn’t wear glasses if you didn’t need them.
Can you name at least one successful headset based product that’s lasted years after launch.
Headphones are different as you put on ears I mean over your eyes.
Meta might have sold a few vr headsets but the usage goes down after the first couple of months.

 

[Hails09]

I don't think you'e even listening.

But I'll try again: Firstly, I would bet Apple have done far more research on what people do and don't want to put on their heads than you or I have. Intuitively, I'd say you may be right, but in a world moving towards VR and AR, wearing something is inevitable.

Secondly, it's the start of the product's existence, not the end. When computers were the size of a very large room, required scrubbed air and total cleanliness, nobody wanted one of those in their house, and nobody had anything they would want it for. If you had somehow managed to show them a Mac mini and demonstrate what it could do, they would have been totally gobsmacked. That's where we are with VR/AR right now.

Thirdly, while Apple (and everyone else) could develop and develop and develop iterations of VR/AR devices in total private and secrecy, however much they were happy to drive their R&D budgets into the ground, sooner or later they'd run out of money and still not have a product, because there would be nothing to use it on, and no feedback to improve it. Hence the Vision Pro, out now, so that those who have an interest can experience it, develop for it, and feedback to Apple on it. Second generation gets lighter, simpler and cheaper, while being better. And so on.

Fourthly, millions of people worldwide wear spectacles to fix eyesight problems. Many might not like that they have to, but they do anyway. At some point, VR/AR devices will end up much like spectacles, and in offering real-world, real-use benefits to people, will enhance their ability to see, and interact with the world around them. It'll be just like wearing glasses. Vision Pro is (Apple's) first step on that road, but right now, it's the 'computer as big as a room' part of the product cycle.

People don’t wear glasses if they are not needed that’s my point.
This has all been done before companies pushing wearables for years.
Can you actually name a successful head based product that’s lasted years apart from headphones that people don’t need because of health reasons

 

[za9ra22]

People don’t wear glasses if they are not needed that’s my point.
This has all been done before companies pushing wearables for years.
Can you actually name a successful head based product that’s lasted years apart from headphones that people don’t need because of health reasons

OK, I give up. You don't appear to want to listen to what I already explained.

 

[Bug-Creator]

People don’t wear glasses if they are not needed that’s my point.

Ah, someone who never watched Miami Vice (or any other "cool detective" show)

 

[Darren.h]

Time for CHANGE.

 

[Pearple]

Mac mini and Mac Studio sell 1%... each.

You think they would 10x sales if you could add RAM and storage?

If you could get a Mac mini with all components ready to be changed for 400-500$, it would sell like HOT CAKES!

So many people would have one at home, they would start with a base machine and a 3rd party monitor, but over the years, they would upgrade the **** out of it, lessening the need for a super fast notebook.

Wouldn't that hurt notebook sales? To a small degree, yes, but Apple would create a giant desktop market, that they would dominate, PLUS they would pull more and more people into their ecosystem.

A lot of young people would just buy a mac mini and an iPhone SE, and boom, you're set!

 

[6749974]

You wouldn’t wear glasses if you didn’t need them.

So? Your point?

People wear things that bring immense benefit. I wouldn't carry a phone around with me everywhere (how annoying to have to manage something everywhere you go!) if it didn't bring immense benefit everywhere I went? I wouldn't carry my keys with me if it didn't bring immense benefit.

Can you name at least one successful headset based product that’s lasted years after launch.
Headphones are different as you put on ears I mean over your eyes.

We have three Meta Quest models, two v2 and one v3. I think the fact that they are on version 3 is proof they lasted years after launch.

Meta might have sold a few vr headsets but the usage goes down after the first couple of months.

Thats the kind of thing you say to yourself because you know you lost the argument.

In my household my kids have every PS, Xbox, and Nintendo console and yet use a Quest 2 and Quest 3—four days per week—for three years now. They never got tired of it which is why one of them got a Quest 3 for their B-day and the other will soon follow.

You're being foolish. There isn't a person on MacRumors that wouldn't prefer to watch Avengers: Infinity War or Avatar or Dune or 3-Body Problem or Stranger Things or whatever their favorite movies and shows are—in 3D—large and immersively—with great sound—on an Apple Vision Pro.

The pain-points and objections are early category problems:

• Battery too low
• Too heavy
• Too sweaty
• Insufficient (TV/Movie) catalogue
• No "killer" apps
• Not social enough
• No MMO games
• Too expensive at $3500

Those aren't nothing problems—this is why I haven't run out and bought one, I'm no early adopter—but its obvious those pain-points will get solved not just by Apple but Microsoft, Google, Meta, etc—and as it does, the category will grow and you'll see a tipping point.

At $999 I bet many if not most of us are running to buy one. Movies and Mac usage alone would be worth it. But at $3500, we're all hesitant and would rather wait a few more generations. Thats all. Let Apple seed the ecosystem and revise the design, price, and comfort, while devs populate the app store.

Claiming its dead in the water not even 3 months after release has got to be one of the most foolish things I've seen on MacRumors up there with the iPod naysayers. "Can you imagine spending $400 on that? It only works with Macs. It's so heavy and bulges pockets. Nobody wants to rebuy their CD collection or spend ages converting CD to MP3. It won't work in cars. blah blah blah." Yes, it had pain-points, but those got resolved.

 

[6749974]

If you could get a Mac mini with all components ready to be changed for 400-500$, it would sell like HOT CAKES!

So many people would have one at home, they would start with a base machine and a 3rd party monitor, but over the years, they would upgrade the **** out of it, lessening the need for a super fast notebook.

You're conflating tech enthusiasts with the 25 million worldwide majority consumers buying Macs who overwhelmingly want a laptop form-factor.

Soldered RAM and storage is not a major bottleneck to sales, so resolving it won't significantly increase sales. Even "pro" users overwhelmingly prefer MacBook Pros and those certainly can't be upgraded with RAM and storage. Even if you doubled sales, that's still only 2% of Mac sales. Sorry but computers that are permanently attached to a desk and a room is a thing of the past but for workstation use-cases.

A lot of young people would just buy a mac mini and an iPhone SE, and boom, you're set!

Is this comedy? You think young people want a Mac mini and an iPhone SE? Could you be more out of touch?

No they want an iPhone. Young people don't even want laptops or if they do for school/work its a MacBook Pro or an Air. Almost nobody in real life you will ever hear say, "I want a Mac mini." I know 50 Mac users and absolutely nobody has a Mac mini. Their objections and lack of desire for a Mac mini has nothing to do with soldered RAM and storage.

 

[6749974]

whilst marketing woke values all the time.

Something tells me Cook hiring people with vaginas isn't the sole reason their market cap is 2.6 Trillion, or else I'll just start hiring child bearers and become a billionaire myself.

 

[TheWraith]

My business is part of the art world. In my experience, artists are generally not (deep) thinkers – if they were, they would have become something else, writers or essayists or journalists, or something in another business where serious thinking takes up a lot of time in work and personal life. Of course that's a generalization, but that's my experience from decades of consulting and working with artists.

Yeah, I'm calling BS on this, esp without any corroborating details of what kind of artists this person is actually talking about.

Yes, I'm an artist.

 

[TheWraith]

If you could get a Mac mini with all components ready to be changed for 400-500$, it would sell like HOT CAKES!

So many people would have one at home, they would start with a base machine and a 3rd party monitor, but over the years, they would upgrade the **** out of it, lessening the need for a super fast notebook.

Wouldn't that hurt notebook sales? To a small degree, yes, but Apple would create a giant desktop market, that they would dominate, PLUS they would pull more and more people into their ecosystem.

A lot of young people would just buy a mac mini and an iPhone SE, and boom, you're set!

Just to be clear, we know what people do when given a mac mini where you can upgrade stuff—they buy it in about the quantity of the one they buy now.

I like upgradability, but that ship has SAILED for Apple, including that it's RAM is now on the die. They aren't going back.

The entire market has been moving toward laptops for years, I have no idea why they would do this.

 

[TheWraith]

There isn't a person on MacRumors that wouldn't prefer to watch Avengers: Infinity War or Avatar or Dune or 3-Body Problem or Stranger Things or whatever their favorite movies and shows are—in 3D—large and immersively—with great sound—on an Apple Vision Pro.

Hey, I'll just represent that no, I don't want to watch a bunch of any of this on an AVP. Being isolated is not what I am looking for in my viewing experiences, which is a big hurdle these companies aren't engaging with.

 

[6749974]

Hey, I'll just represent that no, I don't want to watch a bunch of any of this on an AVP. Being isolated is not what I am looking for in my viewing experiences, which is a big hurdle these companies aren't engaging with.

I don't mean versus a theater or with friends, I just mean that if you're by yourself and you have three options in viewing Dune: Part One...

• An iPad or laptop
• A 55-inch TV
• A very comfortable VR headset with OLED screen and headphone quality sound

I'm very confident that by the time VR headsets are mainstream, it will be consensus opinion that VR headsets are a superior experience. Imagine laying in bed and looking at what is the equivalent of an IMAX screen—nobody can claim with any seriousness that a 55-inch TV is superior to that.

EDIT: I'm not going so far as to say we will prefer watching all media that way, I just mean that today we don't see the value in watching movies in VR, because 99% of us haven't even put on a VR headset to have such opinions, but in a decade it's only natural headsets will be considered a superior format above regular flatpanel screens. Although with prices dropping, maybe in a decade it will be normal to have 100" TVs, that the gap won't be so large.

 

[justdanyul]

Go type AAPL in a stock tracker and look at the last 5 years. I dont think tim cook is worried or going anywhere any time soon.

No offence, but that is a pretty simplistic, one dimensional view.

I'm not saying that Tim is in trouble, but.. I'd be very surprised if the board of directors would be looking at performance relative to its nearest competitors.

I can name a good few companies that have been growing faster than apple the last few years. So much so, that MSFT overtook them as the largest market cap, and number 3, Nvidia, is fast approaching from behind. Breaking a record in feburay of having the largest one-day gain in market cap in wall streets history (+$277 billion in one day).

Apple need to up its game. And the Vision Pro wont do it. News about it looking to OpenAI for help with LLMs is even more concerning. Apple seems lost, I was hoping iOS 18 showed they weren't , but the fact they at this stage, is looking to OpenAI, really isn't good news.

Apple doesn't seem to have a clear growth plan, or at least not as clear as some of the other mega caps out there. Far from it.

 

[bunce66]

There isn't a single person who doesn't want Apple to return to who they were in 2000 - 2010.

He didn't fail the shareholders, but he has failed customers.

"Failed the customers"... Such a melodramatic exaggeration. Apple stuff is better now than at any other point. More choices, Apple Silicon, and better software than ever. I really don't know what more people want.

They dropped the Car idea, which was probably a wise decision, given the shifting market dynamics and margin compression in the industry as a whole.

 

[tridley68]

Cook flopped big time on this but he will be able to point blame on someone else .

 

[Abazigal]

Sundar Pichai is still around at Google. Just saying. Is there anyone here who can argue he has a better track record than Tim Cook?

 

[maxoakland]

My business is part of the art world. In my experience, artists are generally not (deep) thinkers – if they were, they would have become something else, writers or essayists or journalists, or something in another business where serious thinking takes up a lot of time in work and personal life.

I’ve met tons of artists in my life and many are deep thinkers. It goes along with the territory. There’s a reason many of history’s greatest artists were also history’s greatest scientists and inventors. Like Da Vinci

 

[MrSegundus]

Apple hasn’t innovated the iPhone since iPhone X and the Apple Watch isn’t exciting. The Vision Pro is a $3,500 novelty with zero practical uses and it makes people sick. The fine woven accessories are such a huge flop that they’re being pulled off shelves from Apple Stores. It’s pretty clear Cook needs to go.

 

[JustAnExpat]

Apple hasn’t innovated the iPhone since iPhone X and the Apple Watch isn’t exciting. The Vision Pro is a $3,500 novelty with zero practical uses and it makes people sick. The fine woven accessories are such a huge flop that they’re being pulled off shelves from Apple Stores. It’s pretty clear Cook needs to go.

Innovation doesn't happen yearly, or even every 5 years. It's a gradual change that happens over time, until a giant leap happens (see iPhone X).

Excitement for a product shouldn't be a criteria for a product's success. Smartwatches, including the Apple Watch, shouldn't be exciting. They should provide a user easy to use and actionable metrics on their body's activities, among other secondary features. I believe the Apple Watch is successful.

The Vision Pro, and all VR/XR googles, are being mis-marketed to the wrong group. This should be marketed towards business and governments, and not towards general consumers. It also doesn't make MOST people sick either.

 

[Devyn89]

Apple hasn’t innovated the iPhone since iPhone X and the Apple Watch isn’t exciting. The Vision Pro is a $3,500 novelty with zero practical uses and it makes people sick. The fine woven accessories are such a huge flop that they’re being pulled off shelves from Apple Stores. It’s pretty clear Cook needs to go.

Yeah I’m sure Apple is going to get rid of one of the key reasons they became the world’s most valuable company.