The end of Tim Cook's reign is near.

[MBAir2010]

As i see this Tim Cook scenario (im typing this and all post here on a MBP2012 Mt Lion)
is he is such a large figure head, that "cant do wrong" like other major icons ruling this sphere all century.

fire him, he quits, he walks away....
we are still getting "Macooks" with solder parts from now on.
the Music app and UI will be plastic, pushed- spatial and boring,
all AppleTV produced shows will be mundane and get heralded.
we have been fed AI-imposed new and media since the turn of the century
we will be bothered with a new OS every October with 2 added useless feature
and NO NEW MAC MINI design...... ever!

i can live with this "Tim Cookery" since i went back to 2012 apple things last week,
while i can still get an older track pad form that era at a great price or a working itouch that is blue, now.
 has so much value and availability as well as the ability to use say Mountain Lion or snow leopard in 2024.

somehow this ball of walled garden will spread until a solar flare or real Dystopia event occurs.

just enjoy you apple and mac products, my fiends, because we did not have these 50 years ago!

 

[klspahr]

Ooooh, maybe John Sculley or Gil Amelio will return to run Apple !!!

That’s sarcasm in case the op doesn’t understand…

 

[Seamaster]

Gil Amelio is unfairly maligned. His book about his time at Apple is hilarious.

 

[Corefile]

Gil Amelio is unfairly maligned. His book about his time at Apple is hilarious.

Gil brought Steve back to Apple by buying Next. He is the guy who ultimately allowed Apple to be saved.

 

[aarond12]

Chrome is entrenched in a lot of public schools, but Google doesn’t seem to have converted this to the professional market.

Oh, they're trying. Google has made an internal edict that they're not buying MacBooks anymore. That was their go-to machine. They're trying to make Chromebooks a thing internally so they can figure out what they're missing.

I know this because I was working with a group of Google engineers on a project recently. We had to come up with this Rube Goldberg-like workaround because they had to support Chromebooks, and Chromebooks don't have an RDP client. No, seriously. This is intentional -- they do not want to support RDP. RDP apps are on the Play store for your phone but are not available on the Chromebook store. (Why are there three "stores" for Google devices?!)

Google even has its own version of RDP, which they imaginatively call "Chrome Remote Desktop". It does exactly the same thing as RDP, but doesn't allow for requesting specific resolutions when connecting to Windows servers... leading to a default remote desktop resolution of... 640x480. Yes, seriously. Worthless.

Leave it to Google to shoot themselves in one foot, then reload and shoot themselves in the other.

 

[Snow4maen]

I mean, this is not researched and may not be totally accurate, it's early morning and I need more cheap instant coffee.

But. To my mind, correct me if I'm wrong. But it's under Tims watch that we've seen at least the bulk of the development, production, and brining to market the Apple Silicon chips? So looking back, in the day the Motorola chips were initially an asset, performance was significantly better than Intel. But that became a problem later on as they were inefficient and a bit too hot. Switch to Intel, some advantages but in the end, your at the behest of Intel on a key component that frankly never really suited the Mac. So the idea I think with Apple is to integrate the hardware and software intimately, how problematic is it then if a key component is produced by another totally independent company?

Switching to Apple silicon to my humble mind is a much more significant thing than I think some realise, it's going to allow that integration that is at the heart of the philosophy on a level like never before. We can already see this, and it's pretty early days.

Was it not under Tim mostly that the switch over to the new campus took place, it's a much better environment and an investment in the future and can't have been easy to oversee all that.

Tim also comes across as approachable, and warm, and somewhat down to earth. As much as I admire Steve for his vision, and all he's done he could be very difficult and sometimes was unpredictable. I do kinda see Tim as more stable, and I think that would make things smoother considering the role he has. I remember when Elon Musk had a spliff on the Joe Rogan show, not passing judgement, but that strongly affected shares. Perhaps I'm just a boring old git but stability is more reliable than unpredictability, in the end they need reliable management.

From what I hear, Tim does work very hard, up very early, long days, very committed. I think Steve chose someone with real dedication, of course Steve would have felt very passionately about his company, and he was good at finding the right talent.

So it's by no means an expert opinion, but personally I like Tim.

Innovation in this day and age looks very different to how it was back when Steve was doing things. I think, within even the tried and tested product line up there has been pretty innovative developments. I mean, look at the quality now of the iPhone Pro, it's not cheap, but they film the Apple announcements on that thing, and they look amazing, that's a bloody smart phone, blows my mind. And yes you can get good video out of the competition, but to my mind, Apple do it better.

I'm not personally sold on the Vision Pro, but it's nothing to do with me. I have no clue and I don't personally have a use for it, but it could be more important than I give it credit for. And as a technology it will develop, improve, become more efficient, and cheaper probably too.

I think Apple are still doing the things they do best, being innovating and creative, and they have stable management, that also seems fairly disarming and humble. For me, I think that's a good thing. There are not many companies I could say I actually care about, admire maybe. But not care about. Looking at the development of the company in the Steve Jobs biography, Walter Isaacson..There have been many companies that have made things that are special. But I've not found one quite like Apple.

 

[JapanApple]

Tim had high hopes with the Apple Vision Pro but it failed spectacularly. It lacks a killer feature, it lacks a purpose, and it is just too expensive for a toy.

Apple had to cancel multiple products in order to give all resources to the development of this flop device: Apple's Car, the Charging Pad, even the iPhone mini 14 and 15 were canceled because of this.

There might even be a link to Jony Ive's departure from Apple, because he wanted nothing to do with "that stupid goggles".

Tim was chasing the pink dragon with this, now Apple is in a sort of dead end:

Phones without real innovation.

Computers with soldered 8 gigs of RAM.

Watches, that tell the world: this person is a nerdy nerd.

And Apple TV without any serious sports league.



How long can Apple survive with this Mediocrity?

Who will be the next CEO?

Oh, My I thought this was MacRumors, not Reddit

 

[Seamaster]

I'm not personally sold on the Vision Pro, but it's nothing to do with me. I have no clue and I don't personally have a use for it, but it could be more important than I give it credit for. And as a technology it will develop, improve, become more efficient, and cheaper probably too.

The doomed Scuba Mask From Hell will be Cook's epitaph.

Nothing so perfectly symbolises the fundamental difference between his Apple and Jobs's Apple more than that thing.

 

[decafjava]

The doomed Scuba Mask From Hell will be Cook's epitaph.

Nothing so perfectly symbolises the fundamental difference between his Apple and Jobs's Apple more than that thing.

Hmmm did you even read the rest of snow4maen's post? Just curious.

 

[joloriquelme]

The humankind don't want more innovation, new products or new gadgets.

In a perfect world, humankind needs reliability, stability and performance.

I personally need something that it 'just works'. That was made Apple, "Apple" in the past.

I need more stable and faster computing products to get the job done, to communicate better and free my own time to spend in other things in my life, in the real-world life outside or far from a screen.

We need rock-solid stable, durable and faster Macs? Yes. And Apple's providing it.

We need more slimmer and faster iPhones? Yes. And Apple's providing it.

Tim Cook is capable to do every that. And it's doing it: not for nothing all Macs now are Apple Sillicon-powered. Better products.

We need a AR-Glasses? Probably no. But Apple has more cash that any developed country to do that. The Apple Vision Pro is like the Formula 1 sport: you really don't need it, nobody's really needs it, but it serves as advertising and showing innovation and technology to the world. It gives you prescence and it puts a statement to Samsung, Microsoft, etc.: We can do it better that yours.

So, Tim Cook leadership at Apple is far from ending. It's a cash machine for him and all shareholders. And this is, in the end, a business.

 

[turbineseaplane]

If the iPhone ever gets fundamentally disrupted, Apple is cooked

Nothing else they do -- not even Apple Silicon -- functionally matters as the scale of it all absolutely pales in comparison

This is a large portion of why they are trying to get everyone hooked on subscriptions and also so desperately fighting tooth and nail with jurisdictions worldwide to keep any and all of their iOS moats "flooded"

It's not Apple Inc. -- it is iPhone Inc.

 

[MBAir2010]

If the iPhone ever gets fundamentally disrupted, Apple is cooked

Nothing else they do -- not even Apple Silicon -- functionally matters as the scale of it all absolutely pales in comparison

This is a large portion of why they are trying to get everyone hooked on subscriptions and also so desperately fighting tooth and nail with jurisdictions worldwide to keep any and all of their iOS moats "flooded"

It's not Apple Inc. -- it is iPhone Inc.

i agree, seems to me the new mac OS and iOS software just
pleads to join some useless monthly subscription thing since nothing i real ne won these updates.

 

[retiredatty]

Tim had high hopes with the Apple Vision Pro but it failed spectacularly. It lacks a killer feature, it lacks a purpose, and it is just too expensive for a toy.

Apple had to cancel multiple products in order to give all resources to the development of this flop device: Apple's Car, the Charging Pad, even the iPhone mini 14 and 15 were canceled because of this.

There might even be a link to Jony Ive's departure from Apple, because he wanted nothing to do with "that stupid goggles".

Tim was chasing the pink dragon with this, now Apple is in a sort of dead end:

Phones without real innovation.

Computers with soldered 8 gigs of RAM.

Watches, that tell the world: this person is a nerdy nerd.

And Apple TV without any serious sports league.



How long can Apple survive with this Mediocrity?

Who will be the next CEO?

I know many disagree with your premise and I don’t usually reply ,but I remember(now 82 years old)way back when I used to get so excited about a new apple device, especially iPhone, and now not so much….mostly about the camera or something most people could do without. Just doesn’t have the “wow” factor anymore processor to processor. Maybe just running out of innovation excitement. Best to all

 

[Snow4maen]

So not trying to be argumentative but just to offer my perspective. If we bear in mind that Apple is a company, not a charity, and is legally bound as such to increase the wealth of it's shareholders, then we might have a little more sympathy for some decisions?

On the iPhone, yes it might be one of the highest revenue generators for the company, which is great for them. But it's not their most important product. They got into all this as they had a vision for a use of a computer that no one else had, and that is still valid now. Professionals of all ilks will likely want to opt for the Apple computers, on the creative side. As consumers, we are in a very different position.

Can't sensibly comment on reliability/or build quality issues, not intimately informed on those. Perhaps quality has gone down? However, thinking in business terms, the profit margin per unit on a consumer laptop would be possibly very different if each one shipped with more expensive built in 16 gig's of ram. For a consumer, it's not necessary. If you have a professional use for the computer, you would be wise to invest to get more performance, which if you are frugal and keep it for a while, will pay for itself.

On the subscription services, everyone is doing this now, not just Apple. Everyone seems to want 'such and such a month', it's a good sales point, it looks like you can afford it immediately, but when you consider how long you may rely on the service, how much it costs only then becomes apparent. But, don't forget, those subscription services can be cancelled very easily and you do not in any way need to take them up.

The only service I use is Apple Music, and for my roughly £10 a month, I get access to more music than I could fit in my house, at a very reasonable price, and one of it's biggest benefits is that you can very easily discover new artists, not that easy when I was younger.

When they came up with Apple News, it was a desirable option to keep interest in the iPad I think. But look at what you get, again, for about £10 a month. If you read, it's very good value. I hardly ever read a newspaper, but the one I do buy, last time I bought it, was £3.50 for that daily issue. If I were to buy that each day it would be very expensive.

So, you do not need to use those services, but if you do, I think you get very good value.

It's just another facet of business. Which is what a company is. If the consumer demand waned I think Apple would still have a valid purpose for those who can make good use of the computers. The original philosophy is still useful, the tight integration between the hardware and software. In my experience, this with the superior drivers, has made recording audio from instruments a much more reliable and hassle free experience than on my PC..just a case in point.

Of course not everyone needs an Apple computer, there is nothing wrong with a PC for basic use. But I just threw out an expensive ASUS ROG gaming laptop, which I loved, as it was unplugged for a while and once I powered it up to update it all sorts went wrong, it was unusable. So we may say that standards are not what they used to be, but the grass is not necessarily greener.

 

[XboxEvolved]

Tim had high hopes with the Apple Vision Pro but it failed spectacularly. It lacks a killer feature, it lacks a purpose, and it is just too expensive for a toy.

Apple had to cancel multiple products in order to give all resources to the development of this flop device: Apple's Car, the Charging Pad, even the iPhone mini 14 and 15 were canceled because of this.

There might even be a link to Jony Ive's departure from Apple, because he wanted nothing to do with "that stupid goggles".

Tim was chasing the pink dragon with this, now Apple is in a sort of dead end:

Phones without real innovation.

Computers with soldered 8 gigs of RAM.

Watches, that tell the world: this person is a nerdy nerd.

And Apple TV without any serious sports league.



How long can Apple survive with this Mediocrity?

Who will be the next CEO?

Under no metric that people actually pay attention to is Apple failing. Apple getting the VR/AR market right out of the gate would have been a tall order considering no one has actually made the market mainstream in the first place. Even when Apple reinvented the phone, phones were not a "niche" market. As far as I can think of, the AVP is the first niche market Apple has entered in at least 20 years.

Apple is doing very well, and while it does make sense for Tim Cook to retire within the next ten years, it wouldn't be because of him performing terribly but rather just old age.

In his place, I only really see two candidates that would fit the bill, Craig Federighi, or John Ternus.

 

[Seamaster]

In his place, I only really see two candidates that would fit the bill, Craig Federighi, or John Ternus.

For a while Forstall was the king over the water, as they say, but the Apple that would have appointed someone like him is dead to us now.

 

[XboxEvolved]

For a while Forstall was the king over the water, as they say, but the Apple that would have appointed someone like him is dead to us now.

I mean, ok? Both of the names I mentioned had been rumored in the past, and both of these guys have been at Apple for quite sometime, so it’s still the same Apple.

 

[turbineseaplane]

If we bear in mind that Apple is a company, not a charity, and is legally bound as such to increase the wealth of it's shareholders,

"this supposed imperative to “maximize” a company’s share price has no foundation in history or in law. Nor is there any empirical evidence that it makes the economy or the society better off. What began in the 1970s and ’80s as a useful corrective to self-satisfied managerial mediocrity has become a corrupting, self-interested dogma peddled by finance professors, money managers and over-compensated corporate executives."

Link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...f-shareholder-value-wrecked-american-business

 

[Snow4maen]

"this supposed imperative to “maximize” a company’s share price has no foundation in history or in law. Nor is there any empirical evidence that it makes the economy or the society better off. What began in the 1970s and ’80s as a useful corrective to self-satisfied managerial mediocrity has become a corrupting, self-interested dogma peddled by finance professors, money managers and over-compensated corporate executives."

Link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...f-shareholder-value-wrecked-american-business

Ok, that’s a fair point. But they at least need to take making a profit seriously or they won’t exist for long? Not only as a company in their own right, but those who work especially hard for the success of the company, any company, need to be adequately financially rewarded or they won’t want to do the job at all, or if they do they won’t be motivated to do it very well.

Perhaps the shareholders are less important than I had imagined, but if the profit is not enough to invest in research and development for the future, you will only get by so long as your current products sell. But things change, so this is important, and also probably quite expensive, so the profit is still very important, but perhaps not for the reasons I had mentioned?

 

[turbineseaplane]

Ok, that’s a fair point. But they at least need to take making a profit seriously or they won’t exist for long?

That's always been the problem with the thinking around shareholder value maximization.
It's not defined.

What timeline? What are the goals? What's the balance?

It can literally be interpreted and implemented in endless ways.

It's quite possible the Apple of today doesn't become what it currently is if it had been all shortsighted profit taking 25 years ago....and without a very unique product focused founder CEO, also, of course.

Re-investment into the company and R&D and having the best people are expensive things that benefit the long term and sacrifice the shorter term a bit.

I wonder where Apple really is at on that nowadays.
What we see externally is a really lagging indicator.

The product releases and software quality of the last many years does leave one wondering.

 

[Snow4maen]

Yes shortsighted profit making probably isn’t the best way to create quality products. And I’m reminded of course that the largest share of the market was and still is PC/Windows. Apple have mostly been quite niche, and I seem to remember if it weren’t for Microsoft bailing them out they might not be here today.

Look where they are financially now, and yet still relatively niche. Part successful on the back of the popular consumer products like the IPhone. Which fair play to them in my opinion is largely a great product, I’ve used both Android and iPhone, personally I much prefer my iPhone.

Having started in the PowerBook G4 period, more recent OS and software releases have been much less reliable. But is that a lack of quality, or the ever increasing complexity? I don’t know, might be both.

I’ve also seen those criticisms of the engineering in recent Macs. Unreliable SSDs etc. I can’t do much about this, I don’t know what the truth is, I specifically want a Mac, so just have to hope it will last.

In the earlier days, if it were all about making the highest profit regardless yes that probably wouldn’t have been sustainable but kinda ironically exactly because they were so small in overall market presence the profit would have been quite important.

But, and of course I’m biased, I always thought they had a good idea, and a certain passion that I’m not sure you’d find in most companies. Not to be naive and say other serious companies don’t value being creative or innovative. And things are quite different today I think. But looking at the general competition outlined in that Steve Jobs biography, at that time they were a very different beast to the average company.

A lot more modern companies value creativity and innovation now. But it’s one thing to recognise its value, and another to actually do it and implement it.

I also think the world of technology, including computers is vastly different now to how it was back in the 80’s which might be why innovations are not so drastically striking. Back in the day a computer with a good quality graphical user interface was the pinnacle of innovation. We might not see such obvious examples now, but we live in a time where one of the next big things is artificial intelligence, I have no clue where that’s going to end up, but most big companies seem to be taking it seriously and investing. And who knows what to expect from it?

 

[HDFan]

Tim Cook’s decade at Apple makes him the most successful “successor CEO” ever

Dedication, attention to detail and an instinct to do the opposite of what Steve Jobs might have done earn him that accolade

www.economist.com

 

[Eric Idle]

The AAPL Board of Directors have a fiduciary to maximize shareholder value. The view of Tim Apple's tenure as CEO is neutral at best No real successful product launches since Steve. The Vision Pro is a disaster. Guys like Eddy Cue are nowhere to be seen or pushing visionaries like Scott Forstall out for not signing up for other people's disasters.

Years from now, no one will remember Tim Cook except as Steve Jobs' greatest mistake ever.

Cook's CEO tenure has been an abject disaster for Apple long term.

 

[Snow4maen]

Years from now, no one will remember Tim Cook except as Steve Jobs' greatest mistake ever.

Cook's CEO tenure has been an abject disaster for Apple long term.

I mean at least it's a well researched and reasonable position you have there. 😍

 

[Corefile]

Years from now, no one will remember Tim Cook except as Steve Jobs' greatest mistake ever.

Cook's CEO tenure has been an abject disaster for Apple long term.

I think Tim Apple means well and I wouldn't call him the biggest mistake ever. Tim is just another suit like John Sculley was. No more. No less. I guess there's nothing wrong with this but when you consider what Steve did to turn around the AAPL trajectory. The irony is that Steve just wasn't very good at choosing CEOs who were not him.