The end of Tim Cook's reign is near.

[Eric Idle]

To me it seems like they haven't produced anything interesting on unconventional in terms of design since Ive left which was a huge part of Apple's image. They just want to please everyone now (UI customizability, adding buttons, adding ports, bloating up lineups) which is of course welcomed by the masses and makes profits but it's also very un-Apple like. They have always been the opposite of standard IT tech but over time became one and they seem kind of lost now. The only huge change under Cook I can think of is the transition to ARM but that's nowhere near the paradigm shifts of the Jobs era.

Tim Cook is an unmitigated failure.

 

[whitby]

Tim Cook is another soulless executive who has achieved corporate goals for the investors and nothing more. We can all applaud him for making the shareholders happy (after all, most companies are about increasing shareholder value and not much else). Tim Cook has no product vision or a coherent vision for Apple. He is an excellent controller who has created the illusion of a company that cares and products we still want to love, but the innovation and rare flashes of sheer genius are not there and that was not his role.

Is his reign over, I think not. And, if it is, it will be because he has made all the money he can deal with and not that he completed a great product vision. What replaces him will be no different. We have to accept that Apple is now run for the benefit of shareholders and not as an advanced research company for new ideas. It will continue to make competent products that are well made and cost a premium, but gone are the days of products that bring together a myriad of ideas from around the world into something different. Such is life and it will always be like this as the business world converts money making ideas into money for the shareholders. The products become incidental to that objective. Carefully honing an appearance so that customers continue to buy the products is part for the game plan. After all if people stopped buying them, how would you pay back the investors? Cynical yes, pragmatic yes, good for consumers not necessarily so.

 

[SkweeBop]

I feel like we've arrived at a plateau of needs at the moment, and also a place where creators have been disenfranchised and gouged and there's little left to take.

Apple used to be a primary tool supplier for professional creators of visual and musical arts, but the subscription model has probably irrevocably hurt us, and as we all now have a pocket-sized machine that could guide satellites in orbit without breaking a sweat...what innovative products do we need that we don't have? We are missing tools to help users make innovations and cash money.