Given everything Apple has managed to accomplish this year, I do feel that Tim Cook deserves every cent he earned (and yes, I know this is going to be a very controversial statement).
Different people are needed at different points in a company history. Jobs was right for his era, but he would have been a disaster for the Cook era.
Cook is amazing, and has been responsible for most of the achievements of Apple, but not the initial innovation and concept that Jobs provided. Cook has refined the culture and expanded it, and has done as fine a job as any CEO in American history, if not world business history.
The iMac Pro and MacBook Pro are not products Apple can just crap out over the weekend, nor is it Apple's practice to rush out a physical product in response to user backlash. It takes time to source for components and ramp up your production line and get your supply chain in line, and Apple will also want to take the time to negotiate for the best deals they can.I'm not sure I agree with that statement. Think of all the years that the mac has been neglected with no refreshes. Everyone starts trash talking Apple and suddenly they want to prove they actually care about the mac - disclosing updates for iMac Pro, Mac Pro and rushing out a laptop with a flawed keyboard. They dropped the ball, and are now scrambling. So what have they actually been doing all those years?
The iMac Pro and MacBook Pro are not products Apple can just crap out over the weekend, nor is it Apple's practice to rush out a physical product in response to user backlash. It takes time to source for components and ramp up your production line and get your supply chain in line, and Apple will also want to take the time to negotiate for the best deals they can.
My guess is that the iMac Pro and MacBook Pro have been in the works for a couple of years already. The touchbar at least took 2-3 years to conceptualise. We just haven't heard anything about them because Apple generally doesn't comment on unreleased products, but that doesn't mean they weren't working on them all this while. They are not like Google or Facebook who announce products even before they start working on them.
I believe that the iMac Pro was always intended as the replacement for the Mac Pro, possibly after Apple realised that the 2013 Mac Pro was a dead-end design with no possibility of upgrades. It saves them from having to dedicate an entire production line to the Mac Pro, which is likely a very low-volume product, and there is probably a great deal more synergy between the iMac and iMac Pro (we may even see design elements of the iMac Pro, such as the redesigned cooling system, trickle down to the normal iMac).
But I don't believe for one instance that Apple has been idle. They just needed time.
For crying out loud, why do people get the Steve Jobs/Tim Cook Comparison so wrong.
Steve Jobs was a co founder of Apple, it was his baby, his thing. Like a parent having a child. Steve Jobs even once said that he did not care about being right, he only cared about the success. For him the success or failure of Apple was personally linked to his legacy. He died!!
Tim Cook was a hired employee promoted to CEO, he didn't found the company, didn't create it. He was hired to run it.
Look at other companies and imagine what they would be like if something happened to their founder.
Tesla/Space-X - Elon Musk
Virgin Brands - Richard Branson
Amazon - Jeff Bezos
List others here.....
Imagine what would happen to those companies if those guys were gone?
There is a big difference between a hired CEO and a company Founder.
[doublepost=1514777411][/doublepost]Most founders have big dreams, big ideas, when they found successful companies what happens is they suddenly have the money to actually do those things.
Apple realised the 2013 Mac Pro was a dead end design with no possibility of upgrades ?
I hope so , they designed and build it.
And they replaced it with an even less upgradable iMac pro? It's even more of a dead end design, they slapped grey paint on the iMac, threw in xeons, and doubled the price of The Mac Pro......
Lovely machine the iMac pro, though is the perfect example of Apple neglecting Mac, and Cook does not even have the balls to kill the Mac Pro, which the iMac pro should. If they ship a new Mac Pro, cause I trust Cook less and less these days , just politician answers , it will be neglected from the day it launches. And it will have to start at say $7500..... we wanted a new Mac Pro, not a way for him that triple the cost - this is the problem with Cooks Apple, the iMac pro is twice the price of the Mac Pro , all he does is increase the prices...year on year
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One major point. He was not hired to lead Apple.
He was the most appropriate of the execs under Jobs at the time, the others would have been shockers at CEO - we are still trying to work out what Cue does ....
My understanding was that Apple designed the Mac Pro with the assumption that dual-graphic card workflows would be the future. Except that the industry would move towards single, more powerful graphics cards which the Mac Pro had no way of accommodating. The thermal core can still barely handle two less powerful graphics cards, but it cannot sufficiently cool a single, more powerful graphic card.Apple realised the 2013 Mac Pro was a dead end design with no possibility of upgrades ?
I hope so , they designed and build it.
And they replaced it with an even less upgradable iMac pro? It's even more of a dead end design, they slapped grey paint on the iMac, threw in xeons, and doubled the price of The Mac Pro......
My understanding was that Apple designed the Mac Pro with the assumption that dual-graphic card workflows would be the future. Except that the industry would move towards single, more powerful graphics cards which the Mac Pro had no way of accommodating. The thermal core can still barely handle two less powerful graphics cards, but it cannot sufficiently cool a single, more powerful graphic card.
Also dual graphics cards..... meh.... zero innovation here . It's like the current iMac pro, offer 1TB storage in raid 0 cause it's cheaper ....
That’s what I meant by no possibility of upgrading. They could in theory upgrade the graphics cards inside with more powerful ones. It just wouldn’t make sense in today’s context.
And the iMac Pro is upgradable in that Apple can continue to offer refreshed models with internal spec upgrades as they become available. They are not talking about the user being able to crack it open to upgrade the internals themselves.
Well, I must say I agree 100% with what you have said here.The iMac pro , is Apple PR Showing they care about whinging pros .... thier hope is that it's successful so they can sell PR the Mac Pro is no longer needed . The Mac Pro no longer belong in the Apple line up, does not fit where the company is heading . If one comes , it's never going to be like the 2012, though I suspect the iMac pro is the final nail in the coffin of the Mac Pro.