I've used Windows PC for years at work but loved my MacBook. It helped some that I also already had a lot of experience with Unix. My wife is a gamer so still needs a Windows PC. She's always dealing with system freezes and crashes where she has to track down if it's the game, OS or some graphics card driver. All OS's and PC and phones have there own merits and problems so I'll never tell anyone what they should use, but I know what works for me. I'll switch to something else when the hardware, software and overall ecosystem combined merit the change.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Apple CEO Tim Cook Earned $74.6 Million in 2024
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
That's fine. I'm not an Apple customer because they invent a lot of new things. In fact, Apple is quite bad at inventing new things.
What I want and get is simplicity, uniformity, tight integration, small changes instead of entirely new stuff and products which looks nice for the most part.
While you have been complaining about Apple for years now, if you invested $10,000 in APPL a year ago, you would have $3000 which to buy a new Mac even with the high prices Apple charge for memory and disk storage.
I guess It’s time for Apple to split their shares again. They did it in 2005, 2014, 2020 and each time they raised their value.
Only coz you wanna buy them. Have a look at Samsung shares and you’ll see what 'peak' means.
Even better than that for the millions of us that are long term investors is that Tim Apple is such a nice, generous guy that he sends us dividend checks four times a year. We use that money to purchase Apple products. For me I almost never buy as much in a year as my dividends total so all my Apple purchases are paid for by Apple!
Apple as been growing the number of active Apple devices by about 200 million the last few years. We don't have the 2025 published numbers yet.
Jan 2016: 1.0 billion
2020: 1.5 billion
Feb 2022: 1.8 billion
Feb 2023: 2.0 billion
Feb 2024: 2.2 billion
1 billion Apple devices are in active use around the world
Thanks in part to the Apple Watch and Apple TV
www.theverge.com
Apple now has 1.8 billion active devices
Android still leads the pack in active device numbers.
www.theverge.com
Apple surpasses 2 billion active devices
Apple’s iPhone sales are down 6 percent, but there are now 2 billion of the company’s devices active out there.
www.theverge.com
Apple Now Has More Than 2.2 Billion Active Devices Worldwide
There are more than two billion active iPhones, iPads, Macs, and other Apple devices worldwide, Apple said today in the earnings report covering the...
www.macrumors.com
We do know that Apple doesn't support their devices for that long, so the majority of those devices will probably be less than 5-6 years old.
The churn rate for iPhones has forever been between 10-20% which tells that it isn't that difficult to switch from iOS to Android. The churn rate on the Android side has been about the same and several times Samsung has had more loyal customers than Apple.
There will always be people in this world whom we feel are paid way more than they should, sometimes for completely arbitrary metrics or reasons (it even sometimes just be a simple case of "sour grapes"). Likewise, on another forum, there are people who love to complain that civil servants are overpaid. It's a common recurring theme. Everyone thinks they are underpaid, while everyone else is overpaid.
For example, I am recently following a couple of VTubers on Twitch (figuring out what to do with that free twitch sub I got from my Prime subscription). Some of them, based on estimated super-chat earnings and merch sales, would be earning many times the amount I pull in as a teacher, and these are not considered huge creators by any stretch. Do I think they deserve that much money for basically talking behind an animated avatar for a couple of hours a day? I literally don't care, and the reality is that their income isn't dependent on my thoughts and feelings, but whether they are able to command an audience and get them to support her financially.
And I am also cognisant that I very likely can't do the stuff they do, and sometimes, this is why we are where we are, and others are where they are.
Same here. You don't decide my salary, just as I don't decide yours, or anyone else's in this world. The market does. "Paid". "Earn". Who really cares about the terminology when it's the same amount of money entering our bank account at the end of the day?
I will share the apple products I have purchased, and plan to purchase. I can't recall when I purchased the last two Apple TVs, but assume I get one of every new generation. My point is this is how I support Apple as a company for making the products that do work well for me, each one purchased is one product from a competing brand that I am not buying from them, and maybe you should be more worried about keeping the competition afloat than wonder whether Apple is losing their competitive edge or whether they are doomed.
2013 - couple of Apple TVs after peer-to-peer airplay was released, iPhone 5s
2014 - iPad mini
2015 - iPhone 6s
2016 - Apple Watch series 2, AirPods, iPad Pro, apple pencil
2017 - iPhone 8+, 5k iMac
2018 - iPad Pro, apple pencil
2019 - series 5 apple watch, AirPods 2
2020 - M1 MBA
2021 - iPhone 13 Pro Max, AirPods 3
2022 - AirPods Pro 2
2023 - HomePods? Can't recall when they came to Singapore exactly
2024 - M4 iPad Pro / Apple Pencil / magic keyboard, apple watch series 10
2025 - plan to upgrade my MacBook, iPhone, AirPods maybe and I will probably get a Vision Pro eventually as well.
I have a couple of games on my Nintendo switch which probably won't port over to another game console should I ever decide to switch. Such is life.
What the EU is doing is a bandaid over a more deep-seated problem - which is that their current state of over-regulation stifles innovation within their shores and all but ensures that you will never see the same extent of innovation in the EU compared to the US.
Think about how China is at least able to prop up a homegrown offering (Huawei) as a viable option to Apple and Samsung (and Android), while also having their own local alternatives to common services like TikTok, Twitter, Amazon and Search. The very same Huawei you so love to tout as evidence that Apple is no longer innovating. What viable smartphone brands are there in the EU, and how are they faring thus far?
The DMA does nothing except entrench the current status quo and ensure there will never be a third alternative to iOS and Android. Just think of the major hardware and software platforms that people use on a daily basis. What exactly is the EU's alternative to them?
Sometimes, when I see my friends making more money than me, I wonder how things might be different had I not joined teaching and instead pursued another career elsewhere (like finance, which is my degree major). But that was more than a decade ago, my teaching salary is enough to support myself and my family, I don't hate my job, I suspect that I would have lacked the drive to excel in those fields anyways, and looking back, I would likely still have gone down the same path instead of opting to reroll the dice for another stab at fate.
It's hard to say if there is anyone who could have done better than Tim Cook, considering how much of the challenges that Apple is currently facing are less with they state of their products, and more political / societal in nature. I am not unhappy with the manner in which Apple is currently being run, and that's good enough for me.
I will also say that Apple could well have done a lot worse had someone else been at the helm though, when you consider how many people like to float "Apple needs to do X" posts here at Macrumours. Assertions that have gone on to age very poorly in hindsight. Things like butterfly keyboards, apple cars and AirPower are nothing to the massive losses that Apple would have incurred had they gone down the rabbit hole of acquiring Netflix, releasing round smartwatches, cheaper iPhones, even investing in their own search engine or LLM.
This, I feel, is the real danger facing Apple. Not so much that they don't have a folding phone or an answer to every other gimmick on the market today, but that they lose focus trying to ape every single tech trend out there. Apple still remains pretty disciplined in this regard, and if that comes across as being conservative and slow to react in your eyes, well, maybe they really are two sides of the same coin.
I don't see that as a bad thing.
People are able and willing to hold on to older apple devices because Apple does support their products longer than many competing android brands (some of which never even see a single patch). That and Apple can continue to earn from these users via avenues like Apple Pay, app subscriptions, accessories etc. You can be holding on to an old iPhone 6s and still be paying for iCloud storage and using Apple Pay to pay for your daily subway commute and Apple will still get something at the end of the day. It may be a rounding error, but a cent here and there and it all adds up.
While I don't deny there are people opting to leave the apple ecosystem, the point Tim Cook is driving is that they are seeing a net influx of users, based on their active install base numbers that they report from time to time.
And android does outpace iOS in many parts of the world. I guess my answer to that is - so? Apple still gets the profits, apps still get released for iOS first or exclusively, and if you are hoping for the day when iOS market share shrinks to the point where developers decide not to support it at all, I don't see that day coming, for the simple reason that Apple still commands the best users in the world (in terms of spending power), and that to me, matters more than raw market share.
Apple won the "market share vs usage" share argument back in 2015. That argument hasn't gained traction since, and it never will ever again.
Could you give me the names of a couple of winning sports teams while you are at it? I will be sure to mortgage my house and bet everything on the opposing team.
Yes it absolutely should be frictionless … it at least as close to it as is practical
Extend your thinking out to other aspects of life and you will see how impractical, inconvenient and undesirable that would be for people
I have no idea why folks think we should bend society to the will of corporations over people
The free market is not an actual thing
It’s wholly determined by rules and regulation
It’s literally a creation that depends upon rules and regulations in fact
If there were absolutely no rules there would be absolutely no free market
It should also be clarified that the use of the word free here is not really that accurate for how these things actually function
Well clearly there is a free market. One can debate that rules and regulations may sway in small ways that market by causing one makers products to be a bit more or less expensive but people look at various makes of products, read reviews, debate the merits with friends and in the end buy something. If enough people feel that one maker's product is no good that maker either goes out of business or changes their products.
Easy no. 74 million dollars hard - also no.
Or he could have set an example his working life for equitable distribution and reward of income to all Apple employees, which would have had a positive impact on a lot of lives too and helped push more companies to give living wages to Americans that ultimately would have helped with the horrendous distribution of wealth in America, but of course he didn't do that. No, he will give away some money he never needed when he retires.
I agree isn't $74M "hard" but how hard a job is has zip to do with pay. I won't try to say whether he or someone else is best for the job but having someone with the experience with Apple, knowing business well and having just the right contacts in business and even government is needed. There aren't a lot of people that check all the boxes and so the one that does gets paid a lot due to low supply
So you start with a bad metric and determine since Tim isn't looking as bad, that makes it good?
Anyway my point is that the pay ANYONE gets has very very little to do with the difficulty of the job.
The free market doesn't work that way. The top ten percent of Americans hold two third of the total US wealth. What you do have is a dream that you might one day share in it if you just work harder and smarter. That's important to keep the illusion you have some say in it, which of course you don't. You aren't in the game and you will never win it.
Oh your putting way to much credit into that 🤣 The post directly below helps explain. Just helps trick those who don't understand.
You think Job's widow would have her superyacht if he got $1?
Job's also leased a brand new car (100K+) ever few months so he wouldn't need a permanent license plate.
He was about as narcissistic as these CEO'S can get.
Last edited:
I decided to buy an iPhone. A friend decided to by a Samsung phone. I feel quite sure each of us had a choice and we made it. Yes, wealth is very unequal and so yes the wealthy DO have a bigger say in the free market. But even with that even those rich folks will prefer to buy which ever product they feel gives them the better value and experience. The concept of a free market is orthogonal to the concept of wealth equity
Last edited:
Again, you’re not going to understand unless you have more economics and business acumen.
This isn’t “salary” for one. Go look at AAPL’s value at the start of 2024 and at the end of 2024.
Moving. Not frictionless. Having a baby. Not functionless. Changing jobs. Not frictionless. Looking at this without bias your life is not frictionless.
Because those are the laws we made. Discussing consumer for profit companies that produce discretionary products, you buy the product or not if they have value to you. Corporations that are in regulated industries are another matter.
These opinions are absolutely laughable and totally devoid of any business sense whatsoever.
The shareholders that own the company approve his compensation package and couldn’t care less what outsiders think. Tim Cook makes thousands of people rich.
yes, ultimately it's the share holders wtth the help of the board of directors that holds the power. Anyone is free to argue if they should get someone else as CEO or compensate him differently but the BofDs aren't held powerless and they aren't complete fools.