I get your point. But didn’t Steve Jobs famously take only $1 a year in salary?
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Apple CEO Tim Cook Taking Substantial Pay Cut in 2023 After Earning Nearly $100 Million Last Year
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Steve Jobs felt the same way. He never paid any dividends to shareholders whilst he was CEO.
Also he always stated reasonable profits should be made. Not the price gouging Tim Cook is overseeing.
Whilst he was in charge the product lines were also differentiated mainly by hard drive size and screen size. Top features were included on all models. Unlike Tim who wants to have 50 iPhone models just to try and justify price increases.
I predict for 2023 iPhone Extreme, iPhone Ultra, iPhone Mega prices start at £3000 for 128GB and oh one more thing….we have the iPhone Platinum the top end model which starts at £9999 with 64GB storage. By the way it does not come with any glass on the back. This is an optional upgrade for £5000.
If he really wants to make an impact, he should lower prices and stop using foreign sweatshops to make his products.
If one cares about such stuff. I care about the products that Apple produces that make my life easier.
Where are they? 2T dollars? Expanded services revenue? Cool(*) products coming out?
Sure, then do it. Vote with your $$$ is the only way to show a company you are unhappy with their products.
I can't answer that. But I can say if the price to value ratio is not to ones' liking there are competing products that can satisify a technical need.
(*)If one believes apple has lost it's soul, probably won't think the products are "cool".
It's on them to convince the board that they would do a better job of running Apple then.I agree! You do have to earn it. There are plenty of well-over-qualified people under Apple's Leadership team that will be ready to take the role and hit the ground running if the opportunity is given. I'm pretty sure Mr. Tim Cook is not the only person in this world that can run/own Apple. There are others too... well qualified.
This is coming from a person who admires Mr. Tim Cook.
Apple Leadership
Apple leadership biographies include Apple’s executive team responsibilities and experience. Learn more about Apple’s leadership team.www.apple.com
Just bear in mind that simply doing it differently doesn't necessarily mean doing it better, and that your definition of better (eg: whoever gives me an updated iPhone mini) may well end up being very different from the board's definition of "better".
What more when we look at the state of many a tech company in the last year and while one could argue that Apple could have done better, I feel it's also hard to deny that Apple could well have done a lot worse. Especially when you consider that many of the "Apple should do X" proclamations here at Macrumours over the last decade appear to have aged pretty poorly.
Just off the top of my head, Fitbit has been acquired by Google (who themselves have shuttered a ton of services, including the once-lauded Stadia). Facebook and Netflix lost a ton of money (remember when people said that Apple was at the mercy of these companies?), Disney isn't doing so hot themselves, Alexa cost Amazon $10 billion (remember the buzz surrounding smart speakers?), and I am just glad that Elon Musk has nothing to do with Apple.
I guess my point is that all this ultimately boils down to my pet peeve regarding a lot of the criticism surrounding Apple. For me, I like to begin with Apple, and then I look outwards at different industries. In contrast, I realise that many people here typically first cover an industry, then they attempt to draw a link to Apple from time to time. I feel this tends to lead to error and inaccurate analysis, because you are comparing Apple too much to other companies, and you are not allowing Apple’s unique attributes to speak for themselves or recognise how Apple is able to set themselves apart from the competition.
So in my opinion, the best way of covering Apple is to begin with Apple. You have to focus with Apple, and then you move outwards. You start with Apple, and then you analyse the industry that Apple operates in. Instead, what I see a lot of people still do today is that they just treat Apple as any other company. But Apple does a lot of things differently, and if all you are doing is simply comparing Apple to everyone else and then go “Hey, Apple isn’t following what everyone else is doing, so I don’t think whatever Apple is doing is going to work”, I think they go down the wrong path.
And a lot of what Apple is doing makes sense when you view them through this lens.
Wrong — institutional investors do not determine CEO pay. They can make recommendations just like any shareholder, and their ownership determines how serious a recommendation might be taken.
Tim is running the largest company in the US, with a market cap of $2T — he could pretty much demand much more than he is getting, and shareholders would overwhelmingly agree to it. I think the reason he agreed to cut is related to the state of the economy, slowing hiring, etc. — he’s concerned with the optics. And by that token, maybe this is what prompted the recommendation in the first place.
I’ve already voted with my money and gone elsewhere. I can still comment on what’s going on at Apple though.
Share price has fallen recently. Services revenue will eventually plateau as has happened at Netflix currently and losing money.
Nothing new that’s interesting on the horizon. Electric cars are about 20 years at least away from being the mainstream norm. Plus Apple charging £100,000 for it will mean it’s going to tank. AR headset is a gimmick.
If you love Apple’s currently line up of products you probably weren’t around when Steve Jobs was in charge. Back then you actually got all the latest features at a reasonable price. Not like Tim Cook’s era purposefully gimping products to produce more product fragmentation
Ok, "forced" was a little strong; recommended/pressured but probably mutually agreed upon. Cook himself acknowledged the recommendation from the shareholder group which the Comp Committee on the Board sought out.
There is an interesting note in the Compensation Committee report in the proxy filing that remarks on a vote at the '22 shareholder meeting that approved 2021 compensation that resulted in a "notable decline" in year over year exec comp and as a result of that vote the Board expanded its outreach to better understand specific shareholder concerns. So pressure had been building for awhile so I don't know that shareholders would have overwhelmingly agreed to a larger demand from Cook.
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I like my apple products and the family has a myriad of them. That you decided Apples products weren't for you and voted with your dollars - bravo. You can read the writing on the wall on where Apple is going and if one doesn't like the direction, good thing there is competition.
As far as the share price, has there been any time in the history of the stock market when the share price has never fallen? Everybody laughed at Tesla and while they may be having some difficulties they are the benchmark. Mercedes sells the EQS for $150,000. There will be those who can afford an Apple Car and will get one because. Your opinion of AR is irrelevant. We'll see what the market opinion is and if it aligns with your opinion.
I was around when SJ was in charge but we got into Apple late in the game. Back them Apple products were priced obscenely expensive. (contrary to your assertion they were reasonable). They even had to reduce the selling price of the iphone 1. There was only one reason Apple reduced the price...and it wasn't because the iphone 1 was the bargain of the year.
This is one of the best replies I’ve ever gotten on MacRumors. Thank you!
I do see your point regarding exec compensation packages being largely tied to stocks, but really wealthy folks are able to borrow against the value of their stock portfolio. According to Forbes, “At current interest and tax rates, it is far cheaper to borrow against the value of one's shares than to sell them and pay taxes on the gains.”
So while it seems like Monopoly money, you can kind of have your cash and eat it too. I’m sure it’s getting a bit tighter, but interest rates are still lower than capital gains tax rates.
Not sure why this is even an article. There has been really no inovention in a long time. Recycling old designs and putting new internals is not inventive. His stock payout is the killer. How about work for free for a year and do what Steve did. Stop piggy backing on his past devices. Adding a dynamic island (which is purely software) and calling it a new phone is ridiculous.
Agreed. They will be giving themselves big raises, while firing tens of thousands more (on top of the thousands they already laid off before the holidays).
I remember they reduced it fairly quickly. Like two months after it launched give or take and gave like $200 in-store credit to the early adopters didn't they?
can you please list these products ' like the MacBook Pro 16 you can get something £1000 cheaper and have far better performance"? I wasted thousands trying to find them.
especially the far better performance part please. Also with better screens, trackpads, battery life and performance off mains.
There's no denying they're doing great on the spreadsheets which at the end of the day is what matters, but the company is much more soulless now and lacks the drive and polish it did before. I don't dislike Tim Cook's leadership, but the 'It just works' Apple used to excel at is not here anymore. A lot more stuff to think about when using the products, and most importantly the products gimped by design to derive max profit. The latest release iPad 10th gen is the pinnacle of this. Watch this beautiful animation about Apple's philosophy from 2013. I don't find it rings true in recent years. It doesn't feel like they're creating products around intention with how they want the user to feel and experience. They create them to raise the prices of others and fill a lineup and the 10th gen of iPad for example is unnecessary. iPhone SE, the whole AirPods business with the AirPods 2 and 3. It's all a pricing ladder, all carefully made around the idea of lack in the product below the juuuuust a bit more expensive other one. I can't look at the iPad 10, iPhone SE, AirPods 2nd gen, the Apple Watch Series 3 they were selling until recently and think all that was made/kept in the lineup with intent for incredible user experience, because it wasn't.
The ones that mined for the battery in your devices. Not Apple's directly, but the companies they obtain parts through. It's definitely part of the reason Apple is so big but doesn't own any factories of theirs like the other manufacturers. The responsibility would be on them and it's bad for image. Especially with batteries, but everything that requires any sort of mining. The human rights violations in that field are well-known. Child labor is also not out of the question. A lot of this is happening in Congo and while it's Congo's legislation at fault, it's also Apple's for taking advantage of that - it's an abuse of power, and an ugly one at that. It's not just Apple that does this, but they're the most vocal with their marketing talk about being all green and fair. Their attempts to greenwash tech are not okay with me, too. Nothing about tech is green. It's a very dirty business. Granted, they are probably not the worst offender. But we can't act like that's not happening.
It seems like the only main criticism people can muster here is price. I can also counter that the existence of cheaper, entry-level offerings does not preclude one from choosing to spend more for a better product, and at least I have the option of spending money on a solution which works for me.
I got my first Apple products in 2011, the year Steve Jobs died. Since then, I have gone on to embrace the ecosystem in its entirety. I can't speak from personal experience what using Apple products was like prior to that, but I can in the very least say that they still continue to work great for me.
Here's an overview of the various milestones for me. They don't represent all the apple products I have purchased over the last decade, but I would like to speak as someone who continues to use Apple products because they do work great for me. Not 100% of the time, but I doubt windows and android would be hassle-free either.
2011 - got a 27" iMac (my first Apple product), iPhone 4s
2012 - iPad 3, MBA, Apple TVs to start using in the classroom (this was when I decided to go all-in)
2015 - Apple TV supports peer to peer airplay, removing the need for a dedicated router in the classroom
2016 - 9.7" iPad Pro with Apple Pencil. Writing experience with the Apple Pencil was great, and I wasn't at all bothered by the charging mechanism. Apple Watch. AirPods.
2017 - 5k iMac, 8+
2018 - 11" iPad Pro (which I continue to use even today). Also went all in with the 2nd gen pencil and Smart Keyboard. Love the keyboard, unfortunately, its durability leaves much to be desired.
2019 - Apple Watch series 5 (still using to this day)
2020 - M1 MBA
2021 - iPhone 13 Pro Max
Also, Apple One.
Not everything Apple makes is for me (though it's close enough), and I don't expect Apple to solely cater to me and me alone.
It must be heartwarming for all those people who have paid inflated prices with all the price hikes to learn Tim earned an enormous salary. Almost makes it worthwhile having a £150 increase on an iPhone 
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TheYayAreaLiving 🎗️
Suspended
I believe this came out today. Wonder if this has to do anything with the pay cut. Pretty interesting read!
This one was also published today. Was not expecting that. Crazy times.
Original Article here.
9to5mac.com
Goldman Sachs lost $1.2 billion in 2022 mostly because of Apple Card
Goldman Sachs' consumer credit division lost $1.2 billion in nine months last year, and the losses were primarily related to the Apple Card.
appleinsider.com
This one was also published today. Was not expecting that. Crazy times.
Original Article here.
Apple is no longer part of Glassdoor's Best Places to Work ranking
For more than a decade, Apple was considered one of the best companies to work for, as it was always...
9to5mac.com
I can't believe GS lost $1.2 billion on the Apple Card. I guess they shouldn't have been approving anyone with a pulse 🤣 Hopefully this doesn't lead to shutting down the Apple Card if GS want's out and Apple can't find another bank to play ball.I believe this came out today. Wonder if this has to do anything with the pay cut. Pretty interesting read!
Goldman Sachs lost $1.2 billion in 2022 mostly because of Apple Card
Goldman Sachs' consumer credit division lost $1.2 billion in nine months last year, and the losses were primarily related to the Apple Card.appleinsider.com
This one was also published today. Was not expecting that. Crazy times.
Original Article here.
Apple is no longer part of Glassdoor's Best Places to Work ranking
For more than a decade, Apple was considered one of the best companies to work for, as it was always...
I know a lot of companies have taken a major hit on Glassdoor since making their employees return to work. My employer has the same problem. They are actually a great company to work for but so many people are upset at having to work in the office 3 days a week that they've really lowered the Glassdoor rating.
Apple Card might have been more popular if they made it available in more than just one country. Just a thought lol.
Wouldn't it be nice if one of these unimaginably wealthy people said they would donate 100% of their salary to charity for the remainder of their careers.