Bloomberg: Jeff Williams is Second-Most Important Person at Apple, Operates Similar to Tim Cook

[apolloa]

Yes, totally agree. Really disappointing. Apple products are....soulless. The marketing is anodyne and sterile in the way a hospital room is, although more colorful to be sure. The executives are glass eyed automatons during presentations, with the exception of the lady who presented the XDR display. They should use her more often, perhaps replace John Ternus. That guy is clearly just walking through a memorized script.

I think Craig is a good presenter, he has a sense of humour at least and some charisma. Can’t see him running the company though.

 

[Baymowe335]

The ones crossed out mean nothing to customers.

Apple Music only has more subscribers than Spotify in the US, where Apple Music subscriptions are bundled with phone contracts.

AirPods are good. The Apple Watch is fine (zero interest personally because of iPhone requirement and proprietary lugs). This is the positive side of modern Apple.

Apple's best overall tablet is the mini, which is unchanged in design since 2012. The quality control and durability on the new Pros is a joke.

No competitors are trying to match FaceID. For the same reason no competitors are trying to match the Touch Bar. Just not worth having.

Cook’s job is to increase shareholder value, which all the things I mentioned do and why he’s not going anywhere.

You want to be a fan of a company, pick another because business is business. Apple’s business is better than any business on the planet. It’s certainly the most profitable.

Your opinion the best tablet is the mini is irrelevant. iPad just posted double digit growth. Saying the new Pros are poor quality is based on nothing but a few bent pictures of iPads and some anecdotal stories. Post some data to back it up.

There are plenty of examples of FaceID attempts after Apple released it. Facial recognition became much more prevalent. Huawei did it, Samsung did it and much less securely, among others.

 

[Khedron]

Cook’s job is to increase shareholder value, which all the things I mentioned do and why he’s not going anywhere.

You want to be a fan of a company, pick another because business is business. Apple’s business is better than any business on the planet. It’s certainly the most profitable.

Aramco is the most profitable. Perhaps you'd be interested in aramcorumours.com ?

 

[Baymowe335]

Aramco is the most profitable. Perhaps you'd be interested in aramcorumours.com ?

Yeah, I’m ignoring companies run by a country which sell a commodity. But throw them in if you want.

Apple’s business execution is world class. They are a machine and a fantastic business.

That’s Cook’s job...to increase shareholder value and run the business profitably. He’s done that.

 

[Justanotherfanboy]

Um... No.

Oh?
What do you know that I don’t?

I read report after report after report, at the time that Scott LOVED the protectionism of being Steve’s little pet & used to delight in crowing to people that had been there for decades “that’s not what Steve would do”, as if he was inside his brain.
You think those kind of comments are annoying here???
They must have been MADDENING in person! He literally pushed Bob Mansfield (an AMAZING Apple hardware guy, known for his even temperament) into retirement, because he simply wouldn’t work with that guy for ANY price.
Tim knew he couldn’t lose Bob.
I think that was actually a fairly easy choice.
Glad he got rid of the caustic, pompous, & arrogant Scott Forstall.

Lol, he literally imagined himself the 2nd coming of Steve.... somehow with even more ego, but NOTHING to back it up.

 

[Rogifan]

Ive wasn’t a visionary, he was a designer. He didn’t invent new products.

Anyway Williams looks to be better than Cook. At least Jeff is interested in product development.

And Steve Jobs was a salesman. He didn’t invent new products either.
[doublepost=1563817232][/doublepost]

You can't have NO anonymous sources otherwise you will end up having no sources at all. There's a reason anonymous sources exist.

Not for stories like this. They didn’t really have a story. There’s just a few anonymous quotes and the rest is just padding to fit a specific narrative e.g. Jeff Williams is just a Tim Cook clone and Apple is run by numbers guys not visionaries.

 

[I7guy]

The Xerox interview with jobs reminds me how far Apple has fallen. When Cook took over I trusted him and my hopes were high. But years of neglect in hard- and software have proved I was wrong. It seems like everyone in the phone business has leapfrogged Apple in design and in most cases even hardware while in the meantime Cook was relying on the strong brandname and higher prices. The Apple of today has gotten lazy, expensive and uninspiring.

If the new iPhone X is what the rumors say it is, I might switch to another brand as well. It doesn’t give you the value for money anymore compared to the much cheaper competitors.

It’s always a good time to say with 250 million customers, there are different opinions and YMMV.

With pop up flashes, movable bezels and stagnant 3 year design (galaxy 8, 9, 10) I’m not clear on who is leapfrogging who.
[doublepost=1563817849][/doublepost]

Aramco is the most profitable. Perhaps you'd be interested in aramcorumours.com ?

Stock ticker...oh wait.

 

[FFR]

I think you are taking all of this way more personal than you should. Are you related to Williams or what?

Why?
Because some posters are just making stuff up.
He thought operations meant sales and marketing.

And that apple is doomed because he couldn’t understand the report he Keeps linking too. .

Someone else claimed apple was on the brink of bankruptcy...because he feels like it.

 

[smulji]

It’s always a good time to say with 250 million customers, there are different opinions and YMMV.

With pop up flashes, movable bezels and stagnant 3 year design (galaxy 8, 9, 10) I’m not clear on who is leapfrogging who.
[doublepost=1563817849][/doublepost]
Stock ticker...oh wait.

The iPhone user base alone is one billion strong. The iPad user base 400 million strong and the Mac user base 100 million strong. So where did you get that Apple has only 250 million customers?

 

[jonblatho]

Why, it’s true.

Not just that, but visionaries often make poor CEOs.

 

[I7guy]

The iPhone user base alone is one billion strong. The iPad user base 400 million strong and the Mac user base 100 million strong. So where did you get that Apple has only 250 million customers?

I found the 250 on the internet. Obviously the real number would be difficult to get.

 

[jonblatho]

Apple is slipping in user retention

Source?

 

[Defthand]

Cook is only in his fifties? Jesus, he looks 70 much of the time.

 

[jonblatho]

Let the phones go 3 generations in the same shell to make manufacturing and supply chain easier (6, 6s, 7, X, XS, 11)

From a hardware engineering perspective, the changes in the iPhone enclosure over the models you listed have been substantial, but subtle to an average user. They’re not swappable (or even close to it) just because they’re roughly the same shape.

 

[Glockworkorange]

I think Craig is a good presenter, he has a sense of humour at least and some charisma. Can’t see him running the company though.

He's the best out of all of them and I don't think there's much doubt about it.

Still, my complaint with him, and maybe it can't be helped, is how rushed it all is and how much of it feels forced.

I mean, Jobs would just sit there for awhile and sort of exalt in the face of QuickTime 4 and Apple's "amazing partnership" with EarthLink. When he minimized things in the dock when demoing Leopard, he must have run it in slow motion like five times, sort of like a child playing with a toy. His excitement was palpable and real, even though I look back at that kind of thing today and sort of chuckle.

(QuickTime 4...lol. Actually, I think Jobs bet, wrongly, QuickTime 4 (or QuickTime in general) would be the television of the future, all available over the internet on your Mac).

 

[I7guy]

Cook is only in his fifties? Jesus, he looks 70 much of the time.

With maybe 10 years left?

 

[drinkingtea]

As someone who watched this show before when Jobs left, I wonder how the ending is different this time? Scully at least tried to do tech; the Newton was created under his watch and while not perfect, was pretty amazing technology (and Apple's first use of ARM technology). Jobs killed Newton on his return so we'll never know what a few more iterations could have looked like (although some bits live on in the iPhone).

This current crop of execs (minus maybe Federighi) seems to not understand products or care about them. Eddie Cue is off in music and tv la la land. Phil is increasingly MIA. The best tech designer of maybe all time just left because "leadership doesn't care about design." Ahrendts (left recently) just made the Apple store experience worse, not understanding it is not Burberry. Tim seems to think "sell half as many, then double the price" is just fine. But this time Jobs is not waiting in the wings to save the company again.

With an operations guy, we'll get a long, comfortable slide into overpriced mediocrity. Bump out the case 0.01 more to save $2 per machine on memory. Don't go all in on 3D Touch (too expensive) and then in the future cut it as needed (happening). Let the phones go 3 generations in the same shell to make manufacturing and supply chain easier (6, 6s, 7, X, XS, 11). Take 5+ years to update a Mac Pro because nobody understands or cares about high end creatives when the exec team is using e-mail and PowerPoints and can probably do that from an iPad. Release a smart speaker years late because everyone else is, charge too much for it, and then neglect it because its not selling in high volumes so why keep investing? Have a Mac, an iPad Pro, and an iPhone? Use 3 different wired headsets. Buy a Beats headset? Charge with MicroUSB.

Don't have any product passion what to do? Don't buy Sonos (clearly aligned). Don't buy Nest (clearly aligned). Don't buy Tesla. Instead let Eddie run off and start making TV shows because he at least seems passionate about something and Netflix seems to be onto something. Oh, and don't buy Netflix either. instead, listen to investors and hand that money back as share repurchases and dividends. Huh?

What's next? Cut fan slots underneath to help with cooling instead of engineering air channels in the sides and save $5 per machine? Put an Intel Inside sticker on the palmrest to get $3 per machine in Intel marketing money (hey, customers can peel it off later if they don't like it)? Pretty soon we all get 'me too' devices. I just hope that the ecosystem integration keeps holding strong for another decade.

The only thing keeping beige boxes from returning is that Apple will have Huawei, Microsoft, and Google to copy. Ironically, those companies were all inspired by Apple's past. I think the current CEO of Huawei understands Apple better than Tim Cook does.

The tea was SPILLED!

 

[DevNull0]

Ummm...no. Services have 62% margins versus low 30s for hardware. This is public information.

It would be nice to pull a 62% margin when 70-85% of the revenue goes to content owners in many service categories. The $11.5 billion revenue number is all money brought in by their services. If they're quoting 62% margins, that must be on operating costs after app devs are paid in the app store, artists are paid in Apple music, etc. I can't blame you for being confused though, Apple accounting has become very creative over the past few years.

TV+ will be interesting....are they going to count the cost to produce content as part of their operating margin in services or are they going to hide it in the $15 billion R&D slush pile and pretend TV+ is all profit. Because even if TV+ is a huge success, it will take a few years to show a profit after content creation costs.

The services business of $50B is annual and sure, I projected some.

You projected some. So basically you pulled the number out of your head and cited it as fact.

Services are growing at high teens and are projected to be $50B in FY2020. The nearly $12B quarterly services revenue times 4 with no growth is $46B.

Then why not cite it at $100 billion. They'll be there in 3-5 years at current growth rates, especially with new services like TV+ and arcade. I mean if you're making stuff up why not go all out?

We will see the rest of the financials next week, but trying to understand the supply chain and how it relates to a fine is an exercise in futility. People have consistently failed at trying.

Well I'm putting my money where my mouth is this time. There's no way they're not going to show a huge drop in iPhone revenue. I bought a few thousand Apple Puts at $202.50 strike today. I'm hoping it dips below $190.

There is nothing subjective about the AirPods being the worlds most popular wireless headphones and the watch being the most popular watch.

Oh, and when does most popular mean best? I guess according to you, Android is the best smartphone OS, Windows is the best desktop OS, and Honda Civic is the best car. And Commodore 64 is the best computer. Apple has very few models of anything. There could be 100 different wireless headphones, and with a 2% market share, AirPods could technically be the "most popular".

What is not subjective is that AirPods sound the same as EarPods...crappy quality from the free headphones that come with a phone that nobody actually wants to use. It's hard to find a $20 pair of wired headphones that aren't vastly superior to AirPods in sound, and there are plenty of better sounding $170 headphones.

Apple makes almost all the money in tablets and even smartphones. That is a fact.

I fail to see your point. As a consumer, if anything that's a huge negative about Apple. Unless you sit on Apple's board and just post here for giggles, I don't see why you would care.

 

[Classie]

I mean, I've seen no evidence of Williams being a "product guy." This is based on his appearances during Apple events, so small size and probably not fair. BUT...

Go back and watch some of the old Jobs' product announcements. You can tell he just loves the stuff. He thinks what he's talking about is just the coolest stuff in the world. He's following a script, but he clearly doesn't need it. This is a guy who can talk all day about how cover flow is probably the greatest thing ever invented and how Apple Greeting Cards (remember those) are going to revolutionize communication. Neither of those things were accurate (although I personally miss coverflow), but it was nice to see genuine enthusiasm. Such joy.

Contrast that to the people today, including Williams. They are rushing on stage with a script, glassy eyed and there is zero evidence they love the stuff. Any excitement is manufactured and built into the script (e.g., "I can be the first to show you the amazing new TouchBar." Lol--get the **** out).

They're all terrible. Even Craig, although fun, doesn't really show that adoration for the things he's talking about. Phil neither. Cook is just a robot.

I totally agree; no one has the same love and passion as Steve did - he was one of a kind. Every keynote was such a joy to watch. I didn’t matter what he was talking about
The best we can hope for now, is people that can do a good job and maybe fill some holes until the next “genius” appears.

I have no knowledge of Jeff. I’m just hoping that he will be more of a product guy than Tim (which shouldn’t be hard, right?). Apple needs someone higher up that cares about products.

...as for Phil... I think he genuinely cares for the products/hardware - more than the other guys!

 

[Baymowe335]

It would be nice to pull a 62% margin when 70-85% of the revenue goes to content owners in many service categories. The $11.5 billion revenue number is all money brought in by their services. If they're quoting 62% margins, that must be on operating costs after app devs are paid in the app store, artists are paid in Apple music, etc. I can't blame you for being confused though, Apple accounting has become very creative over the past few years.

TV+ will be interesting....are they going to count the cost to produce content as part of their operating margin in services or are they going to hide it in the $15 billion R&D slush pile and pretend TV+ is all profit. Because even if TV+ is a huge success, it will take a few years to show a profit after content creation costs.



You projected some. So basically you pulled the number out of your head and cited it as fact.



Then why not cite it at $100 billion. They'll be there in 3-5 years at current growth rates, especially with new services like TV+ and arcade. I mean if you're making stuff up why not go all out?



Well I'm putting my money where my mouth is this time. There's no way they're not going to show a huge drop in iPhone revenue. I bought a few thousand Apple Puts at $202.50 strike today. I'm hoping it dips below $190.



Oh, and when does most popular mean best? I guess according to you, Android is the best smartphone OS, Windows is the best desktop OS, and Honda Civic is the best car. And Commodore 64 is the best computer. Apple has very few models of anything. There could be 100 different wireless headphones, and with a 2% market share, AirPods could technically be the "most popular".

What is not subjective is that AirPods sound the same as EarPods...crappy quality from the free headphones that come with a phone that nobody actually wants to use. It's hard to find a $20 pair of wired headphones that aren't vastly superior to AirPods in sound, and there are plenty of better sounding $170 headphones.



I fail to see your point. As a consumer, if anything that's a huge negative about Apple. Unless you sit on Apple's board and just post here for giggles, I don't see why you would care.

The services margin is reported....guess all you want as to why it's not as good as you think, but AAPL made $60B in profit in 12 months. Services contributed to that tremendously, at over twice the margin of the hardware. You're speculating while I'm quoting the report.

Anyone that follows AAPL knows the services biz is a $50B business at their current run rate. We are always looking to the future. I didn't say trailing 12 months, but it's a $50B business. You want to say $46B, you're looking backward.

I didn't cite $100B because it's not reasonable. $50B is reasonable when you have a $46B run rate at 18% growth, no? If you don't agree, we literally can't have a meaningful discussion because you're just trying to be right on a technicality.

In business, most popular at solid margins means everything.

I'm a shareholder and a customer. I am happy as both.

 

[BWhaler]

As someone who watched this show before when Jobs left, I wonder how the ending is different this time? Scully at least tried to do tech; the Newton was created under his watch and while not perfect, was pretty amazing technology (and Apple's first use of ARM technology). Jobs killed Newton on his return so we'll never know what a few more iterations could have looked like (although some bits live on in the iPhone).

This current crop of execs (minus maybe Federighi) seems to not understand products or care about them. Eddie Cue is off in music and tv la la land. Phil is increasingly MIA. The best tech designer of maybe all time just left because "leadership doesn't care about design." Ahrendts (left recently) just made the Apple store experience worse, not understanding it is not Burberry. Tim seems to think "sell half as many, then double the price" is just fine. But this time Jobs is not waiting in the wings to save the company again.

With an operations guy, we'll get a long, comfortable slide into overpriced mediocrity. Bump out the case 0.01 more to save $2 per machine on memory. Don't go all in on 3D Touch (too expensive) and then in the future cut it as needed (happening). Let the phones go 3 generations in the same shell to make manufacturing and supply chain easier (6, 6s, 7, X, XS, 11). Take 5+ years to update a Mac Pro because nobody understands or cares about high end creatives when the exec team is using e-mail and PowerPoints and can probably do that from an iPad. Release a smart speaker years late because everyone else is, charge too much for it, and then neglect it because its not selling in high volumes so why keep investing? Have a Mac, an iPad Pro, and an iPhone? Use 3 different wired headsets. Buy a Beats headset? Charge with MicroUSB.

Don't have any product passion what to do? Don't buy Sonos (clearly aligned). Don't buy Nest (clearly aligned). Don't buy Tesla. Instead let Eddie run off and start making TV shows because he at least seems passionate about something and Netflix seems to be onto something. Oh, and don't buy Netflix either. instead, listen to investors and hand that money back as share repurchases and dividends. Huh?

What's next? Cut fan slots underneath to help with cooling instead of engineering air channels in the sides and save $5 per machine? Put an Intel Inside sticker on the palmrest to get $3 per machine in Intel marketing money (hey, customers can peel it off later if they don't like it)? Pretty soon we all get 'me too' devices. I just hope that the ecosystem integration keeps holding strong for another decade.

The only thing keeping beige boxes from returning is that Apple will have Huawei, Microsoft, and Google to copy. Ironically, those companies were all inspired by Apple's past. I think the current CEO of Huawei understands Apple better than Tim Cook does.

Wow. Just wow.

I really wish I didn’t agree with a lot of this. But I do.

 

[FFR]

It would be nice to pull a 62% margin when 70-85% of the revenue goes to content owners in many service categories. The $11.5 billion revenue number is all money brought in by their services. If they're quoting 62% margins, that must be on operating costs after app devs are paid in the app store, artists are paid in Apple music, etc. I can't blame you for being confused though, Apple accounting has become very creative over the past few years.

TV+ will be interesting....are they going to count the cost to produce content as part of their operating margin in services or are they going to hide it in the $15 billion R&D slush pile and pretend TV+ is all profit. Because even if TV+ is a huge success, it will take a few years to show a profit after content creation costs.



You projected some. So basically you pulled the number out of your head and cited it as fact.



Then why not cite it at $100 billion. They'll be there in 3-5 years at current growth rates, especially with new services like TV+ and arcade. I mean if you're making stuff up why not go all out?



Well I'm putting my money where my mouth is this time. There's no way they're not going to show a huge drop in iPhone revenue. I bought a few thousand Apple Puts at $202.50 strike today. I'm hoping it dips below $190.



Oh, and when does most popular mean best? I guess according to you, Android is the best smartphone OS, Windows is the best desktop OS, and Honda Civic is the best car. And Commodore 64 is the best computer. Apple has very few models of anything. There could be 100 different wireless headphones, and with a 2% market share, AirPods could technically be the "most popular".

What is not subjective is that AirPods sound the same as EarPods...crappy quality from the free headphones that come with a phone that nobody actually wants to use. It's hard to find a $20 pair of wired headphones that aren't vastly superior to AirPods in sound, and there are plenty of better sounding $170 headphones.



I fail to see your point. As a consumer, if anything that's a huge negative about Apple. Unless you sit on Apple's board and just post here for giggles, I don't see why you would care.

Apple is seing an uptick thanks to Morgan Stanley, it’s almost hitting 207. Rumor is sales rebounded during the tail end of the quarter.

Rotten luck, mate.
That’s going to sting.

 

[Glockworkorange]

Wow. Just wow.

I really wish I didn’t agree with a lot of this. But I do.

Yeah, I agree with it all too.
[doublepost=1563826152][/doublepost]

As someone who watched this show before when Jobs left, I wonder how the ending is different this time? Scully at least tried to do tech; the Newton was created under his watch and while not perfect, was pretty amazing technology (and Apple's first use of ARM technology). Jobs killed Newton on his return so we'll never know what a few more iterations could have looked like (although some bits live on in the iPhone).

This current crop of execs (minus maybe Federighi) seems to not understand products or care about them. Eddie Cue is off in music and tv la la land. Phil is increasingly MIA. The best tech designer of maybe all time just left because "leadership doesn't care about design." Ahrendts (left recently) just made the Apple store experience worse, not understanding it is not Burberry. Tim seems to think "sell half as many, then double the price" is just fine. But this time Jobs is not waiting in the wings to save the company again.

With an operations guy, we'll get a long, comfortable slide into overpriced mediocrity. Bump out the case 0.01 more to save $2 per machine on memory. Don't go all in on 3D Touch (too expensive) and then in the future cut it as needed (happening). Let the phones go 3 generations in the same shell to make manufacturing and supply chain easier (6, 6s, 7, X, XS, 11). Take 5+ years to update a Mac Pro because nobody understands or cares about high end creatives when the exec team is using e-mail and PowerPoints and can probably do that from an iPad. Release a smart speaker years late because everyone else is, charge too much for it, and then neglect it because its not selling in high volumes so why keep investing? Have a Mac, an iPad Pro, and an iPhone? Use 3 different wired headsets. Buy a Beats headset? Charge with MicroUSB.

Don't have any product passion what to do? Don't buy Sonos (clearly aligned). Don't buy Nest (clearly aligned). Don't buy Tesla. Instead let Eddie run off and start making TV shows because he at least seems passionate about something and Netflix seems to be onto something. Oh, and don't buy Netflix either. instead, listen to investors and hand that money back as share repurchases and dividends. Huh?

What's next? Cut fan slots underneath to help with cooling instead of engineering air channels in the sides and save $5 per machine? Put an Intel Inside sticker on the palmrest to get $3 per machine in Intel marketing money (hey, customers can peel it off later if they don't like it)? Pretty soon we all get 'me too' devices. I just hope that the ecosystem integration keeps holding strong for another decade.

The only thing keeping beige boxes from returning is that Apple will have Huawei, Microsoft, and Google to copy. Ironically, those companies were all inspired by Apple's past. I think the current CEO of Huawei understands Apple better than Tim Cook does.

You forgot to add....get as many shills aligned with Apple PR as possible to explain it all away by making sure they get early hardware and get to go to all the events (ahem...Rene Ritchie, et al).

I recall all the Apple Apologists coming out to defend some of Apple's questionable choices.

The phones all look the same? No, no no, you don't understand. They're "iconic," just like "A Porsche 911."

Think the iPhone 5 paint chipped and that was a problem? No, no, no, you don't understand. We all want that "worn in look," you know, like the way the Millenium Falcon looks? Dinged up a bit, but worked in.

The iPhone 5 looked a little too similar to the 4/4s? No, no, no, you don't understand. The device was "re-designed from the ATOM UP," I tell you.

Those are real-life examples of the crud the shills pushed to cover for the past few years of mediocrity.

Basically, anyone who complains is told they're holding it wrong.

 

[Bawstun]

Source?

Already been posted by me in several other threads. iOS marketshare slipped 5.5% in Europe and almost 2.5% overall in the United States. Lack of innovation and price were cited as reasons.

 

[Justanotherfanboy]

Who here is on team Federighi??!! #hairforceone

Both as a shareholder & an Apple fan- I would absolutely love, love, love to see Craig eventually run the company.
He’s got more personality than Tim, Jeff, Eddy, and Phil.... all put together!!!
He knows how to talk to the layperson, but I’ve heard him get REALLY highly technical in interviews. Now there is a guy that is extremely competent w/ regards to hardware, software, and user experience.
The fact that he’s a real, honest to god, coder & has been involved in all of the myriad Apple operating systems is a huge plus in my book & he really seems to have a deep passion for the Mac, not just iPhone.
Lol, ok- done cheerleading... but this guy ticks every box I want in a future Apple CEO!!! =)