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How Apple Changed Under Tim Cook: 15 Years in Numbers

B4U said:
Thinking it may be region specific.
But as soon as I open App Store, there is an ad right in my face.
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Same here. An ad for ExpressVPN, taking up about 1-3/8 inches /34mm vertically, between the tab bar at the bottom of the screen and the usual opening upper splash (which is really also an ad, but not labeled as such) for TikTok effects and the TikTok app itself. And each time I force-quit from the App Store app and relaunch it, there's another ad there. If it's region-specific, then Placer County in California, just north of Sacramento, is apparently one of the regions.
 
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2017 was PEAK Tim Cook with the iPhone X
Ever since after 2017 everything has been a major disappointment. And the iPhone 17 Pro is a good phone but iOS 26 has spoiled the experience greatly making it feel like an iPhone 4 running iOS 7.
 
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Tim Cook was just lucky to be in the right place at the right time.

Jobs and Ive (and many other creative talents) laid the foundation and built the magnificent castle.

After them, even I—or a chimpanzee—could have continued to lead Apple to success😉
 
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ghanwani said:
Under Tim Cook, I went from:

- Being in awe of Apple stores to hating them. (I think the Burberry lady broke the store experience.)
- Looking forward to Apple product releases to fearing them. (What will they break next?)
- Being able to enjoy Apple products to being unable to use them due to PWM and dithering.

Apple's best product during Tim Cook's tenure has been its stock -- $AAPL.

I don't know if Apple will change for the better after him. Usually after a financial engineering CEO steps away, the company falls apart pretty quickly. But let's see.
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I totally agree with you on how I feel about Apple now... Stores mostly suck and I avoid them. I also fear constantly with each update, what will break or not work.
 
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ThomasJL said:
Although Cook is by far the best Apple CEO for serving the interests of shareholders, he is by far the worst Apple CEO for serving the interests of customers.

Cook is by far the worst CEO Apple ever had in terms of innovation and user friendliness. All of Apple’s previous CEOs focused on products and on giving customers the latest technology. For example, before Cook, every previous Apple CEO made devices using the latest connectors at the time for wired data transfer speeds. Cook, on the other hand, is still in 2026 making most of the latest models in the iPhone 17 line with the exact same extremely slow USB 2.0 wired data transfer speeds that were shipped 19 years ago in 2007 on the iPhone 1:
forums.macrumors.com

Will iPhone 14 be USB 2.0? Probably, since Cook is mediocre.

Apple computers have had USB 3.0 since mid-2012. That is 10 years ago. Despite that, Tim Cook, being the mediocre beancounter MBA suit that he is, has still not done anything to upgrade the connectivity on the latest iPhones. The latest iPhones use the same USB 2.0 connectivity that shipped with...
forums.macrumors.com forums.macrumors.com
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Worse than that, the USB 2.0 speed that Apple is still using is now over 26 years old! – bloody insane; even USB 3.0 is well over 17 years old at this point. Apple has become the company of greed and stinginess. They are still using 60 Hz panels in 2026 when pretty much everyone else has moved on.

Can you imagine using a modern laptop in 2010 and having a connector from the year 1984!
 
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I personally am supper excited for John. I’ve loved Tim. He did a great job growing  to the global success it is today. I’m so excited to see what John’s engineering brain can do with such a solid foundation
 
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Take
OldNewMBP said:
Maybe I haven't been visiting the App Store that often.
Edit: Just opened the App Store. No ads that I can see as ads.
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Take a closer look at the first two results when you search for an app. They’ll have a small blue box with the letters ‘Ad’ inside.

1785536311847.png
 
The biggest stain on Tim Cook’s legacy is nothing of his own doing; rather, it’s that he never got to enjoy a single day where he wasn’t criticized or treated as a failiure, for simply being “not Steve Jobs”.

His tenure had its hits and misses, but mostly hits… he followed in the footsteps of literal historic greatness, and managed to take the company to even greater heights.

Well done, Tim.
 
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I used to love Apple during Jobs era, and watched all keynotes I could.

Today, I have no interest of Apple, and don't watch any of their pre-recorded marketing and product releases. It hold no inspiration for me today 🥱

I read some news-sites, such as MacRumors, and some others.
I still buy some Apple products, and intend to continiuing doing so.
That's all.

I buy products from other companies too, it's no differences for me between Apple and any other companies today, just products I need.
 
Let’s not forget how he praised China and turned a blind eye knowing that China was abusing, assimilating and destroying the Uyghurs in concentration camps.

Money for shareholders- at all costs!

Also thx Timmy for the $150-$250 price hikes on all your products.
 
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robgreene said:
The biggest stain on Tim Cook’s legacy is nothing of his own doing; rather, it’s that he never got to enjoy a single day where he wasn’t criticized or treated as a failiure, for simply being “not Steve Jobs”.

His tenure had its hits and misses, but mostly hits… he followed in the footsteps of literal historic greatness, and managed to take the company to even greater heights.

Well done, Tim.
Click to expand...
Thx for your input Shareholder 🙂

He’s made every one of you very happy.
 
neuropsychguy said:
Cook will go down as one of the all time great CEOs of a major corporation. During his tenure, Apple grew in ways few companies ever manage. While not the visionary of Steve Jobs, he's a business genius who turned Apple into the powerhouse it currently is.
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if apple doesn't follow the path of GE after Welch, in that case he will be studied for his hubris not his wisdom - however that is in the future and I for one claim little or no ability to foresee the future
 
rikki_t said:
The man who glued every component so as you could neither remove or upgrade it has surely missed a trick, had he have glued himself to his very expensive executive office chair he would have not found himself to be removable or upgradable
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Not only glue, but the parts serializing and disabling features because you didn't take it to the Apple Store to get it fixed or upsold because the repair is so expensive, thanks to soldering everything on a logic board.
 
neuropsychguy said:
Cook will go down as one of the all time great CEOs of a major corporation. During his tenure, Apple grew in ways few companies ever manage. While not the visionary of Steve Jobs, he's a business genius who turned Apple into the powerhouse it currently is.
Click to expand...
Got to absolutely agree with this. Shareholders love him.
 
MacRumors said:


Apple CEO Tim Cook participated in his final Apple earnings call yesterday, with incoming CEO John Ternus set to take over on September 1. With Cook's tenure coming to an end, we thought we'd take a look at how Apple has changed over the last 15 years.

Tim-Cook-Apple-Park.jpeg

Cook took over as CEO on August 24, 2011, after Steve Jobs resigned.

Apple's Revenue

During yesterday's earnings call, Bank of America analyst Wamsi Mohan shared an interesting observation about Apple's quarterly earnings. When Cook took over as CEO, Apple's revenue for all of 2011 was $108 billion.

Apple reported $109.4 billion for Q3 2026, earning its 2011 revenue in a single quarter. We don't have the numbers for fiscal 2026 yet, but in fiscal 2025, revenue was $416 billion.

iPhone revenue in 2011 was $47 billion, and just this quarter, it was $54.3 billion.

Valuation

Apple stock is down today after Cook said he expects supply constraints and memory shortages to affect revenue in the current quarter, but last week, Apple briefly hit a market cap above $5 trillion. Apple's market cap is now around the $4.5 trillion mark, and it once again trails Nvidia for world's most valuable publicly traded company.

Apple was the first company to reach a $1 trillion valuation in August 2018, the first to reach $2 trillion in August 2020, and the first to reach $3 trillion in January 2022. It was the third company to hit a $4 trillion valuation in October 2025, and then the second to reach $5 trillion.

A day after Cook took over in August 2011, Apple's stock price was $13.35 (split-adjusted). Today, it opened at $304.81, a roughly 23x increase. There was a 7-for–1 split in 2014 and 4-for–1 split in 2020 during Cook's tenure.

Installed Base

Apple said it has over 2.5 billion active devices. Apple didn't share installed base numbers until 2016, when it hit a billion active devices.

Services

Apple's services category revenue has seen the most growth. It was $9.4 billion in all of 2011, but in Q3 2026, it was $30.7 billion. In fiscal 2025, services brought in $109 billion.

Apple said during the earnings call that it now has 1.5 billion subscriptions. A huge number of services launched under Cook, including:
  • Apple Pay
  • Apple Pay Cash
  • Apple Card
  • Apple Music
  • Apple News
  • Apple TV+
  • Apple Arcade
  • Apple Fitness+
  • iCloud+
  • App Store Search Ads
  • Ads in Maps
Back in 2011, Apple's services were limited to AppleCare, iTunes, and the App Store.

Product Launches

Under Cook, Apple launched everything from the AirPods to the Apple Watch.
  • Apple Watch
  • AirPods
  • Apple silicon chips
  • Vision Pro
  • iPhone Air
  • iPhone X
  • HomePod and HomePod mini
  • MacBook Neo
Capital Returns

Cook initiated quarterly dividends in 2012, and also executed an ongoing share repurchase program. Since then, Apple has returned more than $1 trillion to shareholders.

Transition to John Ternus

Cook said yesterday that the transition to Ternus is "going seamlessly." Ternus will become CEO on September 1, ahead of when Apple announces new iPhone models. Cook will remain at Apple as executive chairman, where he will engage with policymakers and help Apple navigate regulatory pressure.

In April, Cook said he planned to remain at Apple for years to come. "I am healthy. My energy is high, and I plan to be in this role for a long time," said Cook. He said he will support current hardware engineering chief John Ternus in any way necessary when Ternus takes over as CEO, and he plans to continue to offer knowledge and experience whenever it's needed. "Apple will be my top priority," he said. "It's who I am at my core, and I can't imagine it any other way."

Cook on Ternus

Cook yesterday said Ternus is the best choice to take over Apple.

Ternus has been at Apple since 2001, when he joined the product design team. He became vice president of hardware engineering in 2013 and focused on the AirPods, Mac, and iPad. In 2020, he also took on the iPhone, and he became senior vice president of hardware engineering in 2021.

Article Link: How Apple Changed Under Tim Cook: 15 Years in Numbers
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Apple has forgotten about the retail workers. Less employees doing more work with less support. Metrics…how many business intros, how much apple care, how many converts from repair old to purchase new device. Vision Pro couches sit unused in the stores because the Vision Pro is TOO expensive for the base customer.  was a great place to work until 2020 when corporate got GREEDY!
 
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