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Report: Tim Cook to Step Down as Apple CEO 'as Soon as Next Year'

SalisburySam said:
A year’s transition? Really? What for? Transition will far more likely be a handshake, photo op, and polite request from the new guy for Tim to leave the building. The last thing a new CEO wants is someone else cluttering up desired moves and relationships with the Board. Any desired advice can be gotten with a short iMessage or iPhone call but I’d expect that need to be so rare as to be, well, zero.
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Then look how long Jeff Williams’s departure took …they’re not going to throw the new guy under the bus
 
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Not a minute too soon. The guy has abandoned Apple’s core principles and allowed greed to determine all decisions. John Ternus has demonstrated a real understanding of what makes good products, and has pushed Apples hardware way beyond its software. Hopefully he can hold the software teams to the same standard that he has hardware.
 
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seek3r said:
Unless you sell physical products people want to, you know, try in store? Or sell support packages?
Like, dunno what to tell you dude, you can not believe it all you want, but Apple stores are profitable.

Not nearly as well as Apple themselves cab

Ok. Again, you can doubt all you want, but I’m fairly certain you’re at odds with reality

That’s not the only reason to pay dividends. Retail investors in particular like dividends

My dude, Apple has 170,000 employees, a dozen AI experts who happen to be able to get utterly insane pay packages from Meta leaving is not an example of poor retention of coders.
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That's why I mentioned Best Buy, carrier stores, Walmart, etc. You can still hold the device in your hands without having an Apple store around.

Apple is richer than Meta. They can easily retain that talent.
 
Dark_Omen said:
That's why I mentioned Best Buy, carrier stores, Walmart, etc. You can still hold the device in your hands without having an Apple store around.

Apple is richer than Meta. They can easily retain that talent.
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Apple controls the experience at Apple stores. Especially when it comes to support… I tell my mom to go to the Apple store for a problem with her phone any time she needs help, I certainly wouldnt tell her to do that at Walmart

And personally I’ll tell you I’d much rather hit up an Apple store to check things out than Walmart or Best Buy.

And, again, the Apple stores are *incredibly* profitable. So what, exactly, is your personal beef with Apple having stores? I dont get it, does it harm you that other people, lots of other people, prefer the shopping experience at Apple to Walmart? If you dont want to go to one just… dont go. No one is forcing you to ever set foot inside one.
 
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The future is clearly headed in the direction of AI, like it or not. A whole new age, even. Apple needs a real strategy to adapt with this, so maybe a new captain steering the ship will guide them to that. I’d hate to see the alternative outcome.
 
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seek3r said:
Apple controls the experience at Apple stores. Especially when it comes to support… I tell my mom to go to the Apple store for a problem with her phone any time she needs help, I certainly wouldnt tell her to do that at Walmart

And personally I’ll tell you I’d much rather hit up an Apple store to check things out than Walmart or Best Buy.

And, again, the Apple stores are *incredibly* profitable. So what, exactly, is your personal beef with Apple having stores? I dont get it, does it harm you that other people, lots of other people, prefer the shopping experience at Apple to Walmart? If you dont want to go to one just… dont go. No one is forcing you to ever set foot inside one.
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There's a phone number you can call and an entire Apple Support app. The old people who don't have a clue mostly go to carrier phone stores anyways for help.

I was saying if I were the CEO, that would be one obvious place to make cuts.
 
Dark_Omen said:
There's a phone number you can call and an entire Apple Support app. The old people who don't have a clue mostly go to carrier phone stores anyways for help.

I was saying if I were the CEO, that would be one obvious place to make cuts.
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Apple Stores bring in significant revenue. Probably somewhere along the lines of $1-$10 billion of profit would go away if the stores did.

Not everyone who would make an Apple purchase in an Apple Store would end up with an Apple product via Best Buy or whoever. And that’s before factoring in things like the Genius Bar reducing friction, Apple Care and accessory sales, not having to give the retailer a cut, and brand presence.
 
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klasma said:
A year’s transition? Really? What for? Transition will far more likely be a handshake, photo op, and polite request from the new guy for Tim to leave the building. The last thing a new CEO wants is someone else cluttering up desired moves and relationships with the Board. Any desired advice can be gotten with a short iMessage or iPhone call but I’d expect that need to be so rare as to be, well, zero.
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What on earth are you talking about?
You realize, even if this article is true, that Tim isn’t leaving in disgrace or being kicked out right?
He’s literally likely to go from CEO to the higher position of Chairmen of the Board.
And even if he were being kicked out, that’s not how this works.
Even Scott Forstall, after he was fired in October 2012, still remained at Apple as an advisor until the end of 2013.
 
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surferfb said:
You’re right we’ll never know, but just as one example, how many of those who yell about “greedy Tim Cook locking down the iPhone” in the EU threads here remember Steve’s “Thoughts on Flash” letter? What did critics say at the time? “Apple just cares about forcing developers to use the App Store to get their 30%”
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The bigger difference is that the app store wasn't a monopoly when it came out, and there were other ways to play games. Now-a-days, the app store is the only way to acquire games for many people.
 
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I7guy said:
Peter Drucker 101. The goal of a company is to provide a service. And while some both within MR and outside may not like the direction of the service, Apple has been successful in providing this service to the masses. And by successfully providing services to customers, Apple has revenue commesurate with successfully providing services.
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I am a Drucker lover. But I disagree wholeheartedly in a true free-market capitalist society structure. What we are seeing from all these mega companies is anticompetitive practices and destruction of all competition that would be fair and meaningful.

I would rather be able to buy the product that is interoperable with any other product. I also prefer having one product by a company to being locked into an ecosystem. I love Apple hardware but the company has been made not into a fair practicing competition-based company as I have alluded to. And until regulators regulate this, places will see simple monopolies that control everything. You can say well there’s Android. But I should be able to buy an Android phone, a MacBook and an iPad and have them work together. If Apple wasn’t so anticompetitive, this would be the case. Why is AAPL run like this, there’s no regulation because it makes the wealthiest 1% wealthier. This is why places like Europe have begun cracking down - people here want to bash that practice but the reality is the consumers have lost any ability to choose when there is no true ability to change and get the same results.

What Drucker always spoke about was running businesses well and managing while looking out for shareholders and all stakeholders. He didn’t say anticompetitive tech companies should rule the world nor did he say the wealth gap should be widened so great and the people in government should be allowed to not regulate to the point because that’s how corruption works in America. It’s a fact. I work in investing and it’s outright criminal what has happened over the last 24 years. I cannot say anything else without it being considered politics so send me a DM if you wish to actually discuss this as I love a great debate.
 
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Jumpthesnark said:
So you just think that "less than 5% have ever used an SD card slot on an MBP," and that "maybe 10% occasionally use an HDMI port" on the MBP, but you have zero proof.

Okay, if you don't like the ports, or you believe the ports are the wrong ones, that's fine. Say that, it's enough. But you don't have to make up numbers just so you think it sounds like a better argument, or that you have any kind of market data on actual port usage by MPB owners, because clearly you don't have such data. If you did, I'd think you'd show us.
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I have stated it’s my opinion and I have rooted those beliefs in what I see. Apple wasn’t right to go Thunderbolt only as that is a far superior port and far more adaptable. I believe if there were a study among all MBP users, my numbers would actually be high.
 
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Dark_Omen said:
There's a phone number you can call and an entire Apple Support app. The old people who don't have a clue mostly go to carrier phone stores anyways for help.
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Phone support and in person support are miles apart dude
Dark_Omen said:
I was saying if I were the CEO, that would be one obvious place to make cuts.
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You’d cut a major profit center? Why? What actual business reason beyond “I dont like brick and mortar stores” would you give for that?
 
Dark_Omen said:
How many people actually use AppleTV and what purpose does it serve? TV's have the same apps.
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One of Apple’s biggest marketing talking points is privacy, one of TV’s biggest problems is that smart tv’s send telemetry like a firehose. It’s not complicated to get the basic pitch there…

There are a lot of folks, myself included, that never will connect their smart tv to a network.

Oh, also TVs as displays last longer that the CPUs in most smart tvs stay relevant. It’s a lot easier to replace the puck tucked away behind or under the nicely mounted TV that still has great picture but cant support newer apps than it is to replace the tv, and less wasteful

Also it’s an integration point into the ecosystem, fixed point for home hubs, integration with smarthome devices in general (when my aqara doorbell rings I see it on my atv as well as my phone), etc.

And outside all that it gives a better streaming experience than smart tv’s do, without intrusive ads, and with a fast and smooth interface. You know, apple’s whole schtick (do something that already exists but better than everyone else)?
 
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I only know John from where most of us know him: cameos in Keynote videos. From those, I can't tell much about him as a potential CEO candidate. I'm assuming they know better than me/us. I do like that he is product-forward. The next chapter for Apple is going to trickier than any to date. Striking a balance between innovating for the nerds and pleasing investors will not be an easy task. But Apple is sitting pretty. They continue down this path, sprinkle in a bit more hardware innovation and things could get real fun.
 
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