Tim Cook 'Extremely Proud' of Ongoing Collaboration At Apple, Will Host Employee Meeting Tomorrow

[SusanK]

So let me get this straight. You believe that Cook gave the order to replace Google Maps with Maps, and think it's development time was less than a year????

I think Maps rolled out on Cook's watch. If it was half baked Cook let it go then used it to dispatch with Forstall.

No time to discuss the obvious. Too busy on Apple Support Communities reading posts from iWorks users who are moving to Office. Another half baked deal from Cook.

Steve is still dead and probably rolling.

 

[28monkeys]

what a clever scheme to root out bad apple among the lots.

 

[macs4nw]

Unlike a lot of you, I don't think Tim is really doing that bad of a job. Sure, the lineup of products could use some simplification, but I think the main problem is that Apple is so advanced that a lot of the technologies in use by its newest products can't be made fast enough (touch ID, mini retina, etc.) We've all been waiting for an IGZO laptop for months now, but it'll probably be next year at the earliest before we see the MacBooks get IGZO. Production at this level of quality and volume is really hard to sustain, and so in effect, Apple is actually slowed by its own size. It simply can't move as fast as it used to; it's almost like an elephant. I think Tim actually understands that for Apple to become as nimble as it once was, it has to become smaller again.

Regarding buggy software, that's one thing that also needs to improve; there definitely does have to be more thorough testing, and the fact of the matter is that iOS 7 is way more advanced than the iOSes from a few years ago, and when something becomes more advanced, it becomes much more likely for it to have bugs.

Regarding Ive's designs, I have to say that I'm still an incredible fan of his hardware designs. Those designs are incredible because they look way better in real life vs the static images on the website. The way the surfaces of the devices reflects light at different angles is mesmerizing. I think Ive does understand the importance of design as being something that is experienced from many angles, and that's evident in iOS 7 as well. Probably the only big problem I have with iOS 7 is that any "natural" wallpaper looks incredibly jarring against the icons. I actually love the icons within themselves, but they make the wallpaper look out of place (I think that's why the first iPhone didn't come with any wallpapers. They don't work with the rounded square icons).

I have great faith in the entire team at Apple, and I hope my fellow MacRumors readers realize that transition periods are always difficult.

Well put! I am however somewhat tentative about Ive's software savvy.

I wish Craig Federighi was the official spokesperson of the company. He is the closest thing to Jobs in terms of ability to speak and present.

Definitely a very likable guy, who connects with his audience and comes off as knowledgeable and sincere.
Can he successfully run a company like Apple? I don't know.

 

[kalsta]

Might be location dependent...recent examples on my travels: Palo Alto CA, New York's Upper West Side and London's Regent Street packed to the gills with not a blue shirt even to be found. Not that they're all busy, they're just... not there in significant amounts.

I feel for the individual staff members that have a queue of customers holding things in their hands waiting to be served while they're doing their level best to satisfactorily serve the person they're with.

Oh gosh… no, it's nothing like that at our local Apple Store. Sounds like we should export a few staff your way! Also sounds like you get to travel a lot more than I do.

 

[macs4nw]

"reporting that business at Apple "has never been stronger." C'mon Mr. Cook, saying the same "good news" over and over again makes you lose credibility…..

What do you expect him to say? Granted, public speaking is not his forté.

I often wonder why Scott Forstall is bashed on this site. He clearly contributed very much to Apple's success. Ive is a hardware guy. Cook is an operations guy. Apple needs a software guy.

I don't understand why he was fired. As to the nonsense about collaboration, Steve talked of wonderful arguments. Said the best ideas had to win. Everybody contributes.

It's unfortunate that software is now in the hands of an excellent hardware designer. Ive is often bashed here too. Software is not his thing.

It's our loss that nobody is at the helm in software. Giving it away free does not make up for quality. I had no problems paying for good software.

Absolutely!

Ridiculous. Why are you bashing Forstall??? The man probably did more than anyone developing OS X, ditto the design of the iPhone (remember, Fadell's idea was to base the iPhone of off the iPod.).. Not only was the basic concept his, he probably did more to develop and port OS X into iOS and develop the original SDK.

So he couldn't get along with Ive - so what, I probably wouldn't get along with someone who constantly pushes for form over function (and I would guess there are a lot of technical types who would agree)....

Above all, he is probably the closest thing to a "Steve Clone" than anyone else in the company and it was reported on several financial sites back in the early 2000's that Forstall was actually Jobs' choice as his successor (Although he knew the board would never agree)...

Scott Forstall is a genius and has done more in the last 10 years to make Apple's Operating systems what they are today - - no one, with the exception of early work by Tevanian has done more.... And trust me, as the years go by, Apple will feel Forstall's absence. We're already beginning to feel it in the Playschool os known as iOS 7…..

Agreed! Steve's former protegé Scott, is a very talented guy, and like the former, also a perfectionist who deserves credit for his contributions to Apple, not derision.

 

[9000]

What do you expect him to say? Granted, public speaking is not his forté.

It's too late NOW. If he said anything even neutral now, everyone would see it as horrible news. Maybe say "We sold more X. Although we had lower profits, we had more revenue, a sign of growth. Overall, Apple is (steady, doing fairly well, doing well, doing very well, doing excellent)." He could be a little more honest instead of giving a fake BS answer to every question.

 

[sshhoott]

What about the antenna gate issue under Steve's reign? Or how about the 6 years of no innovation between the iPod (2001) and iPhone (2007)? The iPad took 3yrs after the iPhone to release and it's essentially a derivative of the iPhone. We're expecting a whole new market from Tim Cook/Apple but it's only been 3 years. Not even Steve can pull this off in that amount of time.

The fact of the matter is that you're not a prophet and you don't know Steve Jobs. You don't know what he would've done nor where Apple would be today if he were still alive.

And what new revolutionary product lineup has been released under Tim Cook? All the updates to each and every single product is evolutionary (ie faster and more efficient chips, retina displays across the line, bigger phone screens, great cameras, thinner designs, etc...). Whereas Steve Jobs was responsible for bringing products to market that were straight out of imagination and truly an engineering feat at the time of their release.

But you're right, 3 years is not enough. Tim needs more time to prove himself as an icon of Apple instead of just being an operational guy. iWatch may be the next big thing that can show the true capability of Tim Cook. He may need to go through a "dark" time as Steve did when he released the iPad.

"Media's Initial Response to Original iPad Unveiling Left Jobs Depressed": http://modmyi.com/content/5649-medi...ginal-ipad-unveiling-left-jobs-depressed.html
(I have to admit that I was in the front line ridiculing the iPad when it was released calling it a oversized iPod touch. Turns out, it was much more than that.)

When a person makes it though these kind of times, he becomes more than just a man - he becomes a legend. And that's what we remember Steve as. As for Tim, he hasn't quite had an opportunity yet.

 

[monkor]

But you did reply... ??

I think because you made an absurd claim about Forstall essentially being unhirable (too lazy to quote it, that was your gist) he got frustrated. See, there's a thing called a non-compete clause, which would restrict him from signing on with, say, any of Apple's competitors for a little while. Usually, that's around two to three years among people of his stature with what you'd deem "trade secrets."

But wait! California nixes most any non-compete agreements, so Forstall is free to go as Apple is a California-based company. Yep, but not exactly. He was kept on as an adviser to Tim Cook. Most people with knowledge of the company tended to agree that the motivation behind this move was specifically to keep a guy like Forstall off the market.

So it isn't that companies aren't chomping at the bit to hire him. Quite the opposite. It's been almost a year now, and I can imagine his name will pop up relatively soon. Guys like him are definitively in demand. But when you cash out $36 million of your shares, time is on your side.

So yeah your claim was pretty absurd.

 

[BvizioN]

Pay your Store employees more, Tim. And hire more of 'em.

While that could be nice, I have seen no store in UK with more employees then Apple store!! I mean for almost every customer I see inside, I see a member of staff with the blue t-shirt next to it.

 

[tripmusic]

Yeah... the look and feel of iOS6 was much better. iOS7 is boring, it's hard to see and it has no character. And it's not like I'm getting better battery life as a result of this simplistic GUI, it's worse. Most of the bells and whistles are turned off for mine.

Collaboration is a good thing if it leads to innovation. However, when collaboration leads to a disaster like iOS 7's hopping on the flat design bandwagon, it is not a good thing. I thought Apple was above acting like teenaged girls by mindlessly following fashionable trends, but I was wrong. Windows 8 with it's flat design proved itself to be a dud. Then Google and Yahoo follow Microsoft's failed lead by implementing flat design. Then Apple jumps on the flat design bandwagon.

From the very first iPhone up until iOS 6, Apple's use of skeuomorphism was innovation. It made the most of Apple's industry-leading high-resolution Retina display. Skeuomorphism made the unfamiliar familiar, and made products more user friendly, even for non-tech savvy people.

For anyone who supports flat design and opposes skeuomorphism, I challenge you to answer this: If you could only chose one of those (flat design or skeuomorphic design) taken to its extreme, which would you choose? Keep in mind that skeuomorphic design taken to its extreme would result in something similar to iOS 6, whereas flat design taken to its extreme would be a command prompt interface with no GUI.

 

[simonmet]

Tim Cook to announce he's the new head of Microsoft!!!

You heard it here first!

 

[gnasher729]

Windows 8 adoption is slow not because of the flat interface, but because it's not really much of an improvement over Windows 7 for us desktop users while it forces the Metro interface for us non-touch users.

It's not "not really much of an improvement". It's an absolute disaster. The only people getting it are those buying new computers and didn't know they would come with Windows 8, and what it is like.

 

[dannys1]

Collaboration is a good thing if it leads to innovation. However, when collaboration leads to a disaster like iOS 7's hopping on the flat design bandwagon, it is not a good thing.

In YOUR opinion.

 

[james010101]

Cook is a great CEO, and at the same time is setting Apple on the same course to obscurity as Sony & HP before it.

He's maximizes profits by continuing to sell outdated models and re-packaging others (iPhone 5C.) He won over people by apologizing for Maps and donating to charities. He's aggressively expanding into new markets. You really couldn't ask for a better bean counter.

But all that isn't what made Apple the company I used to admire. I appreciated a simplified product lineup rather than selling anything it could still churn out (like every other corporation.) I was won over by hardware and software that not only looked good with attention to detail, but "just worked." And above all, I respected a company that wasn't out to be the biggest, but the best. They didn't listen to shareholders because they didn't have to: What they did was great and didn't need advice.

Instead, software and hardware are being rushed into mass production without proper testing. Attention to detail is gone. And Cook's obsession with China shows he hasn't gotten a clue from the last three decades of Corporate America failure in the worlds most populous nation.

My favorite lie out of the entire post-Jobs era: "Steve left us five years of product roadmap before he passed on." What a load of nonsense, perfectly crafted to calm stock prices. There is no roadmap. They don't have a clue what the "next big thing" is. And to be perfectly honest, not a soul in Apple's boardroom cares.

And why should they? The billions keep pouring in and they'll all be long gone by the time the revenues dry up.

I think through this reflection, I understand now why Apple, Sony & HP were most successful under their founders. If corporations were people, we'd classify most of their actions as psychotic. But if there's a "human" touch, from a leader that truly cares about their company, people see it in their products and recognize that quality. It resonates with them. And that's what made Steve so special.

wholehearted agree with you my man.

i'm not even disgruntled that the current generation of products are not up to par, just disappointed. Like a parent watching his wayward child taking the wrong steps.

 

[jm001]

And sort out the damn ventilation. Apple Stores get too smelly, too fast.

Could it be just your location? OR maybe it's the customers that smell.

 

[KALLT]

Look at how rushed Maps turned out to be. For all we know it's possible it took about a year to develop, especially since the actual map data is provided by TomTom.
Now, you could've used some of your superior knowledge of software development to explain exactly why it's unlikely that it would take developers only a year to create. But you chose the childish response, and then accused him of doing the same.

The point he was making is that the Maps debacle was partly Jobs' fault too, the initial decision to develop Apple Maps was very likely taken either by him himself or during his reign. There were rumours long before that and we knew that Apple's relationship with Google was getting tenuous, as well as relevant vacancies. Software like Google Maps requires tremendous effort and highly accurate data, and only the latter is the flaw of Apple Maps. The software works great, but the data is faulty. I think there is more to this than just 'Forstall screwed it up', I think there was a lot of pressure from above to get Apple Maps out.

 

[Fondaparinux]

How come everyone is always quick to jump on Apple to criticise them for not "innovating" every second of the day yet Google can put out products that are either catch-up to Apple or basic, minor updates (like every version of Android) and nobody says a word....

Every day I'm more and more convinced that people on tech blogs are nothing but trolls looking for anything and everything to criticise Apple with...

I didn't say Google was innovating either.

Apple used to be in the head of the game. Blazing right through it. Always light years ahead. Apple has set us a high standard. Now, Apple's just another player. And with their recent products, they have failed to maintain that standard. That's why people always criticise Apple, but not Google. Google never set a high standard.

It's clear that the guy I quoted before was true. There is no roadmap. Apple's all about the money now.

 

[barossa]

Freeze

The ongoing collaboration that brought us the brand-new, high end MacBookPro laptops with the newest OS that just freezes.
What a beautifully crafted yet useless block of aluminium.

Did they even ack the problem yet?

IMHO there is much to improve, I wouldn't be that proud.

https://www.macrumors.com/2013/10/2...nd-trackpad-freezes-boot-camp-install-issues/

 

[HarryKNN21]

I didn't say Google was innovating either.

Apple used to be in the head of the game. Blazing right through it. Always light years ahead. Apple has set us a high standard. Now, Apple's just another player. And with their recent products, they have failed to maintain that standard. That's why people always criticise Apple, but not Google. Google never set a high standard.

It's clear that the guy I quoted before was true. There is no roadmap. Apple's all about the money now.

What made you think Apple is just another player? I see even PC laptop OEM now copies designs of MacBook Pro right away. Android devices base their designs heavily on iOS products, especially an OEM starts with letter S.

Maybe the reason we consider Apple is just another player, is that we now have too many "Apple wannabe" around.

 

[PBUser167]

"reporting that business at Apple "has never been stronger."

C'mon Mr. Cook, saying the same "good news" over and over again makes you lose credibility.

Go back and watch Steve's keynotes. This isn't something created by Tim. Steve said it better, but Tim isn't lying. Business is stronger than ever at Apple. The problem is it was getting sort of tired by the end of the Steve era. Now it is just noise that doesn't need to be said and is even distracting from what needs to be highlighted. Cutting down the time spent in the keynotes to this is probably overdue, but it is all true.

 

[MrX8503]

And what new revolutionary product lineup has been released under Tim Cook? All the updates to each and every single product is evolutionary (ie faster and more efficient chips, retina displays across the line, bigger phone screens, great cameras, thinner designs, etc...). Whereas Steve Jobs was responsible for bringing products to market that were straight out of imagination and truly an engineering feat at the time of their release.

But you're right, 3 years is not enough. Tim needs more time to prove himself as an icon of Apple instead of just being an operational guy. iWatch may be the next big thing that can show the true capability of Tim Cook. He may need to go through a "dark" time as Steve did when he released the iPad.

"Media's Initial Response to Original iPad Unveiling Left Jobs Depressed": http://modmyi.com/content/5649-medi...ginal-ipad-unveiling-left-jobs-depressed.html
(I have to admit that I was in the front line ridiculing the iPad when it was released calling it a oversized iPod touch. Turns out, it was much more than that.)

When a person makes it though these kind of times, he becomes more than just a man - he becomes a legend. And that's what we remember Steve as. As for Tim, he hasn't quite had an opportunity yet.

What are you talking about? You complain there's no revolutionary product and then say there hasn't been enough time.

 

[macchiato2009]

quarter after quarter, we got more and more live speeches from Tim broadcasted during store meetings

they all sounded the same and I was really bored by these videos

during the first year at Apple, i attended all store meetings, but after that, i tried to find excuses not to come even if they were mandatory


I felt sorry for my colleagues off work on these days being called back just to hear this kind of BS
lots of them had their weekend days cancelled just to be there and hear how amazing we are, how great the company is and it is thanks to our good work that the company is doing so well, and very little reward in return

 

[usefulcontents]

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[tevion5]

Pay your Store employees more, Tim. And hire more of 'em.

Not saying they aren't underpaid, but what about the Foxconn workers that are essentially slaves? Wouldn't even make a slight difference to Apple's profits if they doubled or tripled their wages. You know, raise it from 10 cent to 20 something?

 

[Colino]

We're also extremely proud of you, Tim.