Tim Cook Reflects on His Legacy in Final Weeks as Apple CEO

[iZac]

Really an under-appreciated achievement for him. People mocked the “courage” line about getting rid of the headphone jack, but it really did take courage in retrospect. And it paid off. And I know some people still miss it. But just grab a USB-C adapter and use MagSafe if you want to charge, lol

To successfully turn what were totally dismissed pack-in headphones to a separate ~22 billion dollar annual product category. The fact people don't blink spending hundreds of dollars on them and replacing them when the glued in batteries die. That's some Jobs-level RDF

 

[Steve Adams]

There's no way Nadella has sat down in front of an out of the box Windows 11 Home computer and seen the deluge of absolute garbage flying at you constantly and said "People are going to go from needing Windows, to liking Windows, to loving Windows!"

Reminds me of the famous email where Bill Gates asked why downloading Windows Movie Maker was such a baffling ordeal.

Nobody makes any sort of computer or computer product anymore because it's what the users want. Very few, anyway. Basically just Framework.

To be fair, both Apple and Microsoft have more or less admitted this year that things have gotten out of hand. We'll see how long that lasts.

I don't know about apple my only apple products right now are iPads. I know Microsoft is just way off course to what it was when numbnuts became ceo in a consumer sense.

 

[Steve Adams]

To successfully turn what were totally dismissed pack-in headphones to a separate ~22 billion dollar annual product category. The fact people don't blink spending hundreds of dollars on them and replacing them when the glued in batteries die. That's some Jobs-level RDF

I laugh because it's true! ha ha.

 

[CarAnalogy]

In the mobile space there really is no difference only what you are used to. They are both the same with security etc I know you choose to state other wise, but as someone in the business there really is no difference now.

Eh, I see what you're getting at but still not exactly no difference. Android allows a world of security vulnerabilities that iPhone doesn't have because it just doesn't do those things. For better and worse.

Many apps are more reliable on iPhone because they interact with hardware or the outside world in some way, and there are just far fewer things to go wrong on an iPhone.

 

[zarmanto]

... I know Microsoft is just way off course to what it was when numbnuts became ceo ...

Sorry... to which numbnuts are you referring? By my count, there have been three...

 

[Steve Adams]

Eh, I see what you're getting at but still not exactly no difference. Android allows a world of security vulnerabilities that iPhone doesn't have because it just doesn't do those things. For better and worse.

Many apps are more reliable on iPhone because they interact with hardware or the outside world in some way, and there are just far fewer things to go wrong on an iPhone.

As I stated in other post here many times. I have seen more apples come back to the store in the past year or two with different hacks. My wifes phone included. Most of the time on android is dumb gambling apps then pop ups start. With iPhones it's deep level hacks in the back end. just more iPhones come back with weird **** going on.

As for app quality etc, that's not whats' being discussed. Apple does have much better app quality.

 

[CarAnalogy]

I don't know about apple my only apple products right now are iPads. I know Microsoft is just way off course to what it was when numbnuts became ceo in a consumer sense.

Well if you're considering switching from Windows to macOS specifically, don't get your hopes up too much.

I did the same several years ago now, having used Windows and Linux for a long time.

It's better in some ways and worse in others. And the sense of respect for the users is going the wrong direction. Maybe Golden Gate will turn it around.

Overall I still think it's far better than Windows, but still not what it used to be/could be in some ways.

 

[Steve Adams]

Sorry... to which numbnuts are you referring? There has been more than one...

Nadella is running the show. he's the one calling the shots. He's the one firing thousands of great software engineers for Ai to do a crappy job ruining their software.

 

[Steve Adams]

Well if you're considering switching from Windows to macOS specifically, don't get your hopes up too much.

I did the same several years ago now, having used Windows and Linux for a long time.

It's better in some ways and worse in others. And the sense of respect for the users is going the wrong direction. Maybe Golden Gate will turn it around.

Overall I still think it's far better than Windows, but still not what it used to be/could be in some ways.

Thanks for the insight.

 

[CarAnalogy]

As I stated in other post here many times. I have seen more apples come back to the store in the past year or two with different hacks. My wifes phone included. Most of the time on android is dumb gambling apps then pop ups start. With iPhones it's deep level hacks in the back end. just more iPhones come back with weird **** going on.

I would like you to elaborate, if you'd care to, what you mean by weird ****. Configuration profiles installed? Apple Pay fraud? Website hijacking? iCloud account takeover? Pegasus spyware?

I'm seriously asking, those are the things that come to mind when you say deep level back end hacks that are possible on an iPhone without burning some zero days. Also I'm curious about risky user behavior.

As for app quality etc, that's not whats' being discussed. Apple does have much better app quality.

Yes but I meant more in the sense of compatibility with things that use the phone's sensors and connect to bluetooth, things like that. There are a lot more options on Android so a lot more things to go wrong, security and otherwise.

 

[GregoryPeckEPA]

The CEO that actually took away features from newer products, while steadily jacking up their price. The M4 iPad Pro lost the ultra wide camera from its predecessor. It also had worse speakers than the iPad Air from 3 years prior.

Gave us endless feature leap between products always driving to higher cost models rather than meaningful, standalone products. The base iPad is an abomination and has a weaker SoC than the third gen Air, released some 4 years earlier. Additionally, iPad’s used to get “X” branded SoC (e.g., A13X) that gave them substantially better performance than their iPhone counterparts. No longer. Granted most moved to M-class.

Gutted the industrial design of the iPhone 5S for an aluminum canoe that wasn’t restored till the iPhone X, which carried a significant price hike with it. Which bled out to all the units over time, even the non-Pro models.

5GB iCloud storage never expanded. Gotta snag that extra $1 a month from every single user as there is no way to live with the free tier in this modern world.

The homePod mini going on 6 years without a refresh. Powered by a watch SoC. Strangely capable of running OS27 but the comparable watch Series 7 stops at OS26.

The death of the Mac Pro. The death of the AirCharger. The dead of the Apple Car.

Shoved an A-series chip into a laptop instead of an M-class while the mini years prior had an M-class chip at entry level prices. In fact, the OG M1 Mac mini still remains their king of compute for the cost.

Gutted UI-UX to where things take years to fix or are just left broken. The walled garden had the appeal of legendary UX and QA with seamless interoperability between devices. Now Windows 11 feels snappier and arguably has less bugs. Dark patterns to upsell iCloud at every turn (immutable recommendations in Settings / Device Storage, removing access to Siri from the power button leaves nothing but an advert to enable Siri when pressed and cannot be remapped to anything else are just a couple).

Ads. Ads everywhere. Everywhere!

Faked keynotes and upcoming features that actually led to a lawsuit from shareholders! Siri 2.0 has yet to manifest and at this point everyone is likely fully aware that we will never get a Siri that can handle multiple commands at once (mostly because AI is a lie). At least we have a fake keynote showcasing what Siri could achieve if we lived in Narnia to commemorate the moment.

Apple had a lot of integrity under Jobs. The way Jobs handled antennagate really was masterful (giving out free bumpers, no questioned asked). Cook, not so much.

He had the foresight to bring A-class processors to their bigger machines, finally dumping Intel by creating the M-class. That’s about it. Vision Pro is the Newton 2.0. Bugs riddle their OSes as they focus on stupid UI and cramming AI slop so you don’t have to read what a real human says or even write back them. Image generation so you don’t have to learn how to draw or create art yourself. I always wonder what Jobs would have done with AI or his thoughts on the topic.

Edits added.

 

[Hammerd]

Beans have been successfully counted! Amen!

 

[satchmo]

Visionless.
Unless that vision was purely about profits.

But certainly not in terms of hardware.

Throwing money and resources on projects that were either too late, too expensive, or not a good idea to begin with. I'm not sure how many man hours (years) was lost on the AppleCar and VisionPro projects alone. His vanity and ego won over common sense and the VisionPro was green lit.

Instead he'll be remembered as making Apple shareholders wealthy through relentless penny pinching and milking users with incremental features.

 

[zarmanto]

Nadella is running the show. he's the one calling the shots. He's the one firing thousands of great software engineers for Ai to do a crappy job ruining their software.

Sure. And Ballmer failed in other ways before him, including the disastrous release of Vista, and completely misjudging the potential of the iPhone. (Plus he was just comically bad at presentations. "Developers, developers, developers, developers...") And Gates failed in other ways before him, including some bizarre web browser miscalculations and ignoring potential antitrust issues until they had already blown out of control.

Microsoft has been consistently led by people who had a few good ideas alongside a few massive blind spots.

 

[Steve Adams]

I would like you to elaborate, if you'd care to, what you mean by weird ****. Configuration profiles installed? Apple Pay fraud? Website hijacking? iCloud account takeover? Pegasus spyware?

I'm seriously asking, those are the things that come to mind when you say deep level back end hacks that are possible on an iPhone without burning some zero days. Also I'm curious about risky user behavior.



Yes but I meant more in the sense of compatibility with things that use the phone's sensors and connect to bluetooth, things like that. There are a lot more options on Android so a lot more things to go wrong, security and otherwise.

Ok,

My wife's sim card was hacked while in her iPhone some how. we were not out of the province since she got the phone and the pandemic was in full force so travelling was local and by ourselves. How did that happen. Once it did it was sending messages via imessage by itself. That's a pretty deep level hack. I have had people have their iCloud accounts hacked while only owning an iPhone. etc.

I have never seen this happen ever on an android device since I worked at the store. 5 years of dealing with these devices on a daily basis and androids come in with rouge bs apps creating pop ups. No account hacks, no sim attacks nothing. IMO apple has just as many issues when it comes to security.

I deal with hundreds of phones per week from TCL flips to 17 pro max and everything in between.

 

[Steve Adams]

Sure. And Ballmer failed in other ways before him, including the disastrous release of Vista, and completely misjudging the potential of the iPhone. And Gates failed in other ways before him, including some bizarre web browser miscalculations and ignoring potential antitrust issues until they had already blown out of control.

Microsoft has been consistently led by people who had a few good ideas alongside a few massive blind spots.

As I stated, He's at the helm now. the past is the past. He's ruined everything I loved about MS.

 

[Steve Adams]

Visionless.
Unless that vision was purely about profits.

But certainly not in terms of hardware.

Throwing money and resources on projects that were either too late, too expensive, or not a good idea to begin with. I'm not sure how many man hours (years) was lost on the AppleCar and VisionPro projects alone. His vanity and ego won over common sense and the VisionPro was green lit.

Instead he'll be remembered as making Apple shareholders wealthy through relentless penny pinching and milking users with incremental features.

AVP for sure. Meta has 95 percent of the AVP for 20 percent of the price.

 

[jz0309]

Good luck in your semi-retirement!
You will be missed and also best of luck to John Ternus, he has big shoes to fill.

 

[UltimaKilo]

What a side-step. Nobody was referencing to his personal life as a "good an decent man" of which is of little consequence. The question was about his corporate career and achievements.

 

[Lioness~]

I totally lost my love for Apple during Crook - I strongly doubt it will come back, unfortunately.
But I still like some products that Apple produces - other products I don’t like at all.

I am glad I started to invest in other companies instead of Apple, that is more related to our country, or not in particular tech-related to Apple at least.

But as long as I like some products from Apple, I’ll buy them.

 

[I7guy]

The CEO that actually took away features from newer products, while steadily jacking up their price. The M4 iPad Pro lost the ultra wide camera from its predecessor. It also had worse speakers than the iPad Air from 3 years prior.

You forgot a big one, the removal of the headphone jack on the iPhone 7. As far as the speakers there is an online debate about that. But yeah not so much took away features.

Gave us endless feature leap between products always driving to higher cost models rather than meaningful, standalone products. The base iPad is an abomination and has a weaker SoC than the third gen Air, released some 4 years earlier. Additionally, iPad’s used to get “X” branded SoC (e.g., A13X) that gave them substantially better performance than their iPhone counterparts. No longer. Granted most moved to M-class.

This isn’t true. You criticized the base iPad, but you get what you pay for. Similar to the criticism of the MacBook Neo, which was a runaway success with an iPhone SoC.

Gutted the industrial design of the iPhone 5S for an aluminum canoe that wasn’t restored till the iPhone X, which carried a significant price hike with it. Which bled out to all the units over time, even the non-Pro models.

Well 5 years later you expected the X not to have a price increase over the 5S?

5GB iCloud storage never expanded. Gotta snag that extra $1 a month from every single user as there is no way to live with the free tier in this modern world.

Okay, good criticism. They should have upped the minimum iCloud tier storage.

The homePod mini going on 6 years without a refresh. Powered by a watch SoC. Strangely capable of running OS27 but the comparable watch Series 7 stops at OS26.

I don’t see an issue with any of the above. It falls under it is what it is.

The death of the Mac Pro.

What’s the issue with this?

Shoved an A-series chip into a laptop instead of an M-class while the mini years prior had an M-class chip at entry level prices. In fact, the OG M1 Mac mini still remains their king of compute for the cost.

Mentioned this above. Brilliant move by apple. The MacBook Neo is the king of value for the cost.

Gutted UI-UX to where things take years to fix or are just left broken. The walled garden had the appeal of legendary UX and QA with seamless interoperability between devices. Now Windows 11 feels snappier and arguably has less bugs. Dark patterns to upsell iCloud at every turn (immutable recommendations in Settings / Device Storage, removing access to Siri from the power button leaves nothing but an advert to enable Siri when pressed and cannot be remapped to anything else are just a couple).

He had the foresight to bring A-class processors to their bigger machines, finally dumping Intel by creating the M-class. That’s about it. Vision Pro is the Newton 2.0. Bugs riddle their OSes as they focus on stupid UI and cramming AI slop so you don’t have to read what a real human says or even write back them. Image generation so you don’t have to learn how to draw or create art yourself. I always wonder what Jobs would have done with AI or his thoughts on the topic.

Other than the M series I don’t see any of the above as legitimate criticism except for the iCloud tier storage. Of course you are entitled to your opinion and entitled to buy or not buy apple products and services.

 

[sdm1985]

In his tenure, do you think he ever said ‘no, that’s not in the interest of our customers and/or the ethics that Apple was built on”? I think not.

 

[I_love_money]

In his tenure, do you think he ever said ‘no, that’s not in the interest of our customers and/or the ethics that Apple was built on”? I think not.

Didn’t Apple refuse unlocking iPhones for the FBI?

 

[I_love_money]

Nadella is running the show. he's the one calling the shots. He's the one firing thousands of great software engineers for Ai to do a crappy job ruining their software.

And laying people off to hire H1Bs…

 

[Timpetus]

I hope you vote with your $$$. It may not be obvious but to please stockholders, customers have to be willing to buy your products and services. Ask BlackBerry how pleasing stockholders went for them.

The problem is all of Apple's competitors are ensh*ttifying their products more quickly than Apple. If you want/need the best option in any category they sell, Apple's still the best, even though they aren't what they used to be in terms of UX.