Tim Cook Sends Email to Apple Employees Reflecting on 2013, 'Big Plans' for 2014

[dec.]

Nah, Apple says 4" is the 'perfect' size. But if they do make it larger, they'll say the new larger screen is actually the 'perfect' size and people will no longer like 4".

I don't think anyone really will care about that if they sell even better than previous models.

 

[gnasher729]

Tim, tecnically the big donations were done by your customers aquiring product red or donation to the red cross though itunes. But i guess its very charitable of apple not to charge 30% to the red cross for having used their platform to get those donations to those who really need it!

No, technically the product red donations are done by Apple, because the products cost exactly as much as the normal products, so when you buy for example a red iPod Touch instead of a white one, you have exactly the same money in your pocket, but Apple has less.

And if Apple passes 100% of donations to the Red Cross, that is indeed charitable, because usually anywhere between 50% and 90% of donations arrive there. Most charities hire professionals to collect money, and these professionals get paid.

He releases another version of that letter to his slave labor in third world countries, one in which he doesn't use the word "team", doesn't intentionally leak it to the press, but does discuss at length his "big plans" in the area of suicide netting installation.

Well, very funny of you. As far as suicide nets are concerned, what would you have done? Nothing? Now for a fact that doesn't seem to get noticed: It worked. It always gives know nothings a chance of a cheap shot at Apple, but it worked. There has been a total of _three_ suicides at Foxconn in 2013, among more than a million employees. On the other hand, 10 people died jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge in August 2013. Three in two years vs. ten in a month.

 

[NewbieCanada]

They always have big plans

Yes. They've figured out the price for the Thunderbolt2 Display/MacPro Bundle and it's really big.

 

[NStocks]

Rather typical of larger Fortune 500-type multi-national corporations. You can't shake everyone's hand, especially when they are scattered in multiple time zones.

The message is understandably bland and predictable, probably because he expected a certain/very real possibility that the message would be leaked to the public Internet.

Most of these kind of messages aren't leaked to the Internet, simply because Joe Websurfer doesn't gives a crap about canned laudatory statements from some random company's senior management.

It's an exception that Apple CEO statements are leaked to the Internet, mostly because of small but vocal contingent of OCD-addled Apple fans love corporate communications pornography. (Plus Apple rumor sites get huge page views from this sort of wanting).

The statement is merely a pleasantry. It's not going to affect employee morale or the stock price in any material way.

The real appreciation comes in the form of extra PTO (Paid Time Off), stock options, or some sort of additional credit to the employee product store (all of which are probably highly confidential and specific to the individual employee).


It's highly possible that some Apple PR lackey "leaked" this e-mail to 9to5Mac.

Whilst that may be true, I work for the world 3rd largest retailer and we were provided with a video noting how much we need to work on beating the competition and focusing on customer service. This was after they halved our christmas bonus from £20 to £10 in conditional spend vouchers (spen £10 to get £1 off). I don't care about the rewards, but to me, Tim's message was far more inspiring that the message we were given.

Perception is everything I guess.

 

[lars666]

"Big Plans": sligthly thinner, sligthly faster and with a sligthly better camera (but otherwise mostly identical) iPhone 6 in August and New iPad Air in October.

Apple is so revolutionary, sometimes it hurts.

You have no idea what you are talking about and you make yourself look stupid.

 

[bryanck]

Tim Cook has been saying this every year, and every year nothing really that big is announced. He shouldn't set expectations high and underdeliver, it is better to do the opposite. Anyway, my fingers are crossed they really do have something big in the works.

 

[NewbieCanada]

This was after they halved our christmas bonus from £20 to £10 in conditional spend vouchers (spen £10 to get £1 off). I don't care about the rewards, but to me, Tim's message was far more inspiring that the message we were given.

Perception is everything I guess.

I've never worked for a company that gave Christmas bonuses, although I've worked for companies that gave annual bonuses at other times of the year (February, which was more tax advantageous). I don't believe that a company is obligated to give bonuses of any kind, but if they do, they'd damned well better not be insulting. £10 in conditional spend vouchers is insulting. McDonald's leaves better "bonuses" than that in my mailbox and I don't even work for them!

 

[NStocks]

I've never worked for a company that gave Christmas bonuses, although I've worked for companies that gave annual bonuses at other times of the year (February, which was more tax advantageous). I don't believe that a company is obligated to give bonuses of any kind, but if they do, they'd damned well better not be insulting. £10 in conditional spend vouchers is insulting. McDonald's leaves better "bonuses" than that in my mailbox and I don't even work for them!

Exactly. Bonuses are optional but when they want better results, they need to treat the staff better and not with cheap bonuses that go straight into their own revenue. Yay, time for work again. I'm lucky, only 4 days of my overtime was cancelled this christmas. Last year all of it was cancelled. Customer satisfaction right there.

 

[Defender2010]

Excuse me, but if I go to a shop, knowing fully well what I am going to get, and all an employee does is picking up the £2,000 merchandise and taking my card to pay for it, do you think that employee should be paid more than another employee picking up some £10 merchandise and taking my card to pay for it? Have they contributed anything to the sale?

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And what did you contribute yourself to those £18,000 of sales? Here's what Michael Winner once said to a waiter who complained about a tip: "Do you really think I should pay you £120 to open a £1,200 bottle of wine? "

Do you think you deserve more money than the guy working at PCWorld, who sells cheap computers? Do you think you should be paid more money because I decide to buy a £500 phone and not a £50 phone? Really, what do you contribute that a million people working at other stores couldn't contribute just as easily if they took your job?

Actually it was a typo. It was £180,000!! You know what, u don't know me or what I am capable of. I assisted business owners with their Mac solutions so I contributed expert advice and patience and true customer care - something those muppets at PC World do not possess. Plus, they get commission for less quality service than Apple employees. Something is wrong - as the glory of wearing a blue Apple T-shirt now holds zero attraction for me, and I would not recommended the experience to anyone - certainly not for the pay packet!! I have moved on to bigger, more rewarding and better paid things now. The whole Apple store job experience is nothing but a facade.

 

[Roller]

While it's common for CEOs to write self-congratulatory dribble like this I just find it so nauseatingly shallow and completely unnecessary. It's written not for the staff but in the knowledge that it will be leaked and reposted across the internet ad-nauseum and as such is simply part of Apple's propaganda machine.

I don't recall Steve writing such sickeningly self-congratulatory dribble. Feel free to post examples if my memory fails me. In most cases it's evidence of a CEO who feels the need to massage perceptions because a lack (or perceived lack) of vision, competence or confidence in the role (see Steve Ballmer's self-congratulatory dribble). The reason I liked Steve was he was fundamentally different to most CEOs. He was a man of action rather than words and I'm pretty sure he had no patience for hollow gesturing. This is what forms in my head the opinion that Tim Cook is a corporate player rather than a technophile at heart and is perhaps unsuited to leading a technology company into the future.

Tim has and will say the same things every year over and over. 2014 was promised to be an *incredible* year but it was largely business as usual. Yes they FINALLY delivered a new Mac Pro (barely) since promising it a year and half? ago and having neglected the platform for years, but much of the year went without updates or anything of significance to report. What else? Um they gave MacBook Pros, Airs and iMacs routine tech updates and added a fingerprint sensor to a phone, which most people are ho-hum about at best, if not slightly suspicious given the shocking NSA revelations this year.

The biggest surprise was probably the 64-bit A7 processor that continues to provide impressive performance gains with the same battery life. Even the iPad Air was largely predictable, though it should help maintain its dominance in the market.

I assume you'd prefer if Tim Cook didn't send this email to Apple's employees. But he knows that these things are always leaked - if he didn't write a year-end statement, the headlines would scream "Tim Cook fails to send message to employees - high-level shakeup in the works!" or something to that effect.

Or perhaps he could have written something that said "We had an OK year. The iPhone 5c didn't sell as well as we'd hoped, but we did update a few products." Or maybe: "We're going to ship the iWatch in three months, the large screen iPhone 6 in October, and a TV with voice and gesture control in November."

Many CEOs and other leaders send year-end messages like this, knowing that not sending them or being completely candid about plans would do more harm than good for their company.

 

[Teste]

You have no idea what you are talking about and you make yourself look stupid.

And of course, not only the "big plans" would be more of the same, but Apple knows they can continue doing the same thing over and over due to how the same mindless, sheep-based fanboys will continue to white knight their products. Same old, same old

 

[Steve121178]

This would require an iOS device running on x86 or a mac running ARM, unless it has both processors in it?

No offense, but either way that sounds like a bad idea, and I'd be disappointed if Apple bit from the "pressure" and started making gimmicky hybrid devices.

Best of both worlds in one device? I'd buy it. I'm sure a few million others would too.

 

[uStip]

Oh, could he just shut up and deliver something exciting for once...

 

[AppleFan360]

What do humanitarian efforts and electronics have in common? Absolutely nothing. I'm really getting sick of this crap. Apple is a computer company and the fact that they give away money to fight AIDS and brag about it is silly. Apple tooting their own horn about their charitable contributions just shows how shallow Tim Cook really is. He needs to worry about making better products for Apple rather than using charity as a crutch to make the company look better. Come on Tim, get off your high horse and innovate rather than masturbate.

 

[HuskyOffset]

Apple's big plans

"Big Plans": sligthly thinner, sligthly faster and with a sligthly better camera (but otherwise mostly identical) iPhone 6 in August and New iPad Air in October.

Apple is so revolutionary, sometimes it hurts.

I think one of their big plans is an slightly improved spell checker.

 

[thekeyring]

This would require an iOS device running on x86 or a mac running ARM, unless it has both processors in it?

No offense, but either way that sounds like a bad idea, and I'd be disappointed if Apple bit from the "pressure" and started making gimmicky hybrid devices.

People want apple to create a MacBook Air / iPad hybrid, and others want a MacBook Pro / air hybrid.

It's not the end of the world owning two devices.

 

[icolove]

Nice of him to voice his appreciation of his employees. I wonder how many companies do that.

Most all of them. I think the outline for his memo is a Word template.

 

[McGiord]

Most company CEO's probably do memos like this but it doesn't get leaked on the internet for everyone to ridicule. Whoever is leaking these memos to 9to5Mac should be fired in my opinion.

To: All Employees
Cc: iTeam
Bcc: 9to5Mac
Subject: whatever...
From: tcooks@apple.com

 

[McGiord]

The way iOS 7 works on the iPhone really screams to have a bigger screen size.
The swiping controls and notifications are always activated when not needed, and browsing the web in Safari is no longer as smooth as it was before.

What I want in 2014 are:
- updated Mac Mini with discrete GPU.
- iMac with 4K/UHD/Retina display
- 4K/UHD/Retina Thunderbolt display
- Mac OS X in the Cloud
- iPad-MacBook Air hybrid

 

[The Doctor11]

The way iOS 7 works on the iPhone really screams to have a bigger screen size.
The swiping controls and notifications are always activated when not needed, and browsing the web in Safari is no longer as smooth as it was before.

What I want in 2014 are:
- updated Mac Mini with discrete GPU.
- iMac with 4K/UHD/Retina display
- 4K/UHD/Retina Thunderbolt display
- Mac OS X in the Cloud
- iPad-MacBook Air hybrid

I don't hear the screams at all.

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Tim Cook must have done really good in ELA class cuz he can write good.

 

[Rogifan]

I agree. Give the employees some commission at least! The wage is rubbish. I worked for Apple Retail in the last and sold £18,000 of gear in one week - and what thanks does one get? £7 per hour. Cook should put his money where is sickly sweet mouth is.

How much 'selling' do Apple retail employees do? And how many people would be less likely to shop there if they knew employees were getting commission. I know I would be.

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I like the tenor of Tim's missive. He's clearly a class act and displays the demeanor one would expect from the leader of a world-class company.

Except the only place Apple seems to be able to keep a secret is at one infinite loop. I guess when Cook said he was doubling down on security he meant only at corporate HQ.

 

[lewisd25]

Mac OS 10.10?? How about something that makes more sense like.... Mac OS XI? But I'm sure Apple will dumb it down for the masses and call it Mac OS 11.

 

[Steve121178]

Mac OS 10.10?? How about something that makes more sense like.... Mac OS XI? But I'm sure Apple will dumb it down for the masses and call it Mac OS 11.

OS 11? No. It will be a fusion of OS X & iOS, but you'll have to wait until 2015 for that

 

[ryanasimov]

I don't have any problem with the content of the email but c'mon... it's a strategically designed message written with the intent of being read by people outside of Apple. The language is exactly like the copy in Apple's ads and PR releases. Even if Tim Cook personally wrote it, it's a calculated document meant to project a pleasant image of Apple as a benevolent company. Read the email out loud and it sounds exactly like the opening and closing words Tim Cook would say at a keynote.

 

[cgc]

2013 showed absolutely no innovation outside of the ridiculous MacPro design. Let's see, slight tweaks of existing iPads (e.g. Air and rMini), a horrible Airport Extreme/TimeCapsule, and a MacPro that looks like it'll be impossible to upgrade. Fantastic "year of innovation" eh? I'm an Apple fan, but if this is their best everyone should look to sell off their stock.