Tim Cook Shares Tribute to Steve Jobs on Sixth Anniversary of His Death

[PinkyMacGodess]

iCried with all the early comment on this thread, and for the ones expected to come.

He was just an attention to detail oriented entrepreneur, not the second coming of [insert scriptural figure].
I am not downsizing his accomplishments, but please spare us the Miss u Steve, looming doom Tim Cook & the sorts.

He had a different way of looking at things. Not good, not bad, just different. He focused on some details that were genius. He came back to a nepotism thick Apple, and ruthlessly chopped the waste and crap. Rebooting Apple. For that, he deserves worship. Without that, and the cache of his return, Apple would be dead.

We are also dealing with products that really have a limited future. How much more can the iPhone realistically do? How much more can a notebook computer do? The only thing they can, is what they already do, only better. So give Tim Cook a little slack. He did a masterstroke on the iPhone 8 series by cutting the many different versions based on memory. There should have only been two choices, big, and small, to begin with.

I think people overplay the 'Tim isn't Steve' drama. There are other reasons to beat on Apple, but give this a break.

Stay safe...

 

[Tozovac]

We are also dealing with products that really have a limited future. How much more can the iPhone realistically do? How much more can a notebook computer do? The only thing they can, is what they already do, only better. So give Tim Cook a little slack. He did a masterstroke on the iPhone 8 series by cutting the many different versions based on memory. There should have only been two choices, big, and small, to begin with.

I think people overplay the 'Tim isn't Steve' drama. There are other reasons to beat on Apple, but give this a break.

Agree with you 100% on the marginal improvements and refinements still available to overly-refined iOS & computer devices. However, Tim is IMHO allowing way too much to be removed in the name of trying to be "new and better and innovative" in those mature and nearly-perfected products. He's not recognizing to throttle Jony's over-insertion of his minimalist tendencies, especially into those things that used to make Apple magic & unique & "it just works," namely the software/UI that's stripped down and just less magic than it's ever been. Would Steve have allowed the removal of lickable buttons?

 

[artfossil]

I said the zenith FOR ME. I like to plug stuff in, upgrade my video card, my RAM and even my processor. My 2010 Mac Pro still performs like a current day computer due to this ability and has more RAM and a better video card than most anything I can buy from Apple today. Nothing sad about that.

Actually, you agreed, with the statement, “So true.” To the characterization of Apple as going "From an insanely great company (1998-2012), to the greedy fashionable brand."

Still sad, to me, that you would perceive Apple as just "a greedy fashionable brand" since 2012, dismissing all of the innovations in Apple products since then.

But obviously our use cases are radically different. For me, I’m grateful—both for what I’ve accomplished the last five years and for the Apple tools that made these accomplishments possible.

 

[Solomani]

In short, everything Steve Jobs had been doing while he was still alive? Because Steve never made products thinner at the expense of battery life, or removed ports, or championed the use of adaptors and docking stations, or introduced an iPhone with a glass back, or shipped a product with insufficient ram, right?

Correct. And he was never around when Antenna-Gate happened. In fact, it's the users fault for holding their iPhones wrong. Steve is infallible like the Pope and Jesus, so his perfectness should not be questioned!

 

[oldwatery]

Tim Cook has no right to eulogized when he has destroyed everything Steve Jobs created and stood for.

 

[citysnaps]

Therein lies a major critique of today's "courageously forward-thinking" Apple a la Tim that many accept and love but which leaves out in the cold the many who find that the trade-offs aren't worth the supposed gains. Too much of today's Apple's "giving the customer something more and courageously new" centers around removing something that wasn't there last year. More fewer buttons/interfaces, more thinness, more smaller bezels, more minimization of software/UI/interface. Apple markets them as being "courageous" but to many like me they feel too unnecessarily over-the-line invasive when compared to the majority of "courageous" decisions made before 2011. Huge, huge difference now vs. "before" but with certain subtleties that too few recognize. How far can giving more by giving less be sustained?

Not courageous at all. That's just Apple moving forward with technology. Just as Jobs did. Smart business...

I and no doubt many others, enjoy having laptops that aren't 1+ inches thick, weighing 6 pounds, with I/O dating back to the 1990s.

The good news, is, for those that require heavy and thick laptops, with 20 year old ports, there are plenty of choices out there. Just vote with your wallet. That would be a courageous move.

 

[Tozovac]

Not courageous at all. That's just Apple moving forward with technology. Just as Jobs did. Smart business...

I and no doubt many others, enjoy having laptops that aren't 1+ inches thick, weighing 6 pounds, with I/O dating back to the 1990s.

The good news, is, for those that require heavy and thick laptops, with 20 year old ports, there are plenty of choices out there. Just vote with your wallet. That would be a courageous move.

Too short-sighted a response/view on your part. Just to ask, do you consider the original MacBook air to be too thick? How thin is best (honest question). My point was more about: there's always going to be a point of diminishing returns and/or a point where some of the significant reductions Tim's overseen seem to be heading towards potentially benefitting too small a group while being a hindrance to a still-large group who prefer to remain in the Apple system than be forced out. Calling out 6 lb laptops is a red herring; apple laptops were pretty svelte & thin back in 2011, at least the Air, and the abundance of ports & modification-friendliness was a godsend to many users, me included. And the software was much more fun/interesting to look at and use back then; it looked to be designed by real artists/designers getting Apple paychecks and not by Fisher Price engineers whose only color palates appear to be grey, white and any translucent gradient between the two.

Today's minimalist white-out translucent unintuitive UI would never have flown had Tim not have had the Jobs/Forestall UI/experience to leap from first. How often have you heard "it just works" in regards to Apple products in the last 5 years compared before then? I personally have had more "it's not working as easy as it did before" thoughts in the past 5 years than ever before. This came under Tim's watch. Well this thread is certainly deviating from the start which was a nice shoutout to Jobs. But my critiques and others are valid.

 

[mi7chy]

Have to agree with others. It's very obvious Tim Cook is dangling the Steve Jobs legacy carrot on a string to milk the cash cow that hasn't changed four years straight. It's distasteful and inappropriate when he does that right before announcing rehashed products.

 

[Solomani]

Have to agree with others. It's very obvious Tim Cook is dangling the Steve Jobs legacy carrot on a string to milk the cash cow that hasn't changed four years straight. It's distasteful and inappropriate when he does that right before announcing rehashed products. Steve Jobs was about innovation, quality and priced so that it's accessible by everyone.

Cook is just holding a tribute to SJ, which does not lead to any increased Apple sales. Please get a grip. People here clearly will refuse to buy the latest Apple products if they appear weak, un-inspired, overpriced, or flawed (e.g. initial AppleWatch cellular glitches). What Tim Cook says about SJ on a tribute stage will not lead to "milking" the cash cow any further. It won't suddenly make thousands of customers run and pre-order an iPhone X if they already made up their mind that they don't want one. So your milking the cash cow comment is irrelevant.

"Milking the cash cow" is only true if Tim Cook told you that you need to pay Apple a $150 ticket seat to watch him doing the Steve Jobs Anniversary Tribute speech. Or if Tim Cook suddenly announced that customers can now buy official Apple-sanctioned Steve Jobs commemorative coffee mugs for $75 each, an exclusive at the Apple Store. Yes, that's certainly milking the Steve Jobs cash cow. But that is not what's happening.

 

[DeepIn2U]

Why does everyone insist that everything at Apple was PERFECT under Steve? There were issues back then and there are issues now.

I guarantee Steve would approve of a lot of what is going on currently at Apple. Apple is also wayyyy different and has way more products now.

We saw a LOT more humility in Apple and Jobs than we do today, at least until Apple iPhone 4 antennagate and the small press about it. That “you’re holding it wrong” did NOt fly with a lot of customers (consumer or early corporate adopters)! The issue didn’t seem to affect most of Canadian carriers at least from those I know personally as well as myself.

D1-8 was great seeing jobs. He had personality that he wasn’t afraid to express. He would admit to being wrong, the need to fix things or for example with Analytics.. “maybe in the future we’ll sit down and talk with these developers ... but now is not the time”.

Most of those derailing is not about Tim and his role at Apple per se or his accolades (I hope) just to be clear.

Tim ... it seems quoting mantras is the answer to anything that’s apple may have chosen wrong or did wrong. “We’re working hard to deliver the best experience to our customers” seems to be the closest to apologizing ever done by anyone at Apple. Maybe this is rooted in staving off frivolous time consuming lawsuits that could occur in such failings.

Trash can Mac Pro apology came from Schiller and Federighi (who didn’t have anything to do with the hardware or design, he’s Software SVP) and from a Mac friendly website if I recall. Who was VP in charge of hardware why wasn’t that person in that interview?!

 

[DeepIn2U]

So you just came here to be a troll.

He has a point. Anyone that has an impact on so many in our world it seems we celebrate their passing or mourn their passing more than celebrating their coming into this world. It’s always been odd to me personally.

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

Tim Cook has no right to eulogized when he has destroyed everything Steve Jobs created and stood for.

Give it a break...

Tim Cook isn't Steve Jobs. Their products have been well received. The problem with lightning, is that the patents ran out on it, and *everyone* could copy it. Apple had to come up with something.

Oh, and the EU has required the same batteries and chargers across products, which makes so much sense.

The 'Touch Bar' could have been a contender. The wife loves hers. It's a niche product, and it works. In many ways, it's like the 'ribbon bar' in Microsoft Office. People hated that feature. REALLY hated that feature. (More than Clippy, which is amazing)

 

[jm001]

Haters just can't leave a well intentioned memory of a mentor and a friend from a protege alone. Tim has helped Apple stay near the top and at times take the lead. Apple has always been one to wait till the latest tech becomes reliable enough for "prime time". Haters and others are fickle and impatient and will waste no time to bash companies like Apple for putting out products that actually do work properly. I still don't know what "design change" people are calling for. Look at desktops and laptops, people don't complain about a design that really hasn't changed at its core i.e. laptops = a screen attached to a CPU/keyboard with ports on the sides and back. Even if you counter argue with MS Surface books, yes they're tablets, but many buy them with a keyboard and keep them functioning like laptops. We just have a bunch of people who have focusing issues and like to complain.

 

[Baymowe335]

I guess the haters of Cook aren’t investors. Cook may not have invented the iPhone, but he took it from shipping around 70M phones annually to shipping over 200M iPhones annually.

Cook realized the larger screen was the ticket to expanding iPhone while Jobs was stubbornly stuck in the 4inch form factor.

Cook has quietly created the #1 wearable in the world and grown services to the size of a Fortune 100 company.

He led incredible growth in China and will do the same in India.

He’s taken Apple Pay to the premium mobile pay service.

The A series silicon is 2 years ahead of the competition and are the key driver of Apple’s legendary long term usability and smooth performance. These chips will drive the next innovation in AR and computational heavy tasks of the future.

He’s taken AAPL to an $800b company and maintained iPhone as the top high end smartphone, while raking in 90% of all available smartphone profit in a viciously competitive environment.

Samsung hasn’t innovated anything meaningful either. Phones have reached somewhat of a plateau but Apple can push the boundaries with their implementation of facial recognition and AR.

Cook may may not be the innovative genius we remember in Jobs, but he is an operational genius, squeezing margin, securing suppliers, and running the company in a far more complex state of circumstances and more products than Jobs ever had been tasked with running.

If you think Cook is a slouch, you aren’t paying attention.

 

[jlc1978]

I'd say Apple hasn't been ahead of curve in new categories like Apple was with the iPhone, iPad, and iPod. It seems nowadays like Apple is always late to the game, although their execution is usually a bit better than the competition.

Apple has always been a fast follower. None of the products you mentioned were new ideas; Jobs' strength was the ability to see potential in other's ideas and turn them into great products. Even the graphical interface was't a new idea, rather a realization of its potential and executing it before other companies. Cook's strength is in operations, enabling Apple to produce products that others create. As long as Apple continues to have an innovative bench strength they will do fine. Their challenge is to keep innovating and pushing out products that are exciting without a single leader who can bend Apple to their will. I think Cook is smart enough to realize his strengths and weaknesses and continue to keep Apple successful. In some respects, not having a charismatic leader who can kill an idea will enable more ideas to percolate through the company and become reality.

Cook's biggest PR problem is following a charismatic leader who was perfect in many people's eyes. If he made fish appear to feed the multitudes and then walked ashore from a boat, people would complain he can't fish or swim.

In the end, Apple's challenge is to hire brilliant people and let them do their thing. We can argue whether or not they are continuing to do that but so far they have been successful post-Jobs.
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I will say that under Tim, I feel Apple is more greedy, forcing consumers into non-upgradable products, which was something I think Steve would have fought against in principle.

Huh? The last truly upgradable product aside from some Macs with slots, was the Apple ][ series with real expansion slots. The first Macs weren't even easy to open. I doubt Steve ever felt upgradable was valuable, instead convinced whatever Apple made was all the user would need or want.

 

[Solomani]

Cook realized the larger screen was the ticket to expanding iPhone while Jobs was stubbornly stuck in the 4inch form factor.

Yes. This is what most of the Cook-haters forget. Jobs was stupid for being so stubborn at times, to the point that the competition (e.g. Samsung popularized larger phone sizes) was already making him look like a fool, and he had too much arrogance and pride to open his eyes and realize the competition was running circles around him.

 

[MacManiac1]

I think Apple wouldn't exist unless there was at least two Steves.

How true! But there is only one Steve that was capable of creating a reality distortion field around the products.

 

[LordVic]

Correct. And he was never around when Antenna-Gate happened. In fact, it's the users fault for holding their iPhones wrong. Steve is infallible like the Pope and Jesus, so his perfectness should not be questioned!

heh, Many people around the world who worship Steve Job's like he was some jesus of technology really don't understand who he was.

First, from all accounts, except for those closest to him. He was a raving *******.

He also was not actually very technical.

He also often refused to take responsibility himself for poor decisions, such as the iPhone 4's antenna issues, until he was essentially forced to. Heck, Did he ever accept that he had a daughter by the end?

However, let none of that discount what he did do for Apple. He came in. Fixed a lot of crap, was a good manager, and was basically a "user" who could dictate to Apple what he needed to see in the products, because he had an eye for what would sell and what wouldn't. And he was able to keep this cabal of cronies in line to get work done.

 

[Tozovac]

heh, Many people around the world who worship Steve Job's like he was some jesus of technology really don't understand who he was.

First, from all accounts, except for those closest to him. He was a raving *******.

He also was not actually very technical.

He also often refused to take responsibility himself for poor decisions, such as the iPhone 4's antenna issues, until he was essentially forced to. Heck, Did he ever accept that he had a daughter by the end?

However, let none of that discount what he did do for Apple. He came in. Fixed a lot of crap, was a good manager, and was basically a "user" who could dictate to Apple what he needed to see in the products, because he had an eye for what would sell and what wouldn't. And he was able to keep this cabal of cronies in line to get work done.

While Steve was there: "It just works!"
While Tim's there, letting Jony run too rampant: _____________

Haven't heard "It just works" about Apple in years. More often I hear frustrations and confusions with an iOS/OS becoming ever so complex with features/functions yet more stripped-down and vague with UI.

That's what Steve did and Tim can't.