Tim Cook's View of the Apple Philosophy

[JonHimself]

Not yet, but what you see here is a carefully planned strategy by Apple to begin giving people like Cook and Ive and Schiller their own RDF. Watch, the "mystique" will grow around them (and this is a good thing)

Watching the video on the new macbook design, for me, was the first push to give Jonathan Ive his own 'aura'. I always knew that he was the head designer behind a bunch of things (maybe not head designer, I'm not actually sure what his title was, but his name was always mentioned with the design and construction of products) but I think the video did an excellent job of letting him talk (passionately) about what he's created and why we should care just as much as he does.

Nothing, it's a great machine.

What's not so great is the way Apple has neglected one of it's greatest computers and let it languish without any updates in ages. It's insane what Apple HASN'T done with the Mini

The other problem with the Mini is that people want it to be something that it isn't... but I guess that could be said about every product that Apple releases

 

[TiggsPanther]

The other problem with the Mini is that people want it to be something that it isn't... but I guess that could be said about every product that Apple releases

Some of us just want it to be kept reasonably up-do-date.

Whatever else the Mini is or isn't, what it is is a desktop(*) Mac that is (or would be...) ideal for anyone who already has a perfectly good screen that they still use (or for those who favour matte) and doesn't want to fork out an extra couple of hundred pounds/dollars for an all-in-one or laptop with an unneeded screen and extra footprint.

Whether for HTPC, gaming or (like me) just general computing, there are many of us who simply need a non-outdated machine that does not have a built-in screen.

(*) In that, regardless of components, it sits on or by a desk and runs off the mains.

 

[lftrghtparadigm]

That rant from Tim Cook is exactly what we all already know about Apple. Nothing new there, not at all.

I pray for Steve Jobs and cannot wait for his expedient return,

but anyone who believes that Apple will not/would not continue to operate exactly as it does now without Steve Jobs is a total moron, period.

They are a major corporation! They are one of the few to post PROFIT in the last financial quarter.

Each and ever senior member of Apple's depts, as well as the board of directors, know exactly what they have there. A golden nugget of wealth and opportunity. There is clear path to the future and one only needs to walk it slowly to succeed.

Some of us just want it to be kept reasonably up-do-date.

Whatever else the Mini is or isn't, what it is is a desktop(*) Mac that is (or would be...) ideal for anyone who already has a perfectly good screen that they still use (or for those who favour matte) and doesn't want to fork out an extra couple of hundred pounds/dollars for an all-in-one or laptop with an unneeded screen and extra footprint.

Whether for HTPC, gaming or (like me) just general computing, there are many of us who simply need a non-outdated machine that does not have a built-in screen.

(*) In that, regardless of components, it sits on or by a desk and runs off the mains.

The quiet update of the white macbook indicates that it will not be long before such an update makes it way to the other non-NVIDIA product, the mac mini

Apples Philosophy = Selling almost the same **** on 3 different events 3 times. Waiting more than 1 year to sell a downgraded mac mini.

Maybe next year you have to pay some extra money to get your macbook with an off/on button.

Sorry but they have no Philosophy anymore, all they do is selling overpriced crap and giving a **** what consumers think or want. Apple could already have a big piece of the OS cake but.......whatever

maybe next year macs will be altogether out of your price range and you won't have anything to review, thus nothing to post? eh?

 

[Lesser Evets]

It's funny to see what people have to say in order to help right consumer/investor confidence. This is complete hot air. Proof comes with the pudding.

Anyone else see Tim Cook as the head of Apple when steve is gone now?

No. But, unfortunately Yes.

 

[Flickta]

It is sad, but it seems that SJ is leaving. For now or forever.
This is my first post in several years.
I'm disappointed.
I hope, that anyone succeeding Jobs will be passionate. And passionate about Apple again.

 

[iOrlando]

Apples Philosophy = Selling almost the same **** on 3 different events 3 times. Waiting more than 1 year to sell a downgraded mac mini.

Maybe next year you have to pay some extra money to get your macbook with an off/on button.

Sorry but they have no Philosophy anymore, all they do is selling overpriced crap and giving a **** what consumers think or want. Apple could already have a big piece of the OS cake but.......whatever

I'm sorry they are out of your price range. What does McDonald's pay these days?

 

[Fraghax]

Jobs For President!

 

[Mal]

Apples Philosophy = Selling almost the same **** on 3 different events 3 times. Waiting more than 1 year to sell a downgraded mac mini.

Maybe next year you have to pay some extra money to get your macbook with an off/on button.

Sorry but they have no Philosophy anymore, all they do is selling overpriced crap and giving a **** what consumers think or want. Apple could already have a big piece of the OS cake but.......whatever

Look, dude, just because they sell more expensive items than some of their competition doesn't mean they're overpriced. The value that many people place on Apple's products is obviously more then high enough to support their current prices and margins, so where's the problem? Apple doesn't care about being the biggest company on the block, they make a name for themselves and boatloads of money by producing the best computers on the planet (they've said that themselves, and I fully agree).

jW

 

[JGowan]

I am cautiously optimistic that Apple can do as well as it possibly can given the SJ void.

Void? What Void? You sound like he's dead and gone. He's there by phone anytime a big decision needs to be made. If Steve is "optimistic" about Tim, I am too.

If you're a fry-guy, you HAVE to be in front of the grease. Not Steve. 100% of his job is decision-making (with some paperwork I'm sure he gets his assistant to do.) I'm surprised he wasn't tele-commuting long before now. The only time he needs to really be onsite is to look at prototypes. The rest is brainwork. Phone it in, my friend, PHONE IT IN.

Funny thing about this whole thing: we expect Steve to make all the right decisions concerning technology, but don't trust him to make the right decision to put people around him to get the job done even when he's not around.

"Well he chose GIL AMELIO, didn't he, and look how that turned out for Apple?"

I think he learned his lesson.

 

[JGowan]

Regarding the point about self-honesty, I can think of a few times Apple admitted it was wrong(ish). 1) I remember Jobs admitting Apple was late to the CD burning craze with the CRT iMacs and that ripping and burning CDs with iTunes on iMacs would change that. 2) He also admitted that Apple had been negligent in not being more forthcoming about its environmental policies and plans. 3) Apple has been unusually transparent in publicly regarding Apple TV as a hobby, and saying with Take 2 they think they got it right. 4) They had some contrition regarding the MobileMe roll-out. 5) And with the in-ear headphones, I remember Jobs saying the latest iteration "finally got it right."

Good list -- you left out the $100 store credit they gave to potentially 1,000,000 people who had bought the iPhone and then prices dramatically dropped after a couple months.

Integrity.

 

[iPhoneJoe]

apple will be fine as long as jobs is still around

 

[Jayomat]

Apple doesn't care about being the biggest company on the block, they make a name for themselves and boatloads of money by producing the best computers on the planet (they've said that themselves, and I fully agree).

jW

They do not produce the best computers, by far not, but the best OS!

 

[amort]

They do not produce the best computers, by far not, but the best OS!

Let's say the best consumer computer experience, this includes of course the OS and the shiny computers even though they aren't perfect!

 

[WardC]

Tim Cook, plus ideas for Apple right now.

Just want to get some facts:

Does anybody know how long Tim Cook has been with Apple? What positions he has served during his whole tenure with Apple?

Was Cook with Apple during the Spindler days? During the Amelio days? How well ingrained in his brain are the intricacies of the Mac OS, the Mac architecture, and everything ranging from GUI to ROMs? ie - how well does the man really know his stuff.

I have heard alot of great things about Tim Cook, and I feel confident in his leadership right now. Maybe more important than being a "tech guru" on the Mac system, I am more concerned with his philosophy about the Mac.

We want to see Apple find a a way to sell more Macs, increase market share, and help to even make a bigger dent over the Windows world of breakdown-plasticPC boxes in the future. I mean, selling quality Macs at a price the public can afford, and doing it effectively.

The Mac has lost its foot in the world as a powerful business Machine, and it has gained popularity in the media arts, music, video production, and Mac is doing well with college students. The Mac is doing great right now, it could be doing better. Of course, the only reason it is not making the mass-scale proliferation we would hope to see is on the price level. I think we would all agree to that.

That is some tough philosophy to get through, and the words are "but we would have to greatly compromise on quality" (The words from the fruit company) Apple may not have considered scaling back on processor speed and introducing a super-scaled down model of the iMac (re-intro of 17") and the Mac Mini, maybe a 1.66GHz Core 2 or something. Sell them for $650 and $329 respectively. Guaranteed business.

These are things Apple must consider in this day, in this age, in this crippled economy of early 2009. Making sacrifices on horsepower and jolt but delivering an economical, still amply buzzing machine with elegance and top level design features. Just a few ideas for Apple. Keeping prices high and lofty is driving people away from the platform right now, in my opinion. A $2800 laptop. No iMac under $1000. Mac Mini in stagnation, still priced high.

That's all to say for now

 

[Eric S.]

Just want to get some facts:

Does anybody know how long Tim Cook has been with Apple? What positions he has served during his whole tenure with Apple?

Some of your questions are answered here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_D._Cook
http://www.apple.com/pr/bios/cook.html

 

[IJ Reilly]

The Mac has lost its foot in the world as a powerful business Machine, and it has gained popularity in the media arts, music, video production, and Mac is doing well with college students. The Mac is doing great right now, it could be doing better. Of course, the only reason it is not making the mass-scale proliferation we would hope to see is on the price level. I think we would all agree to that.

No. In fact, I can't really follow any part of what you are arguing here.

 

[kdarling]

Good list -- you left out the $100 store credit they gave to potentially 1,000,000 people who had bought the iPhone and then prices dramatically dropped after a couple months.

Yeah, after they first deleted literally thousands of protesting, screaming, and threatening posts on the Apple iPhone forum, from incredibly angry early buyers.

Integrity.

Hardly. They tried their usual mass censorship first, but were quickly overcome by their fear of deadly PR fallout.

 

[WardC]

No. In fact, I can't really follow any part of what you are arguing here.

I had to re-read what you were saying and delete a long response I had ready, because I see why that was confusing.

If Apple could take a "bigger bite" out of the Windows world, it would be great. People are still flocking to buy Windows machines, for various reasons. Us Mac people have stuck by our machines for our reasons, some of the chief being:

1. We know our computers are designed better, they're solid, and perform with mininal problems

2. We know the Mac OS is a solid, fluid, practically bug-free system, Mac OS is the most advanced and frankly simple and elegant system around, it's easy to navigate, and our peripherals integrate seamlessly

3. We know the Mac OS is faaaaar^∞ better than Windows.

That said, those of us that use a Mac, know why the Mac is truly a better system. We are paying a premium (and have been) to partake in this kind of unique technology. Even at Apple's base-level for entry level machines, you are looking at several hundred dollars more than a PC/Windows system - a PC that that can run FireFox, run Office, play every PC game, play movies, do video editing, etc....

I don't want to be un-Mac and say "the attraction to buy a Mac is a fad" or say that "It is basically like wanting a Bentley over a Toyota and shelling out for it" , because essentially that IS EXACTLY the way sooome people do see it. Rather, it is not just a different brand of computer, but a completely different engineered computer. From the OS to the software to the internal architechture, to the Chassis it's far different from a Dell or an HP, etc.

Now!! -- getting to the whole reason for my reply here. The Macintosh, ie the Mac 128k a la 1984 ....WAS designed to be the ultimate computer for business. Yes, business. The programs were oriented towards business, and the Mac was going to take storm and be every company's dream.

We all know that in the 25 years since then, the Mac has taken on a much different role. It is still a very effective business computer (my Dad is an attorney and he uses one everyday) -- but...most large companies/offices do not employ Mac computers as their mainstay. The PC running Windows dominates. Even on floors of Wallstreet. Maybe this is just the way it was meant to be, as if Apple didn't want to become a "mass-produced cubicle workclone" Perhaps. But it would be nice if we could get more people using Macs.

...and affordability is the key.

(That was my point)

 

[Eric S.]

Now!! -- getting to the whole reason for my reply here. The Macintosh, ie the Mac 128k a la 1984 ....WAS designed to be the ultimate computer for business. Yes, business. The programs were oriented towards business, and the Mac was going to take storm and be every company's dream.

MacWrite and MacPaint? I don't think so.

Back in those days, small businesses (too small for IBM or HP systems, for example) which might have previously been running CP/M or an early DOS version, were just starting to make the switch to Unix. A number of companies like Zilog, Onyx, Altos, Unisoft, and then Sun, jumped into the Unix-on-microcomputer business. These were business-oriented systems, and Apple's Mac was not in that league for a long time.

 

[Wie Gehts]

Gee... why the @$%#! would anyone believe a word of anything out of the mouth and any corporate officer these days.

I wouldn't trust any of these bastards for so much as the time of day.....and it doesn't makes any difference whether they're shilling good news or bad. They're pathological liars.

 

[casik]

Good to see that the Apple philosophy goes past Steve and will last a long time.

 

[celavato]

Steve Jobs' leadership, as visionary as it has been overall, has led to some limited product offerings in the last few years. My hope would be that new leadership would give us increased development on some of these product lines that have been stunted lately.

Here's the problem -- desktop sales are in decline so don't expect much investment there. I'm typing this message on a Mac Pro so don't kill the messenger.

Ultimately, though, I believe that laptops will be squeezed out. Instead, you'll have an iPhone-like device far more powerful than today's Mac Pro that you can plug into a monitor and keyboard when you're home.

 

[IJ Reilly]

MacWrite and MacPaint? I don't think so.

Back in those days, small businesses (too small for IBM or HP systems, for example) which might have previously been running CP/M or an early DOS version, were just starting to make the switch to Unix. A number of companies like Zilog, Onyx, Altos, Unisoft, and then Sun, jumped into the Unix-on-microcomputer business. These were business-oriented systems, and Apple's Mac was not in that league for a long time.

I was going to say. Also, the Mac from the start was marketed as the "computer for the rest of us." It was the un-corporate choice. Apple positioned the Mac, at the very beginning, as the anti-IBM computer. For better or worse.

So that was then. What about now? Strangely enough, not much has changed. Apple isn't marketing to the corporate world, which isn't to say that they aren't interested in business sales outside of a few niches. What eludes Apple now is what has eluded Apple from the very start. They're never going to go mass-market in the way we think of the Windows PC industry as mass-market. They simply cannot provide the huge variety of hardware product currently offered by the Windows PC industry, much of it at virtually unprofitable prices. They are one company; the PC industry is many companies.

Even more to the point, they are not going to stage a full-frontal assault on Microsoft, when they can gain through a series of artful flanking actions. That is what Apple is doing so successfully now. I don't see any need for them to change course.

 

[JoeCoolDaddio]

Read "Inside Steve's Brain"

Fortune's Adam Lashinsky apparently hasn't yet read the book Inside Steve's Brain by Leander Kahney. Tim Cook could have been quoting from that book when he was delivering his "Cook Doctrine". In fact, Kahney could have written it! If you really want to understand what makes Apple tick - read it. It is fascinating and has some lessons for those of us at other companies on how to be successful.

Lashinsky asks some questions in his article:

" It raised so many questions too. Other than the company's proprietary operating systems, what technologies was Cook referring to? What are some projects Apple has considered and rejected? When has the company been wrong -- and been "self-honest" about it? What's an example of the culture being so embedded that things work, even when Jobs isn't involved? " ​

These questions are the tip off because they are addressed in Inside Steve's Brain. Now I'm not trying to bash Adam Lashinsky, just pointing out that Cook's speech is what one would expect Apple Exec's to say in this interim without Steve Jobs. Lashinsky is spot on in his observation that Tim Cook comes across as a formidable leader at Apple and could one day take the reins from Steve. After all, it has been 12 years since Steve came back to Apple and he has instilled his vision and principles deeply into the organization. Looking good so far Tim!

JoeCoolDaddio

 

[Mactagonist]

Tim Cook does seem like the clear front runner for the job. If he does well in the next 6 months I think it will be his to lose.