Not soon enough.
There has been increasing discussion about Tim Cook eventually stepping down as Apple's CEO, but reports have offered differing timelines.
A few months ago, the Financial Times reported that Apple was preparing for Cook to step down as soon as early 2026. In his Power On newsletter today, however, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said that timeframe "seems unlikely."
Gurman previously said he would be "shocked" if Cook stepped down before the middle of 2026, so he might remain CEO through WWDC in June at a minimum.
There has been speculation that Cook might become the chairman of Apple's board of directors after he steps down as CEO, but it seems like that transition will not happen imminently, as Apple's current chairman Arthur D. Levinson is up for re-election at the company's annual shareholders meeting on February 24.
Apple has a guideline stating that directors generally may not stand for re-election after age 75, but the company asked shareholders to make an exemption for 75-year-old Levinson, due to his significant experience and expertise.
Apple's Senior Vice President of Hardware Engineering, John Ternus, is widely viewed as Cook's most likely successor. Earlier this week, Gurman reported that Cook gave oversight of Apple's design teams to Ternus at the end of last year, and he said this move makes it "crystal clear" that Ternus is the leading CEO candidate.
Cook has been Apple's CEO since August 2011, and he reached the typical retirement age of 65 last year. It is sounding more and more likely that his time in charge of the company is inching towards the end, but Gurman seems confident that a passing of the baton is still many months away at least, rather than something that is imminent.
Article Link: When Will Tim Cook Step Down as Apple CEO? Here's What Reports Say
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When Will Tim Cook Step Down as Apple CEO? Here's What Reports Say
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I’d love to see John take the helm.
Cook can’t step down fast enough as in even yesterday. Software is buggy and unreliable, innovation missing, and the ecosystem sterile. Plus do away with the hiring based on epidermis and do it based on qualifications.
Given the established club of key operational execs from which the Board will pick, does not really matter. Personally, I do not care who gets it. I just wish Apple would do something about software quality. Please fix this.
Because making iPhone accessories limits them to iPhone accessories instead of investing in entirely new product spaces.
I think the people who are whining about Tim are in for a rude awakening if they think the next CEO is going to be much different. I suspect the Cook hate boils down to homophobia because, by any objective measure, he's been an outstanding CEO, the best Apple has ever had.
I don't like how buggy Apple software has gotten, but I'm also not delusional. Apple software has always been pretty buggy. The whole Snow Leopard update was an outright admission that Leopard was a rat's nest of bugs. I certainly don't long for the days of Conflict Catcher on my classic macOS machines either. If only people would stop deluding themselves into believing that the past was some golden age.
Apple is now a HUGE corporation and huge corporations aren't nimble and rarely take chances. Anyone expecting the next CEO to throw open the floodgates of innovation is going to be sorely disappointed. Apple has been very innovative under Cook. Love it or hate it, Vision Pro is a very innovative product. It's not for me, but I'm not going to pretend that it isn't some very cool cutting-edge technology either.
It's also not like Apple has a backlog of wildly innovative products that wicked Tim Cook is keeping from the world. The next CEO will likely stay the course. Cook's formula has worked exceedingly well for Apple. The next person isn't going to make any radical changes when the company is raking in the dough and sitting at the top of the most admired companies list for yet another year. This holds doubly true if the next CEO comes from within Apple, ie: Ternus.
I don't like how buggy Apple software has gotten, but I'm also not delusional. Apple software has always been pretty buggy. The whole Snow Leopard update was an outright admission that Leopard was a rat's nest of bugs. I certainly don't long for the days of Conflict Catcher on my classic macOS machines either. If only people would stop deluding themselves into believing that the past was some golden age.
Apple is now a HUGE corporation and huge corporations aren't nimble and rarely take chances. Anyone expecting the next CEO to throw open the floodgates of innovation is going to be sorely disappointed. Apple has been very innovative under Cook. Love it or hate it, Vision Pro is a very innovative product. It's not for me, but I'm not going to pretend that it isn't some very cool cutting-edge technology either.
It's also not like Apple has a backlog of wildly innovative products that wicked Tim Cook is keeping from the world. The next CEO will likely stay the course. Cook's formula has worked exceedingly well for Apple. The next person isn't going to make any radical changes when the company is raking in the dough and sitting at the top of the most admired companies list for yet another year. This holds doubly true if the next CEO comes from within Apple, ie: Ternus.
Can you imagine Apple abandoning the macOS and porting all of their products over to Linux? Then they could focus on the things that they seem interested in doing well.
The fact you think I dont like Cook because of homophobia is unwarranted and a HUGE incorrect assumption.
Perhaps it’s because the leaps they made under Jobs and the marriage of design/ software / hardware with him and Jonny Ive created many impressive new designs and products.
The hardware wasn’t always perfect, but it was quickly remedied. The software the same. Nothing man made is ever perfect. But it’s how you recover it and put the customer first.
Cook has been more focused on political issues than products and his orientation doesn’t matter. Nor should it even be a point of discussion. It’s a private matter and should be kept that way. Instead, I’d just say you’re a prude and leave it at that.
Too bad he can't stay on for longer. He's been a fantastic CEO for Apple
Oh geez. Give me a break. He's a CEO, not the product designer. A big part of his job is navigating the political minefield. He's been extremely successful at it, much to Apple's benefit. As for products, under Cook we've gotten Apple Silicon, Vision Pro, HomePod, AirPods Max...along with numerous enhancements and updates to existing product lines like satellite messaging and SOS features on the iPhone.
What exactly are you expecting from him? Do you really think the next CEO is going to suddenly dazzle you with all kinds of new products that Cook was somehow, what, denying the world, keeping locked away all for himself? Do you think the exact same people who work for Apple today and develop all the products and software are going to suddenly become different people and satisfy your entitled tech cravings when Cook is replaced?
Hilarious.
Well said, I concur!
Precisely!
Until Cook became obsessed with politics and being seen in that arena, the state of Apple wasn’t as tumultuous as it is presently.
What state is that? The state of record profits? Another year at the top of the most admired companies in the world list? Tumultuous? Lol. You're obviously an Apple newbie because the Cook years have been the most stables years Apple has ever seen.
Cook isn't obsessed with politics. He's doing his job. He's the CEO, not the product designer. A huge part of his job is reducing friction for Apple in the market. That means building relationships with lawmakers. He's been extremely successful at it. He's largely avoided Trump tariffs. He's deftly navigated all of the ups and downs with China and India.
I dunno. Your remark about epidermis hiring was pretty telling, tbh.
I’ll respond to your laughable points while I try and toy with the terrible auto predict that there are videos on YouTube of where you type the right letter and it still selects the wrong one.
Things we’ve gotten, Vision Pro (terrible, own one sold the other and this last one is still for sale, Apple won’t even take them for trade), HomePods are an immature product and have had the big ones and went down to the minis and upgraded to Sonos because Apple thought small on that front as well. They frequently can’t compete basic tasks and are being sold off as well in my household. Not impressed. AirPods Max can’t be worn over 45 min in a normal inside environment before they get sweaty and I’m not a sweaty guy. They just don’t breathe. They sound wonderful, but they aren’t long use items. Satellite messaging and SoS are nice and worthy things. It also nothing earth shattering. Just coding an accelerometer to respond on a certain type of impact. Oh and their advertised EKG feature, I know of someone who passed away from likely a heart attack and the silly Apple Watch said it was a perfect sinus rhythm. Their stuff isn’t as polished as it needs or should be.
I expect him to look at emerging technologies and find ways to drive costs down by volume purchasing and introduce those new items ahead of the competition. Not breadcrumb the customer. I bought a Samsung fold 7 last summer because I was fed up with Apple and all the misses like Siri etc (they are going with google because they couldn’t get their own LLM to work in case you missed it, but I’m guessing you call that an apple
Success story as well). If it wasn’t for the issues with movies g to android and the operating system I would have stayed. The hardware was night and day better than Apple. Also? I’d love to see solid state batteries on devices and how thin light and re usable they are plus energy dense. But Apple is likely not because of the bottom line. People will find the money for products they truly want. Apple just is content to use the “we don’t want to be first but rather the best” line and welll…. It’s almost February and iOS 26 is still a **** show. So hope that helps.
Also navigating political issues, a ceo can do that, but Jobs was doing that behind the scenes and not trying to get all the publicity Cook does. Tim likes to be in the light when he doesn’t do a ton IMHO.
And yet it needs to be said whatever your opinion Apple is breaking revenue records so there is that.
When has Apple EVER done this? They are ALWAYS late to the party. They've never introduced products ahead of the competition. They always let others test the market. This has been true for decades.
Ok, so you don't like Apple products. Hope you like your Fold! What are you complaining about? The fact that Apple wasn't first with a folding phone? Like they weren't first with an MP3 player? Or first with a smartphone? Or first with a tablet? Or first with headphones? Or first with a smart watch?
The other thing that needs to be said is that no other company is delivering better products. Apple and Cook are held to ridiculous standards. Cook is arguably the most successful CEO in history yet people who can't even write proper sentences or spell correctly are online every day complaining about him.
Whatever problems Apple has, and there are problems for sure, Apple continues to deliver products that rival anything else on the market with an arguably better overall use experience. Criticism always seems to boil down to entitlement. Certain people seem to feel entitled to being wowed by Apple and they are unhappy with how technology has plateaued.
Rather than recognize that the plateau is industry-wide, they focus exclusively on Apple. And when asked who is delivering these amazing cutting-edge products that Apple should be delivering...if only that Cook buffoon were gone!...they never have an answer.
Anyone who thinks the next CEO is going to make serious changes at Apple is delusional. Cook has built an incredibly well-run machine. I honestly don't expect much, if anything, to change in terms of how Apple is run or what kinds of products it releases. I also suspect the Cook haters will hate the next CEO just as much.
I personally would have put better capable and navigate in quotation marks but I can see both sides. Let’s wait & see what ‘27 & ‘28 lame duck years have in store. The best thing he ever failed at is Apple Intelligence. I still like Apple hardware, especially the Mac, and I’m so grateful that he prevented the OSs from being infected with consumer A.I.
Those were rhetorical questions. I had no doubt there. It was a question for the folks who made the assertion there hasn't been a successful product since the iPhone. The corner case that some of those folks will obsess about is that there is a small dependency on the watch app (which is still unnecessarily iPhone only. There is no deep seated technical reason for that at this point.). However, it is still a legitimate non-iPhone device that was successfully created under Cook's tenure as CEO.
The Anti-Cook, all-hail-Saint-Steve folks are constantly saying there has been no successful product since the iPhone.
there is also little 'mystery' about how well Intel's acquistion of MacAfee turned out over the long term either for anyone who bothers to look it up.
again all of that expansion outside of the Apple ecosystem started happening in 2019 while Steve Jobs died in 2011. ( and post the creation of the iPhone as a product even earlier).
what are you talking about? Airpods at the core use Bluetooth. Some features missing, but the basic function of speaker/mic works with non-iPhone. Apple has a line-uip of Beats headphones that are not quite as purposely crippled.
Standards based MagSafe batteries work with other brands of phones that implement the required standards.
iCloud... there is no Android app, but Apple has apps on Windows. ( The lack of Android app is more so Apple being trifling than technically necessary. )
Apple is doing end-to-end encrypted RCS pretty soon after being after dragging their feet for years.
Given the iPad and Mac also run Apple Silicon there is no good technical reason why the Watch app should be limited to just the iPhone. ( the Watch really isn't an iPhone accessory. It is only lazy software development that partially makes it look that way. )
Creepy tracking warnings from planted AirTag are not necessarily restricted to iPhone either.
the HomePods at this point use Apple Watch SoCs. Not iPhone ones. But would it makes sense to use a SoC that wasn't in any other Apple product to enter that market? No. HomePods are not an iPhone accessory.
If Apple builds a Private cloud computer server that is also not an iPhone (only) accessory.
On the next quarterly financial report it quite likely that "Services" will be even closer to pulling even with iPhone. that is also not an iPhone accessory.
Tim is a fantastic processes and supply chain management leader. He isn’t per se a great product man like Steve was because Steve was an excellent sales man.
Ideally you do need some of both and Tim not launching some new products to diversify from the iPhone is troubling. You can only optimize so much.
For a process man with a ton of cash, the car not launching is troubling.
Ideally you do need some of both and Tim not launching some new products to diversify from the iPhone is troubling. You can only optimize so much.
For a process man with a ton of cash, the car not launching is troubling.