51–60 of 407 posts
Personally, I'd hate to have his position. I can't imagine the pressure of trying to fill the shoes of Steve.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What point does it make? I am not interested in buying the book, but to me it suggests that Apple highly values design and its design team. I think the book is something Steve Jobs would have loved.
Would have loved, Sure. Would have done, No.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twentieth_Anniversary_Macintos...
That's a way bigger time/money sink than allowing your designers to put together an art book of Apple products.
How is Tim Cook still CEO of Apple? Forget sales for a moment and just consider the damage Apple's brand is suffering. $300 books, headphone jacks, unreliable cloud services, missed product launches. In may ways Apples becoming the butt of jokes, a symbol of ignorance. Apple's in total disarray right now and the most loyal followers, myself included, are either jumping ship or seriously considering. The mistakes bein…
The company you say is in "total disarray" still made $45.7bn in profit in 2016, and grew its share price by 10%. Those are the facts. Outside of the technology bubble, most people don't know or care about many of the issues you cited, or what "loyal followers" on internet forums think. Major investors, who are the only people who could force Cook out, care about the numbers. And while Apple's revenue declined this y…
I see no evidence that Apple's products are becoming less popular. The iPhone is still the go to smartphone that I would recommend to anyone. I have switched back and forth between iPhone and Android since they came out, but I would never recommend an Android phone to a casual user. If they want the newest phone they get the iPhone 7. If they just want a phone the iPhone SE is a great phone for the price. It will last years and be secure with continued security software updates.
The Apple Watch is the only smartwatch I've seen bought en mass by non-techies.
The MacBooks are still the go to laptop for college students that can afford it. With the exception of some engineering circles where the Surface is popular, MacBooks are ubiquitous.
And while the AirPods had a delayed launch, they are in my opinion an amazing first gen Apple product. The ease of use and quality of the Bluetooth connection is not something I've experienced in Bluetooth before.
It's not really a "pay cut"; he's not receiving the maximum potential value of his incentive bonus.
Apple should have removed the indicator that showed Tim Cook what his sales goals were.
How is Tim Cook still CEO of Apple? Forget sales for a moment and just consider the damage Apple's brand is suffering. $300 books, headphone jacks, unreliable cloud services, missed product launches. In may ways Apples becoming the butt of jokes, a symbol of ignorance. Apple's in total disarray right now and the most loyal followers, myself included, are either jumping ship or seriously considering. The mistakes bein…
The company you say is in "total disarray" still made $45.7bn in profit in 2016, and grew its share price by 10%. Those are the facts. Outside of the technology bubble, most people don't know or care about many of the issues you cited, or what "loyal followers" on internet forums think. Major investors, who are the only people who could force Cook out, care about the numbers. And while Apple's revenue declined this y…
Yes, I would be happy to take their recent results in my own business and wouldn't at all be disappointed. You could also point out that management may well be taking the long view of a post-Jobs Apple and giving Cook room to find that Apple of the future... as opposed to being driven purely by short term results/quarterly reports: something that I think many on HN condemn in other contexts.
Still... think of post-Gates Microsoft. They had huge momentum (which showed in the financials as well), but everybody including me thought there was something deeply wrong with Microsoft, too. They were coasting on that momentum and doing very little aside from coddling their more conservative customers... just as you suggest Apple can get away with. Microsoft was losing their leading position and was getting on the slow death-march path. They may have turned that around while they still could.
No doubt, casting MAJOR screw-ups aside, Apple will not die as a company anytime soon. Apple and Cook are still completely in position to turn things around. But atrophy and possibility of ending-up as some sort of also-ran... that's not impossible and it's also fair to point that out.
Apple has always made controversial decisions of this fashion in its history, many today don't remember because they weren't Apple customers then. I think those who said Steve Jobs wouldn't have let these decisions happen couldn't be further from the truth. But these decisions have usually paid off, there just were less people then to notice/complain.
A lot of the decisions made on the products released last year actually make a lot of sense to me. If anything, Apple should simply stop including the earpods with the iPhone to reduce confusion and waste. Moving away from the headphone jack is not just about wireless and space, but making the DAC part of the speakers/drivers system. The lightning port is destined to disappear eventually too, with induction or wireless charging.
I think a lot of this is the result of Apple being ahead of the curve (and partly driving it), and is consistent with Apple looking ahead and delivering long-term value products. A wise investor would see the stance of the company keeping course for the vision in the face of such bad publicity as a good sign it hasn't lost its edge.
How is Tim Cook still CEO of Apple? Forget sales for a moment and just consider the damage Apple's brand is suffering. $300 books, headphone jacks, unreliable cloud services, missed product launches. In may ways Apples becoming the butt of jokes, a symbol of ignorance. Apple's in total disarray right now and the most loyal followers, myself included, are either jumping ship or seriously considering. The mistakes bein…
I am waiting for a Windows phone to make the jump. I still have an iPhone 4S and have exactly zero interest in upgrading.
How is Tim Cook still CEO of Apple? Forget sales for a moment and just consider the damage Apple's brand is suffering. $300 books, headphone jacks, unreliable cloud services, missed product launches. In may ways Apples becoming the butt of jokes, a symbol of ignorance. Apple's in total disarray right now and the most loyal followers, myself included, are either jumping ship or seriously considering. The mistakes bein…
Because he was the COO that made them the most valuable company on earth, and the CEO that hit record points and maintained that position?
>just consider the damage Apple's brand is suffering. $300 books, headphone jacks, unreliable cloud services, missed product launches.
They always had BS hyperbole against them. It's the easiest click-bait target for hack journalists.
And those "unreliable cloud services" not only are much more reliable than they were in Jobs day (their old Cloud stuff was a joke) but earn tens of billions (just the iOS app store paid around 20 billion dollars to developers in 2016 alone), and are used by close to a billion people.
Your whole list of complains for damage to the brand is BS:
"$300 books" -> They put out a high-end, limited run, coffee table book. Didn't force anyone to buy it, and it's just a homage to their 30+ years of design work.
"headphone jacks" -> Competitors already had models out without headphone jack, and Samsung is following suit too. Some people might lament them, but going forward they bet on wireless for most people -- plus they offer an adaptor so all existing headphones can be used.
"unreliable cloud services" -> Compared to what? And how? I already spoke about their Cloud services above anyway.
"missed product launches" -> It's not the first time and it's not a big deal either. When you design for million unit production runs (unlike the smaller runs of competitors with 50+ product configurations), and you push the envelope in construction, machining, engineering tolerances, etc, you get those things. Not many places that can arbitrarily manufacture your stuff. They could always put out cruder products and get them out faster, but that's not their thing. Besides, Intel delays launches all the time, Microsoft has done it time and again, Google and co put out BS projects that often get lauded from the press for innovation but are half-thought, sell badly and get pulled (Google Glass for one, several first iterations of the Surface, etc.).