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John Ternus to become Apple CEO

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Re: John Ternus to become Apple CEO

#561

I know the rumors were swirling for the past few months, but just 4 more months of Cook seems like pretty short notice, no?

Consider that is mostly public headway. Behind the scenes the handover, mentorship, alignment I am sure was already happening for a while. E.g. you probably don't want the incoming CEO to have to immediately clean house or people might end up doubting their decisions, getting anxious or similar. The previous CEO can start retiring, moving people around to clear out possibly problematic leaders, break up internal "gan…

Yup. The rumor mill was talking about a CEO change for a while, and around the time you saw the rumors building you saw the departures you mentioned. Ternus was being mentioned as the likely successor at least back to November last year. So internally the shifts have already been happening for some time, only observable on the outside via the high profile departures.

Re: John Ternus to become Apple CEO

#562

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple’s software is the best in the non-free software world compared to Google's or Microsoft's, IMO. But that doesn't mean it can't be better.

What metrics or experiences lead you to that conclusion? I've used basically all of the major operating systems for 30+ years and I cannot stand macOS. I use a Mac as one of my work devices, and off the top of my head: * Basic things such as window management require third party tools to get things that are table stakes everywhere else. Even with third party tools doing anything with a "full screen" mode is not going…

> You can't have separate scroll directions for your trackpad and your external mouse.

The worst. There are even separate toggles in Settings for mouse and trackpad scrolling direction, but changing one changes the other. It is truly amazing that this has persisted for 15 years.

Re: John Ternus to become Apple CEO

#565

Is the loyalty represented by the golden trophy transferrable? Or is it tied to each CEO, like Applecare+?

> As executive chairman, Cook will assist with certain aspects of the company, including engaging with policymakers around the world.

It sounds like Cook will continue to get the dirty work of pleasing world leaders while Ternus can focus on actually running the company.

Re: John Ternus to become Apple CEO

#566

Tim Cook’s experience in logistics built Apple into the global hegemon it is today. I hope John Ternus’s experience with hardware can kick off a renaissance in both Apple hardware and software design. Mind you, Apple hardware is already amazing, but hopefully it can be even better with Ternus at the helm. Apple software is terrible, and hopefully Ternus can turn that around. I’m also hoping, without any evidence, tha…

Apple’s software is the best in the non-free software world compared to Google's or Microsoft's, IMO. But that doesn't mean it can't be better.

What do you mean? Most if not all Apple's software is not even the best in their own category, let alone "in the non-free software world compared to Google's or Microsoft's". If we look at only these three and leave other competitors, you want to tell us that Safari is better than Chrome (Edge is the same now), Pages is better than Docs and Word, Numbers is better than Sheets and Excel, Keynote is better than Slides (arguably) or PowerPoint, Mail is better than Gmail or Outlook, iCloud better than Google Drive or OneDrive (ok lol), Facetime better than Meet or Teams, Apple Maps better than Google Maps or Bing Maps, Siri better than Google Assistant or Copilot... ?

Outside the two.. Fina Cut better than Premiere Pro or Resolve or Avid, Logic Pro better than Pro Tools or Ableton or many others, Motion better than After Effects, Pixelmator better than anything from Adobe or Affinity..

Come on, my dude. Only thing I haven't mentioned is OS only because that's a religion and I don't fall into MacOS one.

Apple's hardware game is strong. Software isn't, never has been.

Re: John Ternus to become Apple CEO

#567

I've been critical of Cook at times because I feel his vision was a business vision more than the kind of futurism I felt from Jobs. Cook was the ultimate bean counter, hyper-optimizing Apple from a financial and operational perspective. I felt like he took less risks and was mostly squeezing every single advantage that Apple had to its limit. But I cannot argue with the results the man achieved. Especially the trans…

The Vision Pro's failings are IMHO not software or hardware related but a poorly executed platform strategy for content. Apple's reflex to build walled gardens has crippled the effort. And it's not the first time. Their Apple TV strategy was held back for years as well. Great hardware. Very cheap. You can plug it into any TV. It's not a bad game console even. But it lacked games. And streaming TV channels. And for a long time also streaming content. Apple fixed that eventually but Apple TV remains a distant competitor to more main stream platforms such as Netflix, which works on just about anything. Just like Youtube, Hulu, Amazon Prime, HBO, Disney, and all the rest. Apple TV at this point is an also ran that apparently is barely profitable. A few nice TV series but very much a niche player. The Apple TV hardware is more or less irrelevant at this point. And despite the name, Apple never made a TV or much of a dent into conquering the living room.

Macs are great for gaming in terms of hardware. But other gaming platforms dominate the market. And Apple's walled garden approach is so effective that Steam's proton doesn't work on its platforms (so far). And its attempt to convince game developers to use Apple specific SDKs like Metal and build platforms are not really making any dent in the overall gaming market, which now eclipses Hollywood in terms of revenue and budgets. From a developer point of view it remains a highly crippled platform. And the Apple tax isn't helping.

Seen against this background, the Vision Pro is a strategic content failure. Very few 3D games work on it. Very little new 3D content is developed for it. Apple's insistence on our way or the highway continues to have developers preferring the highway. There are a few decades worth of back catalog of VR games, 3D movies, etc. Most of which flat out won't work on the Vision Pro or aren't licensed for it. They could fix that but that would require investing in content/licensing deals, compatibility/emulation, etc. And by making the core product so expensive, it basically became a niche product. And without content that remains a hard sell. It does not make sense for productions with hundreds of millions of budget (i.e. most 3D games and movies) to be targeting such a niche platform. And it does not make sense for end users to buy the product if there is no good content and if most of the good content is never released for it.

It's a very fixable problem. Valve is leading the way with Proton currently. That strategy is very portable to macs and the Vision pro. There is very little technical reason to stop that from working. And Apple has been chipping away at their own portability kit. But they are so far not really committing to it fully. They should be filling the Apple store with decades worth of great content that just works on Apple HW. As it is there is only a relatively small collection of old content that has been ported.

Re: John Ternus to become Apple CEO

#568
post #467

While I don't agree with many things Cook has done during his tenure, like the Touch Bar and removing the SD card slot from MacBooks, I have to admit the man knows how to make money.

I don't like that Tim Cook added the touch bar and removed the SD card slot, but you have to give him credit for also removing the touch bar and adding the SD card slot ;)

Hah, had a funny moment along these lines. SD vs MicroSD came up as a topic. I glanced down at my M3 MBP and said, “looks like MacBook Pros use the regular SD slot.” The guy solemnly informed me that actually, Apple had removed the SD card slot from my laptop. His face turned red when I turned it to show him.

Re: John Ternus to become Apple CEO

#569
post #533

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plus his degree is in mechanical engineering. I wonder how he climbed up the ranks of hardware engineering with a degree in mechanical engineering. Quite amazing.

> I wonder how he climbed up the ranks of hardware engineering with a degree in mechanical engineering. Quite amazing. Given the level of mathematics I’ve seen involved in hardware, I’d assume the average mech eng. has a better chance than the average software eng.

What would mathematics have to do with internal company politics, a soft/people skill demanding job?

Re: John Ternus to become Apple CEO

#570
post #338

I hope Ternus can turn this ship. Apple wasted the last 5 years without any significant innovation/revolution or even without significant evolution. No groundbreaking change from iphone 12 pro in current iphone 17 pro. Before we had many groundbreaking features that redefined how you use smarphone: - gps - flashlight (yes everybody with flashlight in the pocket!) - front selfie camera + video calls - compass + accele…

Don't forget about the Apple Car. 100% of that failed, and Tim spent a decade on it. Quite a bit of attention on here, but it seems we've quickly forgotten all about it since it was never seen. https://hn.algolia.com/?q=apple+car

I forgot all about the Apple car when assessing Tim's legacy, too.

I guess if you are gonna fail, fail so deeply that it doesn't affect your legacy :P

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