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Apple cuts Tim Cook's pay 15% for missing sales goals

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Re: Apple cuts Tim Cook's pay 15% for missing sales goals

#111
As clickbait bot would say "his salary went up from $2m to $3m/yr, and only his bonus got one-time slashed, still giving him $8.7m this year". This is not information worth reading on hackernews. If the article actually went into real detail why the sales goals were missed, and what made them reasonable goals in the first place, maybe that would have been a worthwhile article to read.

Re: Apple cuts Tim Cook's pay 15% for missing sales goals

#112
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh how quickly the Steve Jobs era is forgotten. Remember the white iPhone 4 that was delayed almost a year after Steve announced it? Or when they changed from the 30 pin to Lightning? Or when they dumped the floppy and optical drive? Apple is focused on the iPhone because that's where almost all their profits come from. It's annoying for us long time Mac users, but even Steve was focused on iOS devices when he died.…

The hockey puck mouse and the iPod HiFi might deserve places on that list.

I got the HiFi, but yes that mouse! Also his complete rejection of the obviously better multiple button mice in general. That was literally form blocking the way of function.

Re: Apple cuts Tim Cook's pay 15% for missing sales goals

#113
post #68

People are all up in arms about headphone jacks, USB-C, and dongles. When the real issue is Apple completely missing huge new markets. Apple had Siri out and was in the lead with voice control, then they wasted it. I never use Siri, she is nearly worthless, but I do use Alexa multiple times a day. Amazon is Leading the voice assistant market, and Google is right on their heels. Home automation was supposed to get bet…

Steve and the unified vision is gone. While on winter holidays my fiance pointed out to me: - She just got a new Macbook Pro from her new job, which has only USB C ports - She just got a new iPhone 7 from her new job, which is only a Lightning port She cannot connect her phone to her computer to charge without a dongle. EDIT: a Lightning to USB C cable does exist now. That is still equivalent to a dongle in my opinio…

>the unified vision is gone.

I disagree, their unified vision is a wireless one. But you could say they rushed it at the expense of the consumer.

Re: Apple cuts Tim Cook's pay 15% for missing sales goals

#114
post #102
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh how quickly the Steve Jobs era is forgotten. Remember the white iPhone 4 that was delayed almost a year after Steve announced it? Or when they changed from the 30 pin to Lightning? Or when they dumped the floppy and optical drive? Apple is focused on the iPhone because that's where almost all their profits come from. It's annoying for us long time Mac users, but even Steve was focused on iOS devices when he died.…

Lightning came out pretty long after Steve Jobs died. And I thought it was generally agreed — not right at the time, but not long afterward — that Apple made the right call getting rid of floppy drives on their Internet-focused consumer machines.

Fair point, though it was close enough that I bet he knew about it (iPhone hardware has a long lead time).

Re: Apple cuts Tim Cook's pay 15% for missing sales goals

#115
post #110
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Everything new maybe, but old audio gear, monitors/tvs/keyboards/drives, et c stick around a hell of a long time. That's not much of an issue to the kind of customers that can afford a new expensive Apple laptop.

Am I to understand that most people in the market for a $1700 laptop are also going to be OK with replacing $3-10k of perfectly good other equipment at or around the same time?

Yes. They not be "OK" in principle, but they are the demographic most likely to do it (and to be able to do it) anyway.

You mention: "monitors/tvs/keyboards/drives". Well, keyboards and drives are trivial, as they use USB. So those people can just buy a USB-A to USB-C cable for $10 and be done with it (no dongle required if the keyboard doesn't have a fixed cable, and hard disks don't have fixed cables in the first place).

As for tvs and monitors, not sure how hey wont be able to use them with the new Apple devices, but they can afford a new one if they are so inconvenienced to use an adaptor.

Re: Apple cuts Tim Cook's pay 15% for missing sales goals

#116
post #101
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HomeKit doesn't require a proprietary Apple chip, I have no idea where you got that idea. It just has very high security standards.

All I know is that I have Philips Hue lights, Belkin Wemo switches, and a Nest thermostat and none of them connect to HomeKit. For the Hue I have to buy a new bridge, Belkin says that they can't support it without completely new hardware[1], and Nest is completely mum on the issue but presumably there's no hope of support in the near future. These devices all have active developer communities and good API/interaction…

The issue is Apple's security standards.

Re: Apple cuts Tim Cook's pay 15% for missing sales goals

#117
post #104
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing that just makes me throw my hands up in exasperation is that Apple could have been early to the "home hub" game with AppleTV but they just didn't see it. Imagine if, instead of Apple Watch, they had put those folks into building the AppleTV into a home hub based on Siri. I feel like Apple Watch was to be their "always available assistant" but I just don't see it succeeding in that market for most people. (S…

Imagine how so many Sony and then Microsoft fans feel. Either the Playstation or XBox could have been a wonderful device to centralize around in a home. Yet they constantly bungled it from generation to generation. Sony was promising when they had PS2 compatible with PS1. The problem was they each always try to just extend their corporate wall around your home. Rather than giving an inviting place to encourage innova…

Great point- and if I'm not mistaken there was voice recognition available on the XBox 360 and the PS3 through their add-on camera kits, which meant only some relatively small portion of installs had it. Then they both did the exact same thing in the following gen.

The XBox has Cortana, I think, but does the PS4 have a "smart assistant"?

Re: Apple cuts Tim Cook's pay 15% for missing sales goals

#118
post #87
post #68

People are all up in arms about headphone jacks, USB-C, and dongles. When the real issue is Apple completely missing huge new markets. Apple had Siri out and was in the lead with voice control, then they wasted it. I never use Siri, she is nearly worthless, but I do use Alexa multiple times a day. Amazon is Leading the voice assistant market, and Google is right on their heels. Home automation was supposed to get bet…

HomeKit doesn't require a proprietary Apple chip, I have no idea where you got that idea. It just has very high security standards.

> "HomeKit doesn't require a proprietary Apple chip, I have no idea where you got that idea."

A few sources disagree:

http://www.ibtimes.com/apple-homekit-devices-wont-include-go...

> "Apple’s MFi guidelines require manufacturers to use only Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, and also include a specialized chip for authentication"

http://www.digitaltrends.com/home/everything-that-works-with...

> "The certification ensures that these smart home devices have an authentication chip and have undergone rigorous testing to get Apple’s official seal of approval"

http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1327267

> "Apple Inc. requires anyone making a device compatible with its HomeKit environment to buy and use a special identity chip."

Now, I don't have access to the official docs for MFi - so maybe these sources are all wrong. But I'm pretty confident a special chip is required.

Re: Apple cuts Tim Cook's pay 15% for missing sales goals

#119
post #68

People are all up in arms about headphone jacks, USB-C, and dongles. When the real issue is Apple completely missing huge new markets. Apple had Siri out and was in the lead with voice control, then they wasted it. I never use Siri, she is nearly worthless, but I do use Alexa multiple times a day. Amazon is Leading the voice assistant market, and Google is right on their heels. Home automation was supposed to get bet…

Steve and the unified vision is gone. While on winter holidays my fiance pointed out to me: - She just got a new Macbook Pro from her new job, which has only USB C ports - She just got a new iPhone 7 from her new job, which is only a Lightning port She cannot connect her phone to her computer to charge without a dongle. EDIT: a Lightning to USB C cable does exist now. That is still equivalent to a dongle in my opinio…

Unified vision was nice. What interested me first in the Apple ecosystem was its use by high-end pros. Photographers, creatives, filmmakers. Then they announced MacOS X, built upon NeXT/BSD, and the mac pro products.

Now Microsoft has dedicated products for high-end creatives (Surface studio won't sell but still shows interest in pros), Linux Bash shell in windows 10. Meanwhile Apple wants pros to use a 9" tablet instead of a laptop.

Re: Apple cuts Tim Cook's pay 15% for missing sales goals

#120

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…

Many of these same type of things were said about Microsoft during the early Ballmer era. His emphasis of the bottom line over vision and innovation inflicted a lot of damage that Microsoft is still recovering from. Yes, total disarray is an exaggeration, Apple isn't going anywhere, but there are a lot of parallels with Ballmer's Microsoft.
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