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Tim Cook's Impeccable Timing

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Re: Tim Cook's Impeccable Timing

#231

Post by vishnugupta »

tsunamifury wrote: post #212
iwontberude wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love that he instantly flopped repeatedly and showed it was actually Apple that was great all along.

This is, by far, the most insane take i've ever heard. The guy litterally built modern apple from the ground up in equal with Jobs.

Apparently it required someone with the personality and product taste of Jobs to rein in Ivy. Cook on the other hand being a logistics/operations guy didn’t have the similar skills and we ended up getting absolute shitshow of hardware products from apple in late 2010s.

Thankfully he was fired and sanity prevailed which coincided with Apple Silicon line professors. The MacBook Pro that was immediate predecessor to M1 series was by far Apple’s worst hardware. It was bad on nearly every count.

Re: Tim Cook's Impeccable Timing

#232

Post by Shorel »

heathrow83829 wrote: post #228
havaloc wrote: post #9

Cook seems to be dragged for some of his decisions ( like China ), but he was the right CEO for the time. Ternus in turn seems to be the right CEO for this phase of Apple. I'm excited to see what Ternus does in the role! It's a homecoming of sorts having a product person and there has already been chatter he'll be more like Jobs in the role. If they can maintain their hardware lead and tighten up the software a bit,…

>> the next era looks bright. but what could they possibly build that hasn't been done on iphone and ipad yet? these devices seem finished to me. all the latest features on these devices are getting increasingly useless, to be honest. are you imaging them creating whole new devices?

They could bring the wired headphone jack back.

Re: Tim Cook's Impeccable Timing

#233

Post by shafoshaf »

doitLP wrote: post #69
jinushaun wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you underestimate what he does. It seems simple and obvious in hindsight, but if it were so easy, others would not be so far behind. A difficult thing done well looks easy. Reminds me of when Toyota disrupted auto manufacturing. Under Tim Cook, Apple has pretty much exclusive access to certain parts and suppliers. Apple buys up all the silicon. Competitors can’t compete at the same quality without paying a pr…

I’m not underestimating what he does, I’m asking what does he actually do to make it happen beyond setting priorities and holding subordinates accountable? I’m not questioning that he does many things well and right and even genius, I just want to know what those are! I’m sure Isaacson will cover it well in his bio!

I think this is a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_man_theory fallacy. There is a correlation to Cook and the performance, but the idea that this was all because of one single guy at the top is survivor bias. For example, other companies didn't fail at outsourcing to China because their CEOs weren't as personally involved as Cook, it was because the team as a whole didn't perform.

Looking today, Trump is as much a symptom as the problem. He didn't get there just because of who he is, he rode on the backs of all the people who voted for him, the state legislators who gerrymandered for him, the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025, etc...

Re: Tim Cook's Impeccable Timing

#234

Post by sroussey »

dpark wrote: post #195
sroussey wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Apple Lisa was the first GUI computer Apple made. Starting price $9995 (or $35,000 in today’s dollars). Yes, Apple has gone down market these days, but their history is really premium. Or they start premium and then move down market like they did when they released the Macintosh ($2500 then or $8000 today). And the Mac didn’t do much more than the Lisa and had no software. (The LaserWriter didn’t come for another…

> If we had the innovative Apple of yore it would push out crazy new and very expensive products and iterate Vision Pro sells for >3 grand. Their strategy still seems consistent with exactly what you describe.

Except the iteration on it. And people we aghast at the cost.

But one product. I don't know man, I think they became chicken of anything grand. It is not like it was a $35000 product.

If the Vision Pro was the Lisa, where is the Vision (or Mac version)?

They should have bought Lucid and poured their car tech into that.

They should have a MacPro with four to eight MacStudio blades inside.

Almost all their sales are $800-$4000 items. Where is the $35000 equivalent of what they used to do like when they released the Lisa? Too chickenshit these days. Good reason to be, of course. It is just not in their DNA anymore.

Re: Tim Cook's Impeccable Timing

#235

Post by dkga »

alex7o wrote: post #129
a012 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And dont forget the scissor keyboard and the fucking touchbar

Fight me but I miss the touchbar, it was customizable to be super useful with better touch tool

Same. I still have my intel Mac as a secondary, backup device and I still love using it, in part because of the touchbar.

Re: Tim Cook's Impeccable Timing

#236

Post by mattcantstop »

spectraldrift wrote: post #205

The author lost me when they quoted Thiel.

This is such a tiresome perspective. The value of the quote from Thiel should be based on how true/predictive/helpful the quote is. Not the political leanings of the person who said it.

Someone locally said they wouldn't listen to anything Strong Towns wrote because they are pro-housing. Even though the article from Strong Towns directly addressed the question the person was asking about quite well.

Tribalism is going to destroy us all. Thiel can have great perspectives, even if he has been undercutting democracy at every turn.

Re: Tim Cook's Impeccable Timing

#237

Post by orky56 »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #77

Cook Doctrine : "We believe that we need to own and control the primary technologies behind the products we make, and participate only in markets where we can make a significant contribution." And later: "I strongly suspect that Apple, whether it has admitted it to itself or not, has just committed itself to depending on 3rd-parties for AI for the long run." Clearly those two quotes are in contradiction (not that Tim…

I dont see it as a contradiction. Apple knows its core competencies and has the cash to back to any initiative worth pursuing through acquisition and/or hiring. Cook was a savant at vertically integrating supply the supply chain and horizontally integrating the entire ecosystem. This led to multiple innovations where Apple is the de facto standard for quality.

The silicon behind Apple devices were worth owning and controlling but beyond that he may not have seen how Apples goes 0->1 for AI hence the idea to partner with other leaders. Apple did this for the mobile Web Browser so why not for AI as well. Let others subsidize those capabilities and make consumers/end users prefer Apple devices where it can actually shine.

Let Apple fast follow while others subsidize the R&D and validate the demand. That's what has allowed Apple to always end up on top.

Re: Tim Cook's Impeccable Timing

#238

Post by 121789 »

twoodfin wrote: post #162
steveBK123 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The car always made the least sense to me in that its the polar opposite of what Apple had evolved to. High-capex in-house manufacturing onshore in a highly regulated space vs capital-light outsourced contract manufacturing offshore of discretionary purchase consumer goods. There are no successful car makers that outsource production, and even foreign car makers generally make cars onshore in US for tariff/political/…

If Apple had gotten to the point of making a real product with “Titan”, all the signs were they would be engaging with a manufacturing partner in the US. Hyundai, most likely. As for why they did it: Apple makes computers. If what you’re interacting with benefits from being a general purpose computer (under the covers or otherwise) Apple thinks they can deliver a superior experience and the margins that come with it.…

> Apple makes computers

there's quite a bit loaded in your term of "computer" that doesn't really work. if a watch or headphones can eventually be called a computer, then a software-based car running on a battery can certainly fit under that definition.

Re: Tim Cook's Impeccable Timing

#239

Post by ryanmcbride »

I read an article speculating that Ternus was up next in I think wsj and it sounds like a good decision but obviously time will tell. I've been super disillusioned with Cook for years now, I just hope Ternus's approach isn't just more of the same, and that he actually works to innovate/improve the apple ecosystem.

Hell I'd KILL for them to just take the time to make Homekit like 10% better.

Re: Tim Cook's Impeccable Timing

#240

Post by mktemp-d »

spectraldrift wrote: post #205

The author lost me when they quoted Thiel.

While agreeing with the consensus that Thiel is an absolute tool; pieces of wisdom can still be extracted from those that you do not like and a critical reader should be able to evaluate any piece of written text for new understandings.

While I do agree that the 0 -> 1 product is the Apple iPhone, the author of this piece does not acknowledge that the Airpods were the 0 -> 1 product under Tim Cook.

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