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Tim Cook's Impeccable Timing

stratechery.com

251–260 of 438 posts

Re: Tim Cook's Impeccable Timing

#251

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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…

For what it's worth, the Intel MacBook Pro Espresso Machine and Milk Foamer Expansion Dock that water cooled the CPU while making you a hot fresh latte was pretty useful. The M4 just isn't capable of working up a proper head of steam.

Re: Tim Cook's Impeccable Timing

#252
post #238

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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.

Right, but clearly the tech & regulatory environment was such that the use of a general purpose computer beyond the infotainment screens wasn’t going to add enough value.

If self-driving had worked, and a fully vertically integrated tech stack could have controlled your “mobile experience” end-to-end, maybe a different story.

“Siri, take me to pick up Grandma from her flight. Let me know when she lands and send her an iMessage when we’re five minutes away.”

Re: Tim Cook's Impeccable Timing

#253

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Why do you prefer the laptop to be thicker and heavier?

I'd be fine with a thinner and lighter laptop if it was without compromises. But having a shitty keyboard, losing the HDMI port, wasn't worth it.

Right? What was the point of a laptop with no "ugly ports" if everyone instead needed to carry around a stupid dongle to hang off it?

Re: Tim Cook's Impeccable Timing

#254
post #230

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According to the book, Apple had a special team to prevent divorces among the engineers sent to Asia. That's how long they were over there training. An argument can be made that Apple nearly singlehandedly advanced China's consumer electronics manufacturing by 20 years, and hastened the decline of U.S. manufacturing while doing it. China doesn't allow key AI engineers and scientists to go overseas. They literally hav…

> The west .. Boeing and Rolls Royce Boeing is a US company. RR is, last time I looked, a UK company. "The West" isn't a coherent political unit. Besides, this is the exact opposite of the FDI strategy of past decades. How far should the ban on overseas FDI go? Ban on investing in South America? Full capital controls? As you mention, passport confiscation (!) for key nationals? I don't think any of this would have wo…

Airplane and jet engine manufacturing are literally defense industries.

Corporations operate at the discretion of the local government. Corporate charters could be revoked or threatened to be revoked to preserve national interests.

I'm not saying that I agree with or recommend the mechanisms that China uses. I'm saying that the West actually does have alternative mechanisms if it wanted to try.

As it stands, we are now under a ticking clock before China creates competitive, commercial and military airplane industry and begins to massively undercut Airbus and Boeing, and it was our own companies that wound the clock.

Re: Tim Cook's Impeccable Timing

#255

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But is Medicare as good as the insurance you had before?

I can't speak for aworks, but most of the people I've spoken to on it, like my mother, say it's better than the private insurance they had before.

I’m going to need to buy on the individual market. Talking to a broker he said Medicare is a great deal, and you should take it if you can.

Re: Tim Cook's Impeccable Timing

#256

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> I do think the challenge for Apple going forwards (but also for Android) is going to be how to best take advantage of AI. IMO one of their great advantages so far is that they have not blindly bought into the AI hysteria and wasted $billions on it. They've shown you can still have a great company without chanting the "AI is the future" mantra day in and day out. It would be pretty disappointing for a new CEO to dra…

You can’t compare Apple to any other company. Apple is the only successful consumer hardware company (with Samsung being a distant second). They can afford to sit out the AI arms race. You can’t be a software company without an AI story to tell.

[deleted]

Re: Tim Cook's Impeccable Timing

#258

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.

He is not simply a tool. He is an aggressive and malevolent actor.

Re: Tim Cook's Impeccable Timing

#259

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I don't know anything about Ternus other than WikiPedia saying he was VP of hardware engineering. Jobs of course (in addition to being an asshole) really was a product guy - he wanted to build seamless appliances that just worked, blending hardware, software and design into a beautiful thing that just did what you wanted (or what Jobs thought you wanted, which he was well attuned to). I think Apple took some missteps…

Speaking of missteps, there was a period in late 2010s where MacBook Pros really took a bad turn IMO chasing some "thinness" fetish, but recovered nicely afterwards. My M4 is a glorious device built like a tank

Yeah my only complaint with Apple hardware these days is all the sharp edges. I miss the soft, rounded sides of touchID based iPhones.

Re: Tim Cook's Impeccable Timing

#260
post #235
post #129

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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.

Interesting to hear a different perspective on the touchbar. I have yet to meet someone who liked it. Removes touch typing, requires you to refocus attention, etc. Changing the volume is easy, button same place always - but with touch bar I have to look down and do the slidey thing. If they implemented real keys with that display built in...now we're talking!
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