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Tim Cook's Impeccable Timing

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Re: Tim Cook's Impeccable Timing

#371

Post by happyopossum »

michelb wrote: post #294
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,…

Yeah I think so too. I'm just wondering if the people on software are still the right people. Mac OS has quite a few regressions, and seems to just chug along instead of really using the power of the chips, or massively improving file i/o. Apple still has a chance to do some cool stuff with AI integrations, but they have had interesting local models 3 years ago and apparently nowhere, or no vision, to use it. We're a…

> but they're doubling down on it now

Nahh, they're backing off liquid glass as fast as they can without just rolling back to macOS 15... Tons of people inside apple hate it, and have been very critical of the design leadership. Alan Dye was the design king behind liquid glass, and he was pushed out (or just left, stories vary). His replacement, Stephen Lemay, is widely praised by the folks who hate liquid glass.

iOS 27 and macOS 27 in June will probably have Liquid glass turned back down to 6 or 7, and will at least remove some of the most glaring usability issues.

Re: Tim Cook's Impeccable Timing

#372

Post by tsunamifury »

achenet wrote: post #347
tsunamifury wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He has designed 4 consumer prodocts that a good portion of humanity use every day. By every measure he is the most successful product creator in the history of humanity, no single other product comes close to impact and quality. (Believe it or not the Dorritos Locos Taco is likely the closest 5th place product) The arrogance on hacker news is insane, or the self agrandizement and misunderstanding of how rare that is.…

> He has designed 4 consumer prodocts that a good portion of humanity use every day. Yes, but how much of that was luck and how was extraordinary talent? It's like saying "Donald Trump is really rich, ergo he must be a financial genius"... getting really rich isn't that hard if you're born into money and invest in New York real estate. Now someone like Jobs who had fairly working class parents and founded a multi-bil…

This take is so hardworkingly naive I dont even know where to start. After having the undesputed greatest set of products designed in a row, you dane to call it luck.

Asside from your complete ignorance of the history at play, (Ive refounded Apple with Jobs) you seem to not understand what a 'mediocre' designer is capable of and how mind-bendinly hard it was to design the imac, ipad, iphone and apple watch

I genuinely can't believe you could be so wild to beleive such a thing. It becomes frankly stupid to the point of disrespectful of the work individuals put into their craft and the success they can find.

There is no person in the world outside of someone in this forum who would claim that somehow this was 'luck'.

HN has truly become one of the most toxically stupid places on the web.

Re: Tim Cook's Impeccable Timing

#373

Post by altmanaltman »

geodel wrote: post #359
bigyabai wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple doesn’t see factories purely as stores At Apple's scale, you basically can't operate like this. Placing an order for 50 million iPhone screens is not a consumer-grade request, you have to customize and coordinate your orders to get all 50 million delivered. It's hard to see the genius in this, the advantages you've listed are all courtesy of scale and liquidity.

Huh, courtesy of scale is because of 50 million customers were convinced that iPhone has quality enough to pay premium over 100s of other phone models. No one is stopping Dell, Acer, Asus, Samsung etc of the world to put order of 50 million widgets and get best quality at cut throat price.

Samsung literally makes and sells a lot of those displays to Apple. What are you talking about

Re: Tim Cook's Impeccable Timing

#374

Post by layer8 »

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #350
layer8 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That must be a very restrictive definition of “successful consumer hardware company”.

Name one other successfully computer hardware company? PC makers are barely profitable commodities, other phone companies aside from Samsung are making pennies, the Microsoft XBox division is on life support, Sony sold off its TV division. The PS5 is going okay but doesn’t sell in near the numbers of iPhones. Who is left?

You didn’t say “computer”. And I would count the likes of Dell, Lenovo, Acer, Asus as successful. Without “computer”, Nintendo, Sony, LG, and so on.

I don’t think it’s reasonable to restrict “successful” to iPhone-level unit sales and Apple profit margins.

Re: Tim Cook's Impeccable Timing

#375

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

iwontberude wrote: post #167
ComputerGuru wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but recovered nicely afterwards After Ives was fired/forced out/decided to leave to pursue his creative vision.

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

He didn't flop. He's had a number of high-status bespoke projects, including the coronation logo for King Charles and a redesign of Christie's (auction house) podium.

He's not doing commoditised consumer design any more. He has enough money now, so he no longer needs to. The most consumer-oriented work recently has been an interior for the new Ferrari Luce EV.

I agree his post-Jobs years at Apple were somewhere between mediocre and hopeless (gradients...) and not many people seem to miss him.

Although to be fair, he wasn't responsible for Liquid Glass, which has set the bar for design failure at Apple to new depths.

Re: Tim Cook's Impeccable Timing

#376

Post by duskwuff »

Cockbrand wrote: post #209
vel0city wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the touch bar was a neat idea with a lot of potential but IMO they should have kept the row of physical function keys as well.

Another thing was that not all Mac notebooks had a touch bar, so developers couldn't put any vital features onto it.

And there was no Touch Bar-equipped external keyboard either, so users with a desktop system were shut out entirely.

Re: Tim Cook's Impeccable Timing

#377

Post by spiralpolitik »

I think the article makes a bit too much of the decision to partner with Google for the AI model. Sometimes knowing where the boundaries of your business are is better than trying to expand too far and getting it wrong.

I think Apple understands that the moat in AI is the UX, something that historically they've been very good at. The model is a commodity and I suspect they will quite happily go with another provider if Google doesn't work or buy a company in the inevitable AI fire sale if they can see a good fit.

Re: Tim Cook's Impeccable Timing

#378

Post by tsunamifury »

geodel wrote: post #331
tsunamifury wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He has designed 4 consumer prodocts that a good portion of humanity use every day. By every measure he is the most successful product creator in the history of humanity, no single other product comes close to impact and quality. (Believe it or not the Dorritos Locos Taco is likely the closest 5th place product) The arrogance on hacker news is insane, or the self agrandizement and misunderstanding of how rare that is.…

Big difference is comparing to sports is millions of people can see with their own eyes the performance of a player in arena. All motivated media can't create a narrative of brilliance when bad performance is there to see. In case Jony Ive or others like him, we simply do not know how many dozens or hundreds of very talented engineers and designers worked relentlessly under him so he can do beautiful presentations in…

I worked with both, I very much know why Marissa was consiered a fake and Ive's very small team of 10 was considered the best in the industry.

Its all also well published and covered fact. I am genuinely shocked someone could have such a insistantly foolish take.

Re: Tim Cook's Impeccable Timing

#379

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

layer8 wrote: post #374
raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Name one other successfully computer hardware company? PC makers are barely profitable commodities, other phone companies aside from Samsung are making pennies, the Microsoft XBox division is on life support, Sony sold off its TV division. The PS5 is going okay but doesn’t sell in near the numbers of iPhones. Who is left?

You didn’t say “computer”. And I would count the likes of Dell, Lenovo, Acer, Asus as successful. Without “computer”, Nintendo, Sony, LG, and so on. I don’t think it’s reasonable to restrict “successful” to iPhone-level unit sales and Apple profit margins.

So did you think when I was talking about Apple I was comparing them to a company that sold power tools?

But Dell’s profits cratered so bad that they took the company private and profits are still nothingburgers.

Sony just sold off controlling interest of its TV division.

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/technology/tech-news/son...

Have you checked the profits of the other PC sellers?

A quick Google search shows that LG profits were $2.4 billion dollar (converted) and down its last fiscal year.

Re: Tim Cook's Impeccable Timing

#380

Post by dwaite »

dboreham wrote: post #40
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…

This is how the electronics industry always worked. I times of yore it was IBM who bought up all the capacity in various fabs then defined later what devices would be manufactured on those wafers.

Apple funds creation of new factories in return for exclusive use of the parts they produce. I believe they also prefer to negotiate pricing down to cost, then pay bonuses for meeting quantity/date goals.

Supposedly, the reason there weren't more iPod competitors back in the day was that Apple already had negotiated exclusive rights at pre-negotiated prices to buy a big chunk of the flash memory that otherwise would have been on the market.

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