Opinions on Tim Cook?

[desura]

Here's how I feel about him:

He seems basically like an accountant and a basic company man, a guy who always turned him homework in on time, always had perfect attendance, and received good grades and always played by the rules.

Which would probably make him a great fit at like IBM or something.

But I don't think he has the leadership chops or risk-taking capability or the visionary capacity to really keep Apple moving.

Contrast that with Jobs who at various times in life was a dropout, a druggie, an absolute weirdo.

And it seems like Apple post-Jobs has lost a bit of the edge and has many more leaks than it used to.

The best-case scenario I can think of for Tim Cook's Apple is that he is basically referee managing a true genius under him.

Eh?

 

[Rakehellion]

He's filler.

There won't be anymore turtleneck keynotes, but we've still got Jony and the thosuands of people who work there who make great products.

Jobs was a hardcore businessman, the rare blend of artist and engineer who could have catapulted any company to fame. But Apple survived without Woz just fine.

 

[Kaido]

Too conservative. Ives should be leading, at the very least, or someone with the entrepreneurial flame that Jobs had. I think Cook is an excellent, even amazing, business man, but I don't think he's right to lead the company as a visionary.

I think the Mac Pro is ridiculous and I think the iPhone is behind the times. I mean, NVIDIA just released the $3,000 Titan-Z video card with 5K support & 12 gigs of RAM...how am I supposed to slap that in the Mac Pro? (I'm asking seriously) The Thunderbolt bus for external GPU chassis doesn't cut it

http://www.engadget.com/2014/03/25/nvidia-titan-z-gpu/

All of my friends have phones with jumbo screens & more features, especially like the Galaxy Active, which is water-resistant (useful for those of us with small kids who like to chew/dunk our phones). The iPhone 5S has...a 1/2" taller screen than my 4S. Yippie. And I got burned by the purple flare issue on the iPhone 5 model (been back on my 4S since I sold that puppy).

I still like OSX & iOS, but I think the bulk of the hardware could have been steered in a better direction. I am very happy with the design of the iPad Air & iPad Mini. I'm guessing we'll see something like a 5" iPhone Air next go-around. I think the new iMacs are amazing as well, but the Mac Pro feels like a computer just for the sake of being "new & different". I mean, I'm a fan of small computers - I still have a vintage (? lol) G4 Cube & use a ton of Intel NUC's at work, but it's still nice having a tower box to slap video card upgrades, various optical/hard/solid-state drives, etc. in.

I'm also having a hard time trusting Apple with my video work. The FCPX release was pretty botched. I've grown to love it, but it's a far cry from the FCP7 suite. I feel like they ditched the professional video community & then gave us a lame workstation brick to play with, you know? imo the company is entirely too consumer-focused now. As powerful as the Mac Pro is, it feels like a boutique computer due to the internal-upgrade-unfriendliness of the design, like a "Pro" iMac for consumers with money to buy, rather than a legit workstation. Maybe I'm just being an old fart, I dunno. I'll stick with my Hackintosh for now

 

[Eug]

I think the Mac Pro is OK for its main target market, and I just switched (back) from Android to the iPhone. I like the iPhone's size, but it is likely the 2014 iPhone will come in a larger model too. However, if they release a new iPhone 6 4.0" and an iPhone 6 4.7", I'd by the 4.0". Judging by what I'd guess the dimensions are, I don't want anything bigger than 4.3".

FCPX was a botched release, but most of the ramp up of that release was under Jobs' reign.

 

[Kaido]

I think the Mac Pro is OK for its main target market, and I just switched (back) from Android to the iPhone. I like the iPhone's size, but it is likely the 2014 iPhone will come in a larger model too. However, if they release a new iPhone 6 4.0" and an iPhone 6 4.7", I'd by the 4.0". Judging by what I'd guess the dimensions are, I don't want anything bigger than 4.3".

FCPX was a botched release, but most of the ramp up of that release was under Jobs' reign.

Really? Most pros I know have complained a lot about it. Messy desks & pretty much screwed for GPU upgrades in the future, although that was always the case in the tower Mac Pro in the past unless you flashed your card or bought an official "Apple" GPU. I think most of my complaints would be negated if Thunderbolt could handle 100% of all cards (even Thunderbolt 2 can't handle all GPU's).

I think FCPX got a lot of negative hype. I mean, no one was forcing anyone to upgrade immediately, or even upgrade at all. And it's not like FCP7 & friends were getting a lot of love for awhile there. I am disappointed that Color was largely ignored, but as a result we now have daVinci from Blackmagic, so if that was at all inspired by the lack of Color support, then yay.

Plus I mean, shoot, $299 for something you can edit real movies on? Yes please! I've grown to like it quite a bit, as a matter of fact, especially as a beefier iMovie for just jumping in & editing simple projects with. But the release from pretty horrifying from a "this is what your future is, and this is the level of support we're willing to dole out to you" perspective. Versus Adobe, who has gotten pretty serious about things with Premier.

Fortunately my iPhone 4S has been "good enough". I do envy 4G & the enhanced quickness of the CPU, as well as the improved camera, but not enough to make the jump quite yet. I think the thing is, Apple has been known for being pretty innovative for the last 10 or 15 years, ever since they made a comeback with the iPad back in 2001 or so. There hasn't been any real innovation since we lost Jobs. The Mac Pro is pretty neat, but I wouldn't call it a game-changer...it's just another not-very-upgradable iPhone-style device at this point. Granted the hardware is great, but still...ah well.

 

[Eug]

The "pros" I know love it. But they're more Adobe Creative Suite types, but not specifically video editors per se. However, they do know some video editors and they tell me the editors end up replacing the entire machines every 4 years anyway so having video card upgradability wasn't a priority at all. About the only thing they ever upgraded internally was RAM.

 

[desura]

New Mac Pro...eh...doesn't appear interesting to me. It has a unique form factor but thermal management isn't what is holding back desktop computers...

I don't think Johnny Ive would have the chops to run the company either. He's an artist first and foremost...

Of the Apple leadership I know of, the ones I feel would do best have left the company already. The guy who is now doing Nest. Also Scott Forstall.

 

[Rakehellion]

Too conservative. Ives should be leading, at the very least, or someone with the entrepreneurial flame that Jobs had. I think Cook is an excellent, even amazing, business man, but I don't think he's right to lead the company as a visionary.

I think the Mac Pro is ridiculous and I think the iPhone is behind the times. I mean, NVIDIA just released the $3,000 Titan-Z video card with 5K support & 12 gigs of RAM...how am I supposed to slap that in the Mac Pro? (I'm asking seriously) The Thunderbolt bus for external GPU chassis doesn't cut it

http://www.engadget.com/2014/03/25/nvidia-titan-z-gpu/

All of my friends have phones with jumbo screens & more features, especially like the Galaxy Active, which is water-resistant (useful for those of us with small kids who like to chew/dunk our phones). The iPhone 5S has...a 1/2" taller screen than my 4S. Yippie. And I got burned by the purple flare issue on the iPhone 5 model (been back on my 4S since I sold that puppy).

I still like OSX & iOS, but I think the bulk of the hardware could have been steered in a better direction. I am very happy with the design of the iPad Air & iPad Mini. I'm guessing we'll see something like a 5" iPhone Air next go-around. I think the new iMacs are amazing as well, but the Mac Pro feels like a computer just for the sake of being "new & different". I mean, I'm a fan of small computers - I still have a vintage (? lol) G4 Cube & use a ton of Intel NUC's at work, but it's still nice having a tower box to slap video card upgrades, various optical/hard/solid-state drives, etc. in.

I'm also having a hard time trusting Apple with my video work. The FCPX release was pretty botched. I've grown to love it, but it's a far cry from the FCP7 suite. I feel like they ditched the professional video community & then gave us a lame workstation brick to play with, you know? imo the company is entirely too consumer-focused now. As powerful as the Mac Pro is, it feels like a boutique computer due to the internal-upgrade-unfriendliness of the design, like a "Pro" iMac for consumers with money to buy, rather than a legit workstation. Maybe I'm just being an old fart, I dunno. I'll stick with my Hackintosh for now

The iPhone 5 is the work of Jobs, so you can't blame that on Tim Cook. I like having a small phone, but they'll no doubt release a bigger one in the future.

The Mac Pro got everything right except for the GPU, and boy did they screw that one up.

 

[Kaido]

The "pros" I know love it. But they're more Adobe Creative Suite types, but not specifically video editors per se. However, they do know some video editors and they tell me the editors end up replacing the entire machines every 4 years anyway so having video card upgradability wasn't a priority at all. About the only thing they ever upgraded internally was RAM.

That's a good point. I think it definitely offends the tinkerer in me tho :biggrin:

 

[Kaido]

The iPhone 5 is the work of Jobs, so you can't blame that on Tim Cook. I like having a small phone, but they'll no doubt release a bigger one in the future.

The Mac Pro got everything right except for the GPU, and boy did they screw that one up.

I actually really like the size of my 4S, slips right into my pocket easily & is super easy to use one-handed. I had the 5 for a little while & I didn't really care for the extra height. I'd rather have it taller AND wider if they're going to go bigger, that way my hand can wrap around it better.

 

[ultimatebob]

Wouldn't it be awesome if a revolutionary CEO like Elon Musk had access to Apple's capital? We'd all be driving electric sports cars and taking vacations to the moon 10 years from now

 

[Rakehellion]

Wouldn't it be awesome if a revolutionary CEO like Elon Musk had access to Apple's capital? We'd all be driving electric sports cars and taking vacations to the moon 10 years from now

I have no idea who that is. If he were so great, he'd have Apple's capital.

 

[boomhower]

Not a Pro so no comment there. But I do like what they've done with the laptops and tablets. They need to move to a faster pace of releases for the phones. Once a year just isn't cutting it. Offer more than one screen size. It wouldn't be hard. Just keep the same resolution so the developers will be happy and sell it.

 

[lamedude]

After the Apple Store fiasco with the Dixon's CEO that every person who has shopped there saw coming he's just your typical exec that will fall for another's BS.

 

[TheStu]

I have no idea who that is. If he were so great, he'd have Apple's capital.

CEO of SpaceX and Tesla. One of the founders of Paypal. Super-bright guy that is very ambitious.

 

[silicon]

Here's how I feel about him:

He seems basically like an accountant and a basic company man, a guy who always turned him homework in on time, always had perfect attendance, and received good grades and always played by the rules.

Which would probably make him a great fit at like IBM or something.

But I don't think he has the leadership chops or risk-taking capability or the visionary capacity to really keep Apple moving.

Contrast that with Jobs who at various times in life was a dropout, a druggie, an absolute weirdo.

And it seems like Apple post-Jobs has lost a bit of the edge and has many more leaks than it used to.

The best-case scenario I can think of for Tim Cook's Apple is that he is basically referee managing a true genius under him.

Eh?

I have to agree with your statement about Tim Cook and Apple. Certainly he is not Steve Jobs as there wil never be too many like him but who knows...maybe Cook can lead the company and continue making innovative products. Perhaps Jobs shaped the environment enough such that the desire to innovate and be a the front will continue.

 

[manly]

New Mac Pro...eh...doesn't appear interesting to me. It has a unique form factor but thermal management isn't what is holding back desktop computers...

I don't think Johnny Ive would have the chops to run the company either. He's an artist first and foremost...

Of the Apple leadership I know of, the ones I feel would do best have left the company already. The guy who is now doing Nest. Also Scott Forstall.

It's kinda funny how Wall Street originally loved Tim Cook as CEO due to his operations chops, but now the honeymoon is very much over. I wouldn't say he's on the hot seat yet because Apple is still milking the iPhone North American cash cow.

I don't think Jony Ive is a CEO type either, so hopefully he stays as product chief as long as possible.

Scott Forstall was widely credited with iOS's success and anointed as Jobs likeliest successor, but he was also generally criticized for allowing iOS to languish as Android made great strides. Personally I think the latter is far more telling than the former. Although part of the problem were strategic business decisions that were out of his power (i.e. the Apple Maps debacle, or keeping margins sky high to power profits), I'd still have to fault Forstall's team for blowing the proverbial "2 year lead" Apple had on the rest of the industry in 2010 and letting Google catch up and arguably surpass them last year.

Cook doesn't have to be Steve Jobs, and there's no way he can be (not just because of Jobs extreme success, but because I don't think Cook is a product manager type). But as a longtime Apple shareholder, I'm still disappointed at how profit-centric they've become to the detriment of the usual cliche about how at Apple, making the best products is all that matters.

About the only thing I'm clearly happy with in the last year is the A7 SoC being an industry leader by a long-shot, but even there they blew it by gimping the RAM.

 

[Eug]

About the only thing I'm clearly happy with in the last year is the A7 SoC being an industry leader by a long-shot, but even there they blew it by gimping the RAM.

They do this all the time, I suspect for many reasons.

1) Cost.
2) Planned obsolescence.
3) Incentive to upgrade, even when the item is not obsolete, at least for the geeks.
4) Etc.

 

[manly]

They do this all the time, I suspect for many reasons.

1) Cost.
2) Planned obsolescence.
3) Incentive to upgrade, even when the item is not obsolete, at least for the geeks.
4) Etc.

business-wise it does make a fair amount of sense. And I can't totally blame Tim Cook for something that Apple has done for a very long time. But it does disqualify the whole argument of "all we care about is making the best products". Because Safari tabs reloading left and right and apps crashing due to OOM certainly diminishes the value of the platform.

Apple has a real opportunity with a beefed up A8 and a larger screen to aggressively take market share from Android. Perhaps not globally but at least in some markets. But it may be too late, they'll continue to milk their cash cows but their days of mobile OS dominance may be over. If it hasn't already ended, that is.

 

[desura]

Yeah, the cash pile-up looks like a lack of vision and a huge wasted opportunity. All of the alpha techies (Bezos, Zuckerberg, Brin) are making risky multi-billion dollar acquisitions every few months while Apple just quietly socks away its dollars for...what, exactly?

If I were Apple, I'd spend those billions on building a large moat, basically buying up capacity for phone production, seriously competing against Samsung in the display front, to gain more marketshare vs Android and to partially starve them out by making component prices higher than otherwise.

 

[manly]

Yeah, the cash pile-up looks like a lack of vision and a huge wasted opportunity. All of the alpha techies (Bezos, Zuckerberg, Brin) are making risky multi-billion dollar acquisitions every few months while Apple just quietly socks away its dollars for...what, exactly?

If I were Apple, I'd spend those billions on building a large moat, basically buying up capacity for phone production, seriously competing against Samsung in the display front, to gain more marketshare vs Android and to partially starve them out by making component prices higher than otherwise.

Is Brin involved in Google's acquisitions? And how much did they end up losing on Motorola Mobility? I wouldn't cite Zuckerberg as a positive example, the WhatsApp purchase smells like Dot Com Bomb.

Apple's purchase of PA Semi has paid off very well. It's hard to find such bargains in the current market, so I don't have a problem with Apple's patient approach looking for base hits instead of home runs.

I do agree that the cash hoard is ridiculous but the truth there is that the vast majority of it is overseas and they won't move it unless there's a federal tax holiday. Most of the domestic cash is tied up for distributions to shareholders IIRC, so at least that props up the EPS for a while (see IBM).

 

[amyklai]

They do this all the time, I suspect for many reasons.

1) Cost.
2) Planned obsolescence.
3) Incentive to upgrade, even when the item is not obsolete, at least for the geeks.
4) Etc.

All those points are on the plus side for Apple but on the minus side for consumers.

What Apple needs to learn is that in an environment where their competitors are offering very competitive products, they can't afford to hold back on features to drive future sales, they need to improve their current offerings to drive current sales (unless they come up with something totally new that the competitors can't offer yet, but until that happens...).

 

[Rakehellion]

They do this all the time, I suspect for many reasons.

1) Cost.
2) Planned obsolescence.
3) Incentive to upgrade, even when the item is not obsolete, at least for the geeks.
4) Etc.

Adding more memory would probably eat up more batter life. Also, I think 1GB is plenty for iOS at this point.

 

[Anteaus]

I like Tim Cook but he is to Apple what Steve Balmer was to MS after Gates left. Gates was very much into innovation (love or hate it), and Balmer was more interested in keeping the trains running and maximizing profits at the cost of innovation and quality control. With Jobs out of the way, Cook is in the unique position of having the Apple empire and it's wealth under his control. He is as good a CEO as any other, but he is a money man first and this is where he differs from Jobs. I think over time he will corrode just as Balmer did and share holders will start to wonder if Apple has lost its mojo.

My opinion of the MacPro is simply that Apple ignored the whole reason people buy them. They should have compromised a little on aesthetics and focuses more on industry standards, such as upgradable GPUs and space for additional storage. I don't care what people say, I don't believe that external solutions are always the answer. At a minimum it should have 4 to 6 2.5" drive bays for additional SSDs with raid if necessary. And what's with the design? Seriously, was using a more standard form factor a serious sin? A nice curvy mid-tower would have worked better. It's as if the new Mac Pro is meant to attract middle-class consumers who have no problem spending 4K on a machine with no other purpose but check email and look pretty on a desk.

Anyways, that's my 0.02. I'm sure some will just tell me I just don't "get it", and that's fine. I try to stay brand agnostic.

 

[manly]

Ballmer was Gates' old frat buddy. I think it's terribly unfair to compare Tim Cook to him. Cook was extremely successful as COO, the debate is whether he's the right guy leading Apple through these highly competitive times.

I'm not sure if Ballmer was ever very successful at anything, except for basically going all-in on Microsoft stock I believe in the late 80s; and that bet turned out to be be very right. Microsoft did grow steadily under his CEO tenure, but I'm not sure much of that is attributable to him.