
At Apple, Tim Cook leads a quiet cultural revolution - samspenc
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/22/usa-apple-cook-idUSL1N0G91GF20130822
======
hcarvalhoalves
> It is unclear whether the spread-sheeting-loving, consensus-oriented, even-
> keeled Cook can successfully reshape the cult-like culture that Jobs built.
> Though Cook has deftly managed the iPhone and iPad product lines, which
> continue to deliver enormous profits, Apple has yet to launch a major new
> product under Cook; talk of watches and televisions remains just that.

It bothers me everybody ignores the already announced Mac Pro. It's more niche
than an iPhone or iPad but an important one for many Mac users, and the specs
and design really push innovation forward on a market that is almost dead
(desktops).

~~~
e1ven
The Mac Pro is a significant redesign, but not a new product line.

Apple has often (in recent years) been in a position where significant
portions of their revenue are from product categories which did not exist 2
years ago. There is a fear that they will not continue to invent/expand into
new categories.

~~~
hcarvalhoalves
I don't know. MP3 players, smartphones and tablets already existed for a while
by the time Apple announced it's products. But the products were so successful
that they are now credited as having (re)invented the market. I don't see why
this can't happen, for instance, with workstations, this market has been
stagnant for a while.

~~~
MaysonL
Looking at the MacBook Air, and retina MBP, and their success, Apple seems to
have done a fair job of reinventing the laptop market. Quite possibly, the
desktop will follow.

~~~
zeckalpha
MBA was a better netbook. Retina is just catching up to where displays should
be had they not stopped improving this century.

These are incremental, not reinventing. These are successes, but they
shouldn't be held up as reinventing when they aren't.

------
jacquesm
Delegation is not about doing the stuff you don't want to do but reluctantly
handing off stuff you want to do to others because that is a more effective
use of your time.

Jobs would have run Apple singlehandedly if he could, that's why he left
behind such a huge vacuum to fill. Product roadmaps being what they are I
think we'll see the real 'new, post Jobs Apple' in another year or so for the
first time.

It's not about shipping crap occasionally, that could just as easily be
attributed to trying things and failing and every big company has a long list
of such failures. It's no different than running an incubator only then in-
house and with a single unified brand and possibly synergistic effects. It's
all about daring, trying to push the envelope and taking risks.

~~~
yapcguy
Tim Cook is a weak man.

Just ask vulture capitalist Carl Icahn, who tweeted this a few minutes ago.

[https://twitter.com/Carl_C_Icahn/status/370615097963450368](https://twitter.com/Carl_C_Icahn/status/370615097963450368)

~~~
jacquesm
Icahn is an asshole, I wouldn't trust a word he says unless the other party
confirmed it. Keep the Dell case in mind when you look at anything Icahn says
or does. He's got money but 0 scruples.

------
Udo

      Jobs' bi-monthly iPhone software meeting, in which he would go through
      every planned features [sic] of the company's flagship product, is 
      gone.
    

Judging by the current iOS development version, this is a regrettable change
that will come to haunt them. Things like the new color schemes would probably
not have gone through if there was any executive interest in the look of the
new software.

~~~
potatolicious
Ehh, I think the whole iOS7 UI thing is overblown.

Anecdotally we've been installing it on non-dev (tester) devices internally to
help thrash our app pre-iOS7. The results have been very positive - people
_love_ the new design in general.

Even those of us on the dev team who've had it for a while have mostly gotten
over the annoying bits that bothered us at first.

~~~
swalsh
I really like the automatic updates, yesterday I went to look at a picture and
out of no where the "photos" app was radically different, but in a good way.

------
joe_the_user
As I recall, Apple's fan would quite unapologetically acknowledge that Apple
ran on fear of abuse by Jobs [1]. The story was that Jobs was a unique genius
capable of running things that way and _deserving_ to run things that way. The
magical results were worth it. Just being near the "reality distortion field"
was its own reward [2].

Regardless of how the rest of us might judge all this, Apple now has something
of a problem. Decompressing from a previous abusive situation involves certain
stages of recovery [3]. Even if, regardless of if, one began with the view
that this was "abuse for the best all possible purposes" or how much one
identified with the success of one's abuser [4]. In similar fashion to the
problems faced by the liberalizing Stalinist regimes, Tim Cook may find that
his liberalizing "tweaks" open flood gates that he will have trouble
controlling [5].

[1] [http://gawker.com/5847344/what-everyone-is-too-polite-to-
say...](http://gawker.com/5847344/what-everyone-is-too-polite-to-say-about-
steve-jobs) [2]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality_distortion_field](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality_distortion_field)
[3] [https://1in6.org/men/get-information/online-
readings/recover...](https://1in6.org/men/get-information/online-
readings/recovery-and-therapy/stages-of-recovery/judith-hermans-stages-of-
recovery/) [4]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome)
[5]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Wall](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Wall)

~~~
pearjuice
It is as if I am on Wikipedia[0].

[0] If you know what I mean

------
akg_67
I found this statement in the article to be the key of managing.

"He basically explained nicely that my job was to do the things that Mark
(Zuckerberg) did not want to focus on as much."

I believe it is something Cook and other CEOs follow too. Find a person to do
the things that you don't want to focus on as much.

If No.2's job is to do things No. 1 doesn't want to do, No. 1's job is to find
No. 2's who wants to do the job No. 1 doesn't want to do and give that person
autonomy.

I agree Cook not leading planned feature meeting but he should have someone
who wants to lead that meeting and be responsible for driving that part of the
business.

------
botolo
I like Tim's style and I think he needs some time to get adjusted to his role.

It's still not clear to me, after being an Apple user and fan since the
beginning and after reading Steve Job's biography, how much innovation Steve
really brought to Apple. What I mean is: was Steve really the one who gave the
initial impulse for some of the most innovative products we have seen so far
(i.e. iPhone, iPad, iPod, etc.)? In this case, I think that Apple is doomed.

If, on the contrary, Steve was the quality checker, the one pushing everyone
else to do better, I think that the current Apple's executive team can
properly replace this role and do good at Apple.

~~~
capkutay
No one else claims they had the 'vision' for the iPod/iPad/iPhone while at the
same time everyone credits Steve so he must have been more than a quality
checker.

~~~
nhaehnle
Is that really a qualitative difference though? Clearly, MP3 players had been
around before the iPod. What set the iPod apart was much better design. This
is, in a sense, a matter of quality checking, but to an extreme extent.

Does the extremity of the quality checking turn into something qualitatively
different? That seems to be a rather subjective judgement, hence why you had
the back-and-forth.

~~~
inthewind
I don't think that is what set it apart. It was probably having a software
program (iTunes), that could work with your hardware and manage your library.
Not sure when they introduced the shop.

------
cwp
I wish the article lived up to the headline. What cultural changes have
occurred? The article doesn't say.

It does say that Cook's personal style is different from Jobs (duh), that he's
made some changes to the exec team (we knew that), and that there's
conflicting anecdotal evidence about how employees are reacting to these
changes... whatever they are.

All in all, I don't see a revolution in any of this.

------
RyanMcGreal
> the spread-sheeting-loving,

I hope that's just a typo and not evidence that the writer doesn't know what a
spreadsheet is.

------
beefxq
So, the downfall of Apple?

~~~
inthewind
A hypothetical moment of realisation.

