
How Tim Cook Made Apple His Own - ksec
https://www.wsj.com/articles/tim-cook-apple-steve-jobs-trump-china-iphone-ipad-apps-smartphone-11596833902
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ponker
I don’t doubt and didn’t doubt that Tim Cook could make hundreds of billions
of dollars. What I do doubt is that a Tim Cook led Apple will be able to do
something like create the “next iPhone.” But, he may not need to.

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scarface74
The iPhone was a once in a lifetime aberration. Even when the iPhone was
introduced in 2007, there were already 1 billion phones being sold a year.
Jobs said that the first year goal was to sell 10 million to capture 1%. Smart
phone penetration worldwide is now to the point where almost every adult in
developed countries have one and even 45% of adults in developing countries
have one.

[https://www.oberlo.com/statistics/how-many-people-have-
smart...](https://www.oberlo.com/statistics/how-many-people-have-smartphones)

What the phone looks like might change, but no one has created anything as
successful as the iPhone since 2007 and it’s hard to get more ubiquitous than
the smart phone (not iPhone necessarily).

~~~
ponker
I think it’s Steve Jobs that was a once in a lifetime aberration. Under his
leadership Apple basically created three industries: mass-market personal
computing, digital music, and smartphones.

~~~
scarface74
I’ll give credit for one out of three - the personal computer. The digital
music market already existed when the iPod came out (“No Wireless. Less Space
than the Nomad. Lame.” [1]) The smart phone - a phone that could make calls
and run third party apps - already existed.

Apple popularized both and reaped immense profit from it, but you could say
the sane about the smart watch under Cook. The Apple Watch is more profitable
than the iPod at its peak [2]. Even the iPad was just a big iPhone under Jobs.
It didn’t come into its own until years later.

[1] [https://slashdot.org/story/01/10/23/1816257/apple-
releases-i...](https://slashdot.org/story/01/10/23/1816257/apple-releases-
ipod)

[2] [http://www.asymco.com/2019/12/12/ipods-
pro/](http://www.asymco.com/2019/12/12/ipods-pro/)

~~~
ponker
Sure, Jobs was not an inventor, he was a refiner, like a great chef who takes
local village recipes and refines the dishes and the presentation into a $300
Michelin star restaurant. He had a great talent for taking something new,
packaging it into something people wanted, and then making them want it. I had
several “smartphones” before the iPhone and the first time I used an iPhone I
knew it was different. I’ve seen my 9 month old baby do basic navigation on my
iPhone, while I seen 45 year old colleagues of mine at the time flummoxed by
my Nokia N95.

~~~
scarface74
How is that different than both the iPad (which is much better now than it was
in 2011), the Watch and the AirPods.

Jobs was there to see the successful transition to PPC to Intel. Cook will be
there to see the transition from Intel to “Apple Silicon”.

But Apple wouldn’t have succeeded without Cooks operational expertise. Apple
never had to manufacturer at the scale it does now during Jobs first tenure.

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rado
Forever grateful for ditching Jony Ive and his thinness obsession leading to
technological compromises.

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op03
Such a boring forgettable man. Sounds like he has no human contact. All large
corps have such hyper effeciant corporate robots keeping the factory lights
on. Nothing to see here unless you study robots.

~~~
kkarakk
Cook is a numbers guy. You can't really learn anything or be inspired by a
numbers guy

~~~
scarface74
Inspiration doesn’t move products without execution. Apple would have failed
no matter how innovative they were under Jobs without Cooks operational
capabilities.

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greenyoda
Archived at: [https://archive.vn/v69CJ](https://archive.vn/v69CJ)

~~~
sidewinder128
actually this link worked for me thanks, I could read the article.

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sidewinder128
Mr Cook and Apple are good to make money but not anymore good techs. It is a
shame.

~~~
gscott
Personally I feel good Mr Cook is enslaving hundreds of thousands of Chinese
to make a higher profit on the iPhone. Bravo!

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scarface74
Redirects through Facebook

[https://www.fullwsj.com/articles/tim-cook-apple-steve-
jobs-t...](https://www.fullwsj.com/articles/tim-cook-apple-steve-jobs-trump-
china-iphone-ipad-apps-smartphone-11596833902)

~~~
rootusrootus
Redirected through FB for me (asked to verify that was the link I wanted to go
to) and then WSJ still showed me a couple paragraphs and a subscribe button if
I wanted to read the rest.

~~~
pirocks
Anecdotally it worked for me on mobile. Perhaps your using some kind of
Facebook container on Firefox which breaks the referrer somehow?

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lostgame
For what it’s worth; my Apple Watch is my favourite Apple product since the
iMac G4, and seems to only be improving, iteration to iteration. Cook has at
least brought a truly wonderful, innovative new product to market.

Big Sur seems decent. I’m interested to see how the ARM transition pins out.

However; we can’t ignore the butterfly keyboard debacle; a number of unstable
iOS versions; the ludicrously-priced $6000 Mac Pro, (those wheels...) - and a
very un-generous axing of 32-bit support with Catalina.

I absolutely refuse to upgrade on my personal MacBook beyond Mojave as I have
legacy audio plugins that are 32-bit I’ve paid for that do not have upgrades I
use as daily drivers. However I’m an iOS developer for a living; so my work
computer must be up to date.

The road with Apple has always had its ups and downs. I think; for Mac users
especially, the decrease in cost/lower price point that ARM should provide
will determine quite a bit of the future of growth of MacOS in the amount of
market share.

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aey
The butterfly keyboard is such a classic Apple thing todo.

To push form well beyond the limits of current manufacturing capabilities just
because of an ideology.

How many big companies try something that ambitious?

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fredthomsen
and let's not forget the touch bar.... Urgh. Still holding onto my 2015
MacBook from work and hoping it never dies.

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aey
2015 is the best MacBook! Touchbar is terrible, but I applaud them for trying.
They are trying imagine a perfect touch interface.

