Javert24601

nubus said:

gavinthain said:

People. Get a grip. Apple Intelligence is going to be a bit late. Do you really not have anything else to think about?

This is not important.

Apple Intelligence was late when announced and is in beta in 1 language while competitors are shipping in 80 languages.

The C-suite and board spent a decade on copying Musk with Car, Zuckerberg with AVP, and Netflix with TV+. They depleted other teams to make it happen. Replacing Cook is difficult and he is unique. They should go find better board members.

Robert Sugar (76, aerospace/defense), Wanda Austin (70, another aerospace/defense), Andea Jung (former Avon CEO - did the CEO of Tupperware decline?), Arthur D. Levinson (74, working for Google on health and his son is CTO for an Amazon project on autonomous cars..,). The current board is a horror cabinet!

Boards are like paid consultants and they (usually) meet quarterly.  They may be "old", but companies have them for advice on how to run a company.  If a company is not executing well, it is the responsibility of the CEO and not of the Board.

macxpress said:

The Apple Intelligence rollout reminds of iTools which had a very rough rollout and wasn't widely accepted, then switched to .Mac which was better but still not create, which was switched to mobileMe which was a little better and now iCloud which still isn't 100% but works pretty well for what it does. BTW this was all under Steve Jobs so I guess we should have fired him too by how some people are calling for Tim Cook to step down. 

Nobody needs to be fired. They just need to take the feedback, learn from it and make appropriate changes to make it better. I think people have very unrealistic expectations of new services. They seem to expect everything to be perfect and great out of the gate and that's usually never the case. Apple has very talented people working for them and they can make changes and make it better than is today. We also don't know why features are delayed, why things are the way they currently are, etc. 

I just don't get this well something failed out of the gate so people need to be fired! How would you like if you were fired because something didn't work quite right out of the gate and perhaps it wasn't even your fault (or anyone's fault directly)? 

It's called accountability.

Yes, people make mistakes all the time.  No one is perfect, and I agree that no one should be fired based upon a single failure.  But, it should be based upon a pattern of behavior.

IMO, the only person that should be asked to resign is Tim Cook, and there should already be a plan of how to replace him by the Board.  For how many years have people complained about Siri?  For how many years has it been neglected?  It started off as the gold standard of voice commands, but it has fallen to dead last.  Should there have been better leadership on the issue?

For a $2 trillion company, Apple seems to pivot from a couple of products to another without being able to keep all major products in development.   "Oh, this year, we will upgrade the Mac Pro, when was it upgraded last?"  "Oh, it's been five years since we have developed a new display?  I still hope no one noticed that the last Studio Display was just repackaged in a new case."  "Oh, is AI the upcoming trend?  Have any of us in the industry been staying up on this trend?  No?  Let's rush out Apple Intelligence."   People have excused this "pivoting" behavior to Apple being a "design company" being led by the small, core design team.   But, since Apple has so many different products, shouldn't someone in leadership have thought to restructure the company or to enlarge the design team to be able to handle more products?  That failure of leadership falls right at the doorstep of the CEO.

Tim Cook has contributed significantly to Apple's evolution to a leading tech/design company.  However, it has always been known that Tim is a logistics genius and not a technology visionary.  Because it is his forte, he has been able to navigate the logistical nightmare of the US-China relationship and has been able to move manufacturing out of China without upsetting the Chinese government.  However, his lack of being a technology visionary has handicapped Apples ability to pivot.  I fully acknowledge things like the development of the Apple Watch, the shift to chip manufacturing, and the migration away from Qualcomm (you could argue the latter two could be the natural evolution of keeping more control of the hardware, but I am going to give credit to Tim Cook).  On the other hand, he did put a lot of the emphasis and resources on Apple Car and Apple Vision.   I am fully okay with Apple trying new paths and not succeeding because we all want Apple to innovate.  However, it is arguably his distraction with those endeavors that caused him and his leadership team to miss the evolution of AI, which may be the most consequential technology in the next several decades.  With AI advancing by leaps and bounds with new (versions) of LLM coming out every 6 months, Apple is stuck a the stage of still planning its AI server farm, trying to collaborate with AI models to be the (accessory) brain of Siri, and to transform Siri into something useful.  Without AI, Apple has arguably become a "has been" company.  Is Apple going to build its own fully functioning AI?  Apple is like at the 5 yard line, while ChatGPT4 and Grok3 are at the 40 yard line and moving faster ahead.  If you will recall, Grok was behind, but Elon Musk built his AI server farm in ~2 weeks, throwing who knows how much money into it.  Grok has 1200 employees, while Apple's Siri team only has ~121 employees.  Is this how someone leads in a cutting edge field?

The example of iTools was raised.  At the time, it was cutting edge technology and speaks to Jobs being a technology visionary.  People at the time thought about backing up data, and no one really thought about keeping computers/devices in sync.  What we considered in sync, was copying something to a disc and transferring the data to another computer.  Jobs had a different vision, and it is something that we appreciate now.  Unfortunately, technology moves at an even more rapid pace than ever before.  For someone in the technology industry, how could this AI technology have been missed?  Why has the AI team not been scaled up?  Instead of developing an AI model, Apple is really focused on developing an "AI interface" called Siri, which is why Apple is collaborating with AI model(s).  As such, Apple is losing relevance on a weekly/monthly basis.  It isn't about what Apple has accomplished, it is about leading Apple into the future.  That is how CEO's are judged as unfair as that may be.

Just because a company has to pay out a severance package does not mean that the company should not hold someone to account.  For a large company as Apple, the Board must have a succession plan in place in case something were to happen to Tim Cook.  Yes, it is disruptive to change leadership, but a company should never function on the shoulders of any one person, and any leader should also understand the importance of holding people accountable.  It is also important to bring in a new leader to shake up a company that is not executing as well as it should/needs to be.  As much as Apple has benefited from Tim Cook's leadership, he has also failed on many important issues that affects Apple's future.  As such, he should be asked to resign and for Apple to bring in a new leader.

gmgravytrain said:

I'm quite happy with Apple's latest hardware announcements.  The latest MacBooks, the Mac mini, the Mac Studio, etc. seem to be fine products and rivaling the best consumer products in the industry.  I'm not interested in A.I., so I'm not in any hurry to see it take over.  In my opinion, A.I. is highly overrated.  I don't want Cook to resign or to be fired, as I don't know if there is someone better to take his place.  I'm a 20-year Apple shareholder, and I'm very satisfied with Apple's financial performance.  Every company goes through problems, so I'm not concerned about it, as I believe Apple will do its best to figure things out.  I couldn't do any better, as I don't have the ability to run any profitable company.  I can only depend on Apple internally solving whatever problems they have.  I think some people are too impatient or greedy and don't appreciate all the good Tim Cook has done for Apple over the years.  These people always boasting about how they could do better than Tim Cook, and I doubt they could run a company as well as he has.  I'm living a very comfortable life since owning Apple stock over the years.  I have nothing to complain about.  I enjoy using my current Apple products and will likely buy a new MacBook Pro this year, even if it doesn't have any A.I. features.

I used to think AI was overrated until I used Grok3 on a project two weekends ago.  To say I was impressed is a gross understatement.  Thoughts of Star Trek "computer" came to mind.    It was very informative to see how Grok3 broke down my request, come up with options, and then explain the pros and cons of each option.  I was then able to ask it to analyze some alternatives and different scenarios, and it extrapolated from the previous analysis and provided a new recommendation.  I saved me maybe 10 hours of doing research on my own and then keeping track of stack of papers and jumble of search windows and product screens.  

Then, yesterday, I had a discussion with my brother about a suggestion that he had.  I thought I knew of some issues with his plan but didn't know how to analyze the situation.  So, I posed the question to Grok3, and it synthesized an analysis that was logical.  It didn't just provide an answer, you can actually read how it broke down the questions and reasoned the analysis and calculations.  I expressed my concerns, and Grok3 explained why they did not apply.  I then fed it some scenarios, and Grok3 expressed its understanding and suggested upsizing to allay my concerns.  Impressed!

Unfortunately, Apple isn't even proposing anything like this.  Apple is just developing an "enhanced Siri" to deal with on device requests.  There is no data analysis nor options suggestions.  "Enhanced Siri" is only going to be an "AI interface" to other LLM, such as ChatGPT.  This is an utter failing on Apple's part and promises to make Apple an irrelevant, obsolete company.  The future belongs to AI companies, which is why Apple should be developing is own independent AI model.