hmurchison

Gil Amelio was brought in for his specific skillset which was "cost cutting" without damaging the company too much.    He was never brought in to be the visionary. 

I think you have to look at what departments have achieved over the last half decade.   I think it's hard to argue that the stewardship of Fed and Ternus hasn't been one of stability in their respective areas of focus. 

I like Jeff Williams a lot but my fear is he's a status quo guy and Apple's going to need to push forward into new areas and take on risk.  

Eddie Cue -  not a chance his big moment was to negotiate favorable deals with the music industry and he flopped.   When the industry publicly laughed at his negotiating strategy,  "We're Apple",  I knew he done. 

Johnny Ive.   Get's homesick for the UK and his passion is design.  Not a good fit. 

Phil Schiller - likable but bzzzt.   He was the guy that announced the trash can Mac with a "Apple can't engineer my arse" and they promptly had to scuttle the design years later. 

Upgrading my Wife from a 10 year old MBP I7 to an M3 Air.  To say she should be stunned by the performance is an understatement. 

EV are just fine.  They're not going anywhere.    All the issues (aside from cold weather and that's easily fixable)  will be rectified with Solid State batteries which will produce either double the power for a given weight or today's power in half the weight which eliminates much of the weight issues of EV as well as thermal runaway. 

Apple is smart to get out of cars because it's not a core competency.    Apple barely does a good job repairing their computers and car repairs are another level of stress.  I think they should continue to embed their IP into the nervous system of a car and the user interaction with the driver.  That's what Apple excels at. 

Look ...no CEO is going to bat a 1000.    But there are issues with the current Apple. 

Apple News - life support or should be. 

Apple Fitness - No traction 

Apple Music -   It's decent but if it disappeared today my Tidal account would suffice.  There's no stickiness to Apple Music beyond being part of the One Sub 

Ads in the App Store - Seriously?  A premium product with an unbearable app store.  Thanks. 

CSAM - Did Cook not listen to his handlers?  You can't preach privacy while simultaneously rifling through people's digital data. 

Personally I'm "not" going to stop buying iPhones and Mac for the foreseeable future.   I may even buy a Vision Pro when they are sub $2k in cost.   My hope is now that Apple Vision Pro is a shipping product Apple can continue to evolve the product and assign more engineering effort to smaller product lines.   

I think people are ready for a Homepod for the TV with Facetime.   I've said for three years now I think Shareplay may be Apple's most underrated technology.   Generative AI is buzzword compliant filler. Yes it's fantastic for creatives but most consumers aren't creative. What most consumers crave, even if they don't realize it, is connection and community.   I'm reminded of this when I  travel to a theater to watch a movie just hit the cinemas.  That packed Theater creates a small micro-community and we all feed off of non-verbal connections. 

Bullish on Apple being able to do this but they gotta ship product.  As the saying goes "if you shipped your first product without bugs you waited too long" 

StrangeDays said:

hmurchison said:

Tim Cook 

It's time to retire.   Go out on top Make the Vision Pro your swan song. 

Why on earth? One of the most successful and effective CEOs of the century. (Please don’t confuse the role of a CEO and a product manager, despite Jobs being a product manager. It is not common nor expected.) 

Largely because he's done what he needed to do.   Bridge that transition from Jobs's passing ...made Apple's supply chain efficiency the model.  Mac OS and iOS are strong ...iPad/iPad OS less so. 

We've seen Apple stagnate before and they have stagnated.    When I talk to my sons their excitement is about wanting to Podcast,  Livestream and game capture.  They mirror other kids are talking about.   None of this specifically ties them to Apple products. 

I'm happy with my iPhone 14 and may early upgrade to the 16.   Gonna get a M3 this year but that's Apple platform table stakes.   Taking 5 years to deliver a basic Echo Show/Google Hub product?????    We're not looking for transformative devices here just something that functions well in the ecosystem. 

When Johnny Ive left I was unbothered because I found his designs were becoming a bit too esoteric.   Apple's done just fine in the design department.    On the flip side though without Jobs's innate vision for design and product UI/UX ..Apple has struggled to move even a little bit from their sandbox.