>The problem is that a supply chain CEO who lacks a passion for products and has yet to articulate a personal vision of where to Apple will go is ill equipped to make the right organizational, business model and product bets to bring those to market.<p>The author makes the argument that because Tim Cook does not demo new products, Apple is incapable of innovating, and is just cruising on the goodwill of the brand.<p>What a crock. Tim Cook is no Steve Jobs, and Apple is most definitely different without Steve. But, under Cook the following has happened: Apple Watch, AirPods, HomePod, iPhone X, ARKit, Siri Shortcuts, FaceID, iMac Pro. Everything in that list might not perfectly suit every user, but the argument "Without Steve Apple can't innovate!" totally falls over.<p>Steve gets a lot of attention for his innate sixth sense for product, his masterful presentations, and more. But, I think this era of Apple proves that he was <i>also</i> great at creating a culture and ecosystem that can perpetuate without his presence.
This is old and nonsense. It highlights correctly the upcoming AI revolution but it misses entirely the point that Apple is innovating in this space - processing on the phone rather than within Google or Amazon verse.<p>In other words Apple is simultaneously building an on phone AI while at the same time retaining it's mission of privacy for the user.<p>I'll take the little hit on functionality in exchange for a massive upgrade in privacy.<p>So in the end Tim Cook is carrying on the customer and privacy centric DNA that Jobs imbued into Apple using innovation that other companies just dream about.
I remember reading this in 2016 during 'peak skepticism' on whether or not Tim Cook could ever fill the shoes of Steve Jobs and the author, Steve Blank, makes a lot of really good points (mostly how you can see Ballmer as an excellent CEO if you set the metrics to do so).<p>It reminded me once again of how what you believe gives color to the narrative you're trying to communicate. More importantly, what the <i>reader</i> believes also colors the narrative and sometimes it wasn't exactly what the author intended.<p>I resonate strongly with the notion that there are good times and 'late' times to innovate. I also agree strongly that it takes someone who is taking a wider and longer view of the situation to be good a calling the shots on that. But it is also quite important to be able to turn those opportunities into products and learn from that effort to really ride the 'change' (what ever it is) into a leadership and profitable position.<p>When I read this in 2016 I was not convinced that "AI" was the big innovation it was being hyped to be, however since that time I've come to a different conclusion. While I still think "AI" is hype, I see the ability to use machine learning algorithms to take the digital exhaust of a system and post process it into an algorithm for anticipating the outputs of that process to be quite powerful, and is having an impact on a lot of systems today.<p>I see the work that Apple has done to improve the efficiency of the A12X SoC, which was announced today, for executing algorithms based on machine learning to be pretty innovative.<p>In 2016 machine learning was still 'party trick' status as far as I was concerned but here in 2018 it is looking more and more like 'core thing all computer systems will do'.<p>As a result I'm willing to give Tim Cook more innovator points than Steve Blank was willing to do back in 2016.<p>(misc: I love how the user handle 'IBM' posted this)
This is BS.<p>Ballmer was a worst thing that could happen to any company of a Microsoft scale.<p>Under his guidance Microsoft stock stalled in a trading range for more than a decade, he was always late to any big game and had that "me too!" laggard strategy for the biggest innovations (cloud, search, mobile) thinking he can buy his way ahead to compensate for the lack of vision and boneheadedness.<p>It was funny watching MSFT stock to suddenly pop up 8-10% at a slightest rumor of Bill Gates returning.<p>Tim Cook is nothing like that. He may not be Steve Jobs, but he is not screwing AAPL either.
<i>"In 2014, Microsoft finally announced that Ballmer would retire, and in early 2014, Satya Nadella took charge. Nadella got Microsoft organized around mobile and the cloud (Azure), freed the Office and Azure teams from Windows, killed the phone business and got a major release of Windows out without the usual trauma. And is moving the company into augmented reality and conversational AI."</i><p>Okay, but:<p>- Microsoft is still irrelevant on mobile<p>- Azure already was four years old when Nadella took charge<p>- Windows 10 was not actually well-received<p>- Microsoft is irrelevant in Augmented Reality and conversational AI, which are already by themselves not that relevant<p>Microsoft can't be Apple because Microsoft is uncool. It <i>always</i> will be uncool. It can't do the transformation to a fashion brand like Apple.<p>I'll make another prediction: The days of "revolutionary" consumer products are over. People won't be living in VR/AR, they'll keep watching stuff on their phone/tablets/TVs. There will be more innovation in B2B and Microsoft is actually in a better position here in the long run.
> <i>"But Google and Amazon are betting that the next of wave of computing products will be AI-directed services"</i><p>That seems like a stretch of a conclusion. Amazon has been excelling at cutting out the middleman and reducing costs that are unnecessary in an internet-centric age. Alexa feels like an experiment to see if they can make that even simpler, while cashing in on the IoT fad.<p>Slight nit pick, using underline for emphasis doesn't work well on the web, it just makes it look like a link.
Discussed at the time: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12778470" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12778470</a>
Steve Blank is amazing at short form business writing. Very insightful.<p>Of course the iPhone will continue to sell well in the short term, but the trillion dollar market cap is a consequence of what Steve jobs was doing ten years ago. If Steve Jobs were alive now, he'd be working on something totally different. We'all never know!
Counterpoint: “We’re thrilled Apple Watch has become an essential part of people's lives,” said Jeff Williams, Apple’s chief operating officer. “The completely redesigned Apple Watch Series 4 continues to be an indispensable communication and fitness companion, and now with the addition of groundbreaking features, like fall detection and the first-ever ECG app offered directly to consumers, it also becomes an intelligent guardian for your health.”<p><a href="https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2018/09/redesigned-apple-watch-series-4-revolutionizes-communication-fitness-and-health/" rel="nofollow">https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2018/09/redesigned-apple-watc...</a>
The way I see it is that in the Tim Cook era, Apple releases good, solid products. And I buy them religiously. But they don't really make great, exciting, ground breaking products anymore (perhaps Face Id is the exception). I wasn't really waiting in anticipation for today's iPhone launch as I knew it will be a solid, well built phone, with a few incremental improvements.
I don't get why Ballmer is viewed as a failure. He steadily increased revenues and income under his watch. Maybe he didn't have the "vision" thing but he was a damn good CEO if you accept that a CEO's job is to grow the company.