Apple can’t change things as quickly as other companies for several reasons. Firstly, they actually have a reputation to maintain. They can’t just churn out yet another one of hundreds of phone models, and if it craters or bombs, just churn out a new one. So they’ve got to do 10x as much testing before changing their production line as anyone else. Secondly, because of the sheer number of the one model that they produce, they can’t afford a stuff up. If they had to recall an ill conceived fix, it would cost billions. So again they have to test any changes 10x as much as anyone else.

Also, the idea that changing the internals is “the easy bit” is ridiculous. Thousands of companies have the technology to copy the iPhones externals. Only a handful have the ability to copy the internals.

Regarding whinging, give us a break. You post 1,000 negatives/complaints for every 1 positive. You’re so offensive, that even when you say something agreeable, forum members have a difficult time siding with you. They can’t even do so without prefacing their comment.

Jobs’ genius was marketing and only became apparent after the space earned by the success of the Apple II allowed him the chance and the money. His second act was also the product of the hard lessons learned at NEXT and Pixar. He came back to Apple a very different man than he left.

Cook, Forstall, Schiller, Ive, et al. are in charge. Jobs trusted them, I trust them.

I think the number that do survive to thrive is, in part, a testament to the many great teachers who stay despite the problems and impact lives.

In a few years we will have results to look at. There are things that I sense are wrong at Apple, but they didn’t just start, that stuff was starting to happen while Steve was alive. I can’t blame Cook for those things.

If in a few years the stock is still stuck at the $500 level and Apple is still cranking out mediocre upgrades to iPhones and iPads, and AppleTV boxes and iTunes and Safari are still a big mess while we’re getting new “gestures” for OS X, well, that won’t be good.

In the Fortune Article there are several quotes about Cookiewuss’s New Apple that worry the crap out of me:

“…It looks like it has become a more conservative execution engine rather than a pushing-the-envelope engineering engine,” says Max Paley, a former engineering vice president who worked at Apple for 14 years until late 2011. “I’ve been told that any meeting of significance is now always populated by project management and global-supply management,” he says. “When I was there, engineering decided what we wanted, and it was the job of product management and supply management to go get it. It shows a shift in priority…”

“…Elsewhere there are signs of Apple becoming a more normal company…”

“…The ultimate “tell” of tectonic changes at Apple will be the quality of its products. Those looking for deficiencies have found them in Siri, a less-than-perfect product that Apple released with the rare beta label in late 2011, a signal that the service shouldn’t be viewed as fully baked. Siri’s response time has been slow, meaning the servers and software powering it are inadequate. “People are embarrassed by Siri,” says one former insider. “Steve would have lost his mind over Siri.” …”

apple is not perfect.
who is.
but apple still pushes boundaries more than any.

apple is not an inventor.
they redefine things. for the better.
no one else does.

everyone wishes to kill apple.
but flops.
they focus on hardware gadgetry.
who cares.
apple focuses on synergy, ubiquity, smooth functionality.
that matters.

all else is noise, junk.

what did the world gain from open-source, really?
adobe flash? it’s not open. plus it hogs cpu like nothing else.
pdf? it’s not really free.
google docs? it’s ugly, rudimentary.
etc.

don’t just insult apple.
if you can find a better solution,
if you are rich yourself from your big brilliant thoughts,
then talk.

don’t regurgitate.
think. different.
lead. don’t follow.

They knew for a very long and sad time that Tim would be stepping up. This was no surprise. Of course there would be no lag. The preparation should be attributed to Jobs, not Cook.

2. Look at the financials

It’s very easy to argue that Apple is still running on momentum. It was going like an out of control train before Cook stepped in. We shall see in the next year or two. Blaming Cook for anything that goes wrong is as unfair as giving him credit for Apple’s direction the day after Steve passed. It’s like when we blame Presidents for the state of the nation a year after taking office. Give Cook 4 years then look at Apple.

3. Morale is still high

Low morale at Apple is higher than normal morale at most companies. Again. Hogwash. Not that much has changed. There is nothing but frakin feldercarb in the tech media about Cook. There are reports of lower morale in engineering quarters while morale in the bureaucratic quarters has gone up.

4. Handling China

Hell, this was his job before he took over the CEO position.

5. The secrecy is intact

I’ll give ya this one.

6. Overall quality has not slipped

“Overall” is subjective. I have detected a distinct drop in quality in all things OS X related. I am dealing with more bugs than ever. Sometimes I want to take Safari out and shoot it.

7. Employees love him

Why? Because they aren’t afraid of doing crappy work now? Because they feel as though if they under perform, Tim will be nice and understanding about it whereas Jobs would have been a tyrant? Because he gives unnecessary bounces and time off?

8. It all comes down to corporate maturing

“Corporate Maturing” oh please. Apple is as mature as they come. The company is over 35 years old. We don’t want Apple to become a stodgy, mature, MICROSOFT. You want it to stay on the edge, pushing the envelope. You want it to continue to steam past the competition, not become one of them.

9. Market dominance, anyone?

For now.

10. Handling investors with care

Investors need to STFU. Cook should have made it clear that any investor unhappy with the return they’ve gotten on AAPL is welcome to go invest in RIM, HP, Microsoft, DEL you name it. Instead he caved to the whiners.

It is not time to pronounce Cookiewuss a success or failure. Let’s talk around Christmas 2015.

Steve Jobs once commented about sales guys taking over creative companies, as a quip against Microsoft, but I wonder if the ops guys have taken over Apple.

Since Tim Cook took over as CEO, I worry that Apple has become too operations focused and not focused enough on design and … magic.

Perfect execution is fine, but of what is what Steve Jobs used to concern himself with.

Give it a rest FUD’ster you are about as transparent as a glass of water.

Tim will take out a slide rule from his top pocket and tell you why you need to buy Apple products: The antenna is here and here, the screen is this and that resolution, the CPU is quad core, etc. A slide rule approach to presenting a product. Precise, but as boring as watching paint dry.

Steve, on other hand, would whip out the product from under a black cloth, sit on an easy chair and charm the pants off you by showing you how it works. Fireworks on stage. A mesmerising presence. An electric presenter without parallel. Your eyes were riveted on Steve while he strutted about the stage. The moment the presesntation ended, you knew you had to rush out and buy whatever Steve was promoting. He was that good. No one on the planet even came near to his ability to sell ice to eskimos.

You loved Steve for who he was. He was someone you could put your arms around, metaphorically speaking. With Tim, you’d buy the product because it came with the memory of Steve.

RIP Steve, we love you. You’re irreplaceable.

Silly trolls.
A grammar pro, (I tip my hat to).
More trolls.
Rabid fanboys.
Etc.

People need to respect other stuff. Have to give it to the MS team for not creating an iPhone ripoff like Google/Samsung. There are neat things about W7 but the whole experience is not like iOS.

I won’t mind if the iPhone 5 doesn’t have LTE. I don’t want battery hogging hardware when 3G works brilliantly on the 4S.

Note: Steve Jobs always favored healthy competition. Don’t childisly dismiss it or be threatened by it.

First off, I am in favor of workers having rights, so that is not it. But what I have a problem with is the idea that a group of people can get whatever rights they want by forming up a group (a union) and then telling another group (politicians) to give them rights and goodies, and then tell a 3rd group (the tax payers) that they have to pay for it all.” You perfectly described the banks.