“With $160 billion in cash, there’s very little that tech giant Apple can’t afford. But four years since the release of the original iPad, Apple CEO Tim Cook can’t afford missing out on the ‘next big thing’ and expect to get away with it,” Richard Saintvilus writes for TheStreet.
“Many industry pundits claim that Apple can no longer innovate,” Saintvilus writes. “There seems to be a consensus that Apple’s creativity died along with former CEO Steve Jobs.”
“In her new book Haunted Empire: Apple After Steve Jobs, Yukari Iwatani Kane, a former Wall Street Journal reporter, described Cook as ‘”stage manager’ and Jobs as the star,” Saintvilus writes. “Forbes contributor Peter Cohan was less gracious. In pointing out Cook’s inability to launch the next ‘industry-transforming product,’ Cohan described Cook as a ‘railroad operator.'”
MacDailyNews Take:
• iPhone was released 5 years, 7 months, and 19 days after iPod.
• iPad was released 2 years, 9 months, and 5 days after iPhone.
• Tim Cook has been Apple CEO for 2 years, 7 months, and 17 days.
“So on Tuesday, when reports surfaced that Apple was going to launch the highly-anticipated iWatch in the third quarter of this year, there was reason for excitement. Not that it was a surprise. But the iWatch will be the first product launch under Tim Cook. He’s finally going to get a chance to release that monkey off his back,” Saintvilus writes. “Apple can’t swing and miss on this one. As a shareholder, there is nothing I would love more than to be wrong. Apple has wallowed in obscurity for too long. There is just too much on the line for disappointment to be seen in a number and take away from what might be that revolutionary product the world has been waiting for.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: “Apple has wallowed in obscurity for too long?” Seriously? That’s some stratospheric level of Dvorakian fuckery right there.
Please claw your way back to some semblance of reality, Richard. We have grave concerns about your sanity.
Those who underestimate Tim Cook are in for a rude awakening.
And let’s get something straight: The iPad really is a large version of the iPod Touch/iPhone without voice call capabilities. So truly Apple’s game-changing, industry-shifting innovations have been the Apple II, the Macintosh, the iPod and the iPhone.
These stupid pundits who think a company should just churn out paradigm-shifting products every 2-3 years are morons.
And where are the paradigm-shifting products from M$? You may have noticed that the Slate is not the huge success M$ wanted. Windows 8 had to dig up the Start menu for 8.1. Of course, M$ gets a pass because… obviously.
Yehh. NO other company is held to this kind of standard.
We’re not asking for paradigm-shifting products. We’re asking for:
1) New MacBook Pros in time for back-to-school,
2) real Mac Pro updates more than once every four years,
3) bigger screens delivered in a timely fashion,
4) maps that are at least half accurate,
5) apps that don’t lose functionality with time,
6) calendars that are usable,
7) iPhone syncing without iCloud,
8) Blu-ray support,
9) OS’s that don’t get suckier
10) etc.
There is no denying that Apple has dropped the ball a lot in recent years.
I agree with most everything except #8. Discs are passe.
They haven’t released a personal asteroid miner either. —Because it’s not time and the tech isn’t ready. When it’s ready you’ll get it. If they have to wait 5 more years, eating their 160 Billion down to 2 Billion in the process, they will. And then they’ll release what’s been perfected. That’s how they roll.
MDN
WHY do u publish this idiots articles? .. It cheapens your site !
The idiots cheapen themselves. We just eat the popcorn and watch the show. Train wrecks are fun!
Having got the iPhone so right it was hardly some massive innovation to make a bigger one and call it the iPad. They had to a lot of work to get it right, but in terms of the pure inspiration it’s not in the same league as the Mac, iPod and iPhone. No matter what the tech media have convinced themselves of, Steve Jobs was not pulling entirely new products out of the hat ever other month.
Especially when the iPad was actually in a handmade prototype when it was mothballed so Apple could make the iPhone first.
You know what other consensus have been arrived at? That the iMac, iPod, iPhone and iPad were all going to be flops.
Don’t forget the Apple retail stores. Bemused industry observers supposed them to be a very bad idea. Eight years later, Microsoft opened identical stores directly across from Apple’s. They didn’t get the memo either.
So why isn’t the Samsung Galaxy tablet just a bigger Android phone? Why isn’t the Microsoft Slate just a bigger Windows 8 phone? I mean, if you’re going to label the iPad in this manner then the same logic applies to those other products, too.
You’ve just proven that logic isn’t what’s being used
Apple so called ‘flops’ like the iPhone 5C outsell the top products of rivals, outsold every top android phone including the Galaxy S4, every Windows and Blackberry phone.
and I doubt if the iWatch comes out it will be a ‘flop’ but a standard maker for the industry like the iPod, iPhone ….
Apple has done some stupid things lately (like reducing legibility and functionality instead of giving us a bigger iPhone). Just make iTunes more idiot proof.
Apple’s profits have sustained at record levels in the Tim Cook era. So all the doom and gloom FUD is just that. You can’t produce a new kind of product at the whim of anyone’s time line. R&D takes lots of time and Apple tries to release a product when things mostly work. You can’t do this just because these Anal-ists think there’s no innovation left. The Mac Pro has already proved Apple has innovation and only more to come no matter what anyone says. Tim Cook was side by side with Jobs. He knows what to do and how to get it done.
He also knows he does not want to release garbage like Samsung just to say Apple did it first. Apple does it right, not first.
Wowsers. A MDN take that ACTUALLY swears. I can’t remember ever seeing this before.
Must be annoyed!
• iPhone was released 5 years, 7 months, and 19 days after iPod.
• iPad was released 2 years, 9 months, and 5 days after iPhone.
• Tim Cook has been Apple CEO for 2 years, 7 months, and 17 days.
Jeeeezz MDN…
You keep saying the SAME thing over and over
Well……..when you got it right, you’ve got it RIGHT.
Kinda makes me think of how Apple got it right with the way they had a 3d “look”, INSTEAD of the MICROSOFT FLAT SHIT “look” they now have. AND they may take the MS FLAT SHIT “look” to OS X.
Here’s a simple solution——-
You CAN let Apple know this FLAT SHIT “look Ain’t work’n.
So DO THIS:
let people choose for themselves. let it be a preference selection!!
Now….. Who’s AGAINST letting people choose for themselves.
If your AGAINST people choosing for themselves, stand-up, and be counted.
Think Different.
Sometimes different ain’t BETTER.
Sometimes, it is. Eye of the beholder? Freedom. Choose.
Wrong, for too many reasons to comment further.
In a way he is right if only because idiots like him can make it a self fulfilling prophecy. Thats why it was right for Cook to play the safe game for a while in the face of other idiots be it him 0r through to others on here demanding the next big thing. A no win situation sadly that needs to be navigated very carefully.
Every day we are reminded and yet the beat goes on via MDN threats that those who question the greatness of Tim Cook will be sorry. We’ll see. Yes we will.
I believe the new Mac Pro was worked on when Steve Jobs was alive so Tim can only take some of the credit for that one.
What these people apparently fail to realize is that “stage manager” and “railroad operator” were actually his job description at the time. And he did it incredibly well. There is no reason to believe that he hasn’t made a stellar transition to his new position, considering how well he did in his previous job.