“At the moment, the only new and relatively novel product we have from Apple during Tim Cook’s reign is the forthcoming Apple Watch,” Rocco Pendola writes for Seeking Alpha. “While you can sanely credit Cook with giving the green light on the larger screen iPhone 6, it’s a stretch to call the Plus his own. Any iPhone-related success ultimately furthers Steve Jobs’ legacy with Cook riding shotgun.”
“So, for now, the Apple Watch makes up the early and most meaningful foundation of Cook’s legacy. Given this reality, I’m not sure how any serious Apple observer – fanboy or otherwise – can chide or otherwise ignore discussions about Cook’s job security,” Pendola writes. “He’s a seemingly entrenched CEO and on the hot seat all at the same time. The line between the two scenarios is drawn in shifting sand. Cook could last a few years or a couple of decades at Apple – neither duration would come as a huge surprise.”
“f Apple’s new wearable device doesn’t disrupt everything that’s on the market today (the way iPod did the Walkman/MP3 players, the way iPhone did the BlackBerry, the way iPad/Mac did some PC laptops) and produce unit sales proportionately commensurate with iPod, iPhone and/or iPad, it will go down as something less than a success and quite possibly a failure… [then we’ll see] everything from questioning to calls for Tim Cook’s head will heat up,” Pendola writes. “While that’s reason for concern, it also makes me think Cook isn’t dumb enough to put all of his eggs in the wearable basket. He has something else up his sleeve that’s disruptive. And it’s probably not the early-2015 introduction or late-2015 refresh of the watch.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple Pay is also Tim Cook’s. Not only will it be a smashing success, it will also drive significant Apple Watch sales.
Related articles:
Apple Pay: A semi-monopoly on the real killer app – October 1, 2014
Apple Watch, the world’s first real smartwatch, will be a massive hit – September 9, 2014
There is no doubt that the Apple watch will “flop” by Apple sales standards, but Cook’s job is not in any way in jeopardy.
I agree with this.
I won’t be getting one, but I was impressed with what they made. If it doesn’t succeed, I don’t see anyone else doing it anytime soon.
You’re absolutely right! If it doesn’t match and exceed sales of other Apple products – the analysts will declare it a complete flop, regardless of how many more they sell than their competitors.
Which products? iPhone? iPad? iPod touch? TV? iMac?
Baloney. Watch will FAR outsell any so-called smart watch or fitness band, and probably will sell more than all other “competitors” combined.
Talk about a clueless Seeking Alpha article… Rocco Pendola leaves the interpretation door wide open with this statement:
Those three devices have substantially different unit sales numbers. Does Rocco’s Modern Life believe that the Apple Watch has to sell like the iPhone to be considered a success. If so, that is a very high bar to cross. Frankly, I would be very pleased if 1-in-10 iPhone owners purchased an Apple Watch and reasonably satisfied at a ratio of 1-in-20.
As far as analysts go, you are probably right – the Apple Watch will be considered a failure along with the successful AppleTV, iPhone 5c, etc.
Slow news day looking for some Apple filler…
Rocco Pendola will contract Ebola and die a hideous death or buy an Apple Watch. His choice.
Continuing to churn out such drivel SHOULD put Rocco in the hot seat.
Agreed! Tim Cook probably had very little to do with the design of the Apple Watch. If the Apple Watch is a failure it will be a failure of the Apple Team and not just one person.
For those who think it will be a failure and therefore will not buy one, I say “Good for you and thank you very much.” This will allow those of use who are going to buy one have a better chance of doing so.
if?
Rocco should have the same demands for successful predictions.
iCal to the rescue.
Think I would lose the will to live reading tosh like this. Did he say the iPod would be a game changer, or the iPhone or the iPad, no one did at the time beyond a few ‘deluded fools’ apparently. Things that Cook is introducing now will game change but not necessarily in the Mardi Gras fashion that SJ specialised in. Those sort of opportunities are few and far between these days and Apple has to be far more nuanced in what it is doing. Apple Pay and services like it will be the biggest opportunity but hardly blow the mind even probably when they are an everyday thing after all there is no flashy gadget to parade around on stage but connected services are going to be the future for the Apple eco system and whether people get it or not its going to have a far bigger impact than the iPod or even perhaps the iPad have or will have. Such devices will simply become part of the bigger picture such services provide.
What a waste of ink. Just the curiosity factor alone will drive sales into the millions. Pesonaly I’ll stand in line for one. This is incredible technology done right and by the only company on the planet that has the soul to do it. Will it be perfect in its first release maybe not. Will every banger find something to complain about? Absolutely! Come one come all to scratch-gate, wristband-gate…whatever gate will mean it’s a success. Critics will spend every waking hour trying to bash it and in return do the oposite by creating even more curiosity!
I saw Rocco there when I was touring Apple’s top-secret r&d lab this past weekend.
No I didn’t.
Rocco Pendola is back! Quickly, protect your garbage cans. He has been calling for the end of Tim Cook’s job from the get-go. He has been spectacularly WRONG for a long, long time. He started his sewer campaign at Seeking Alpha, where he lied about his portfolio. We should call him, “Rocco NEVER RIGHT” Pendola. Please do not print any of his drivel. Thank you.
this article is total, utter BS, because the pre-order for the apple watch alone will be around the 2015 revenue of all luxury swiss watchmakers combined. The profit from just the apple watch pre-sales will smash the profits that the privately held swiss watch companies do not divulge.
Rocco is displaying his fine-tuned motor skills in this classic exhibition of stirring @&*# with a stick.
I don’t wish his ilk to even get close to poor defenseless symbols with a stick !-)
(also, it is “$#!+” in case you want to use symbols to convey that one again, another freebie, no need to give credit !-)
I like to think that my word @&*# signifies some other unsavoury excretion, such as suppurated bile, that symbolises the temperament of haters
You got me, it’s true, $#!+ is used to grow and make healthy all manner of vegetation, your suggestion works better since in quantity it would kill animals, vegetable, and some minerals
cheers,
Punditry at its finest!
pundit him into the endzone, and beyond!
Tim Cook is probably one of history’s greatest logisticians to ever manage anything. The idea that his job is somehow in jeopardy is complete hogwash. We are lucky to have him managing Apple’s incredibly complex ecosystem.
One can never be sure, but if were a betting man the money would be on a lukewarm reception for the overpriced waste of silicon that answers a question nobody is asking.
The primary reason nobody wears a watch anymore is that we all have a cell phone with a time display. The Ive Watch requires an iPhone to function fully. The Ive watch is grossly overpriced. The Ive watch is a solution in search of a problem.
The wannabes and sheeple may buy it, that’s why Burberry Gal was brought in- to sell overpriced stuff to the sheeple.
I’d iCal that, but it’s not worth bothering. I’ll just invite you to comment again, six months after the Apple Watch goes on sale. Let us know how it’s doing at that point.
Gonna need a lotta watches to use up $586 million in prepaid sapphire. Or maybe the sapphire can be used as windows in the i-Hole campus.
Tim Cook isn’t Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Reed Hastings or Elon Musk, so Tim will stay on the hot seat and possibly even on the electric chair if Apple doesn’t perform to investor’s impossible expectations. Apple is the wealthiest company on the planet and yet you’ve got jacktards like Pendola, who in fact can’t do one damn useful thing for anyone else, judging Tim Cook who’s in charge of tens of thousands of employees.
Almost anyone can sit at home saying how they can do a better job than the person already in the position. Pendola is all BS talk and that’s all he’ll ever be. He’s a talker, not a doer or he’d have started his own business by now and made his own fortune. As a shareholder I have no problems at all with Tim Cook. I’m not looking for him to double Apple’s revenue and try to fire him if he doesn’t. I’ll be perfectly satisfied if he can keep Apple right where it is amidst all the a**holes trying to take down the company calling it a company past its prime.
I swear to God that some business “journalists” get a bonus based on Tim Cook bashing. If the new Apple Watch had miraculous powers and Tim Cook said “The watch will bring the dead back to life and here’s Steve Jobs to tell you more”, Cnet and Seeking Alpha would still beat the crap out of the Apple Watch and Tim Cook.
Wrong-Note Rocco is getting ready to fan the “fire Tim Cook” flames once again.
With Apple fans like Rocco, who needs enemies?
“With Apple fans like Rocco, who needs enemies?”
it’s spelled enemas
In other startling and just as likely “news”…
The next iMacs all exploding would put CEO Tim Cook on the hot seat
MacBook Airs turning into pancakes would put CEO Tim Cook on the hot seat
All the iPhone 6s not working would put CEO Tim Cook on the hot seat
Nothing like just making nonsense up and then spinning “analysis” based on it.
This is a stupid article.
A flop of any product would put Tim on the hot seat.
As stated above though, that won’t be an issue.
Oh so many of us have bashed Rocco, and hey I’ll certainly add to it.
First the counts:
Tim/Apple: 3/18 mentions
The I/I’m count: 3/9 mentions.
Not too shabby, considering it’s an article about Apple but goodness gracious mentioning Tim Cook 3 times (4 if you count a he) and yourself 12 times well Rocco is talking about himself, certainly nothing near real journalism.
Can’t say that there are any new facts, just the regular speculation.
Saying that Tim Cook/Apple plans to sell 50 million units of the Apple watch would have been relevant. DOH. Going on about Gene Munster’s prediction, well Rocco is playing “Follow the bottom feeder” and not following the leader.
The overlap between Tim Cook and Steve Jobs will never go away, not as long as Apple carries the Jobs vision and spirit forward. Having a new novel product is for many the line in the sand so to speak but I certainly don’t see it. Tim Cook has been steering Apple over the last three years and every product may have Steve’s legacy touch but it also has Tim’s touch as well as it is collaborative team work, a concept lost of the fragmentary divide and conquer attitude of those drawing lines in quicksand a la Rocco.
There is a comment so hilarious about not being good enough for the tech media and a sizable gaggle of Wall Street. News flash Rocco, no one will ever be good enough for the tech media or Whore Street analcysts and it’s your eyes as well Rocco. You reek of it. Not even a TV set.
Rocco sure is derogatory as well: “Cook isn’t dumb enough to put all of his eggs in the wearable basket.”
Cook is smart enough to diversify, oh and Apple is already a diverse company. That isn’t news and neither is your crap and you certainly are dumb enough to put all your eggs in the journalistic uh, cesspool.
If the sun doesn’t come up tomorrow, I think Cook, and a few others, will be in the hot seat.
this is inaccurate. the iPad mini and the Mac Pro also came out during the Cook era. the mini was a redesign that the full sized models were adjusted to along with the 5S. The Mac Pro is an incredible design and massively powerful.
I agree to a point with that, however, Rocco used the statement “At the moment” during his initial comment. “At the moment, the only new and relatively novel product we have from Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) during Tim Cook’s reign is the forthcoming Apple Watch.”
You are right though, very right and it shows once again how Rocco manipulates the facts.
If it had been thinner, I would have ordered one.