Dear Tim Cook,
When you’ve lost John Gruber, you’ve lost the company.
Sincerely,
MacDailyNews
There’s tons more in Gruber’s full article, but we’re going to excerpt a few chunks below because, as our regular readers know, we’ve basically been writing it here for many months now, even before John and many others were duped by Tim Cook’s wheezing vaporware factory at WWDC 2024.
As usual, you read it here first.
John Gruber, “Something Is Rotten in the State of Cupertino,” for Daring Fireball:
What Apple showed regarding the upcoming “personalized Siri” at WWDC was not a demo. It was a concept video. Concept videos are bullshit, and a sign of a company in disarray, if not crisis. The Apple that commissioned the futuristic “Knowledge Navigator” concept video in 1987 was the Apple that was on a course to near-bankruptcy a decade later. Modern Apple — the post-NeXT-reunification Apple of the last quarter century — does not publish concept videos. They only demonstrate actual working products and features.
Until WWDC last year, that is.
My deeply misguided mental framework for “Apple Intelligence” last year at WWDC was, something like this: Some of these features are further along than others, and Apple is showing us those features in action first, and they will surely be the features that ship first over the course of the next year. The other features must be coming to demonstratable status soon. But the mental framework I should have used was more like this: Some of these features are merely table stakes for generative AI in 2024, but others are ambitious, groundbreaking, and, given their access to personal data, potentially dangerous. Apple is only showing us the table-stakes features, and isn’t demonstrating any of the ambitious, groundbreaking, risky features.
It gets worse. Come September, Apple held its annual big event at Apple Park to unveil the iPhone 16 lineup. Apple Intelligence features were highlighted in the announcement. Members of the media from around the world were gathered. That was a new opportunity, three months after WWDC, for Apple to demonstrate — or even better, offer hands-on access to the press to try themselves — the new personalized Siri features. They did not. No demos, at all. But they did promote them, once again, in the event keynote.
But yet while Apple still wouldn’t demonstrate these features in person, they did commission and broadcast a TV commercial showing these purported features in action, presenting them as a reason to purchase a new iPhone — a commercial they pulled, without comment, from YouTube this week…
The fiasco here is not that Apple is late on AI. It’s also not that they had to announce an embarrassing delay on promised features last week. Those are problems, not fiascos, and problems happen. They’re inevitable. Leaders prove their mettle and create their legacies not by how they deal with successes but by how they deal with — how they acknowledge, understand, adapt, and solve — problems. The fiasco is that Apple pitched a story that wasn’t true, one that some people within the company surely understood wasn’t true, and they set a course based on that.
The Apple of the Jobs exile years — the Sculley / Spindler / Amelio Apple of 1987–1997 — promoted all sorts of amazing concepts that were no more real than the dinosaurs of Jurassic Park, and promised all sorts of hardware and (especially) software that never saw the light of day. Promoting what you hope to be able to someday ship is way easier and more exciting than promoting what you know is actually ready to ship. However close to financial bankruptcy Apple was when Steve Jobs returned as CEO after the NeXT reunification, the company was already completely bankrupt of credibility. Apple today is the most profitable and financially successful company in the history of the world. Everyone notices such success, and the corresponding accumulation of great wealth. Less noticed, but to my mind the more impressive achievement, is that over the last three decades, the company also accumulated an abundant reserve of credibility. When Apple showed a feature, you could bank on that feature being real. When they said something was set to ship in the coming year, it would ship in the coming year. In the worst case, maybe that “year” would have to be stretched to 13 or 14 months. You can stretch the truth and maintain credibility, but you can’t maintain credibility with bullshit. And the “more personalized Siri” features, it turns out, were bullshit.
Keynote by keynote, product by product, feature by feature, year after year after year, Apple went from a company that you couldn’t believe would even remain solvent, to, by far, the most credible company in tech. Apple remains at no risk of financial bankruptcy (and in fact remains the most profitable company in the world). But their credibility is now damaged. Careers will end before Apple might ever return to the level of “if they say it, you can believe it” credibility the company had earned at the start of June 2024.
Damaged is arguably too passive. It was squandered. This didn’t happen to Apple. Decision makers within the company did it…
Who said “Sure, let’s promise this” and then “Sure, let’s advertise it”? And who said “Are you crazy, this isn’t ready, this doesn’t work, we can’t promote this now?” And most important, who made the call which side to listen to? Presumably, that person was Tim Cook…
Cook should have already held a [Come to Jesus] meeting like [the one Steve Jobs once held regarding the myriad failures of MobileMe] to address and rectify this Siri and Apple Intelligence debacle. If such a meeting hasn’t yet occurred or doesn’t happen soon, then, I fear, that’s all she wrote. The ride is over. When mediocrity, excuses, and bullshit take root, they take over. A culture of excellence, accountability, and integrity cannot abide the acceptance of any of those things, and will quickly collapse upon itself with the acceptance of all three.
MacDailyNews Take: Welcome, finally, to reality, John. Thanks for the credit.
Receipts:
Apple pays and has been paying John Giannandrea, Senior Vice President of Machine Learning and AI Strategy, millions upon millions of dollars for years. WTF of any import does he really do? WTF of any import has he really delivered? Have you used Siri lately? Yup, it’s still a steaming pile of dogshit.
Where’s Apple’s generative AI, John? “Too hard; too late; look for partners; gimme my paycheck and stock options.”
AAPL shareholders need to start asking real questions of these executives, especially those who are supposedly in charge of Apple’s “AI Strategy,” when the company clearly has none. How about some accountability for once? – MacDailyNews, March 18, 2024
Apple was caught flat-footed, due to a lack of vision on the part of leadership… So, the only solution is to partner with a [Google, OpenAI, Baidu, etc.] for the real GenAI stuff while pretending (marketing) really hard that some on-device AI Apple has whipped up in a few months is “insanely great Apple innovation” that’s at the heart of Apple’s 2024’s AI announcements when it’s really just an adjunct… Watch Apple make a big show of its on-device AI at WWDC and run many ads touting it from June onwards.
Apple hopes to buy time for the data center buildouts and investments that will be required for them to someday own their own AI technology and not have to license it from the likes of [Google, OpenAI, Baidu, etc.].
This is what happens after a decade plus with a caretaker CEO at the helm after he hits the last page of his iteration playbook, yet attempts to stay in the game for too long. – MacDailyNews, April 1, 2024
Clearly, Apple is not as innovative as it was under Steve Jobs who even started the company’s work on Apple Silicon, Apple Watch, and Apple Vision Pro, but, thanks to Jobs and Cook’s subsequent management of iterations of products and services conceived during Jobs’ tenure, including the retail store buildout which is responsible for a significant portion of Apple’s growth, the company now has more than enough money to make up for Cook’s lack of vision. – MacDailyNews, April 23, 2024
The new “AI features” for iOS, iPadOS, and MacOS to be revealed at WWDC is mainly a marketing exercise. The pressure is on Apple’s marketing team to position the company as an innovator in the space (“only Apple does so much on-device AI which enhances users’ privacy to ‘stunning’ effect,” etc.) that also makes “smart partnerships” with other AI companies (OpenAI, for example; even though it’s currently forced to partner if they want to offer any real GenAI features). Now, more than ever, finding themselves so far behind, Apple needs to sell, sell, sell! – MacDailyNews, May 28, 2024
When you're caught flat-footed like Tim Cook's Apple, you pop into scramble mode to try to catch up. Early on, you hit it with a big marketing flourish (WWDC24) in order to buy some more time. Then you dribble out features as they get finished & actually exist. Classic vaporware. https://t.co/I1J4y3aDNy pic.twitter.com/fLKvxGj4G3
— MacDailyNews (@MacDailyNews) July 31, 2024
Executing a vaporware strategy is an unfortunate necessity without a visionary CEO and it takes time to actually realize (code, test, build out datacenter infrastructure, etc.) a grand marketing vision. – MacDailyNews, September 10, 2024
You know, some people get upset when we point out that Tim Cook is a boring, reactive caretaker who’s not really the best person to be running Apple today or for at least the past several years.
Operations manager Cook should have been a 3-5 year stopgap after Steve Jobs’ untimely passing, running the iteration playbook, providing continuity for the company while it found a real CEO. Instead, he hung on — and keeps hanging on — well past his sell-by date.
Sigh.
You can be upset with us for having the temerity to call it like we see it, but the fact remains that Apple would be doing significantly better today with a visionary who’d have seen AI on the horizon, who’d have recognized the intrinsic importance of Siri and therefore invested in it instead of criminally neglecting it, and who wouldn’t have squandered the company’s gigantic leads in things like personal assistants and podcasting. – MacDailyNews, August 22, 2024
Every Apple (AAPL) shareholder should of course enjoy every new all-time high, but also never forget that with a visionary CEO instead of a myopic, iterative, virtue-signaling caretaker who’s currently on tour peddling AI vaporware* because he completely missed it by wasting… pic.twitter.com/ceecUAbJUA
— MacDailyNews (@MacDailyNews) December 6, 2024
Until it gets another visionary leader (fingers crossed; Apple’s history has shown – cough, Sculley, Spindler, cough – that the next CEO could be far, far worse than the very competent caretaker Cook), Apple can afford to miss things like generative AI – which they clearly did – and then use its huge war chest to catch up – which they’re doing right now (fun times and 80-hour weeks inside Apple Park!) – and, hopefully, [someday] surpass rivals (or at least be as good). Apple will very likely unveil their catch-up work within months (this June at WWDC 2024) in iPhones (and iPads, Apple Watches, etc.) with built-in on-device generative AI and other new AI-driven features. – MacDailyNews, February 14, 2024
Every Apple (AAPL) shareholder should of course enjoy every new all-time high, but also never forget that with a visionary CEO instead of a myopic, iterative, virtue-signaling caretaker who’s currently on tour peddling AI vaporware* because he completely missed it by wasting… pic.twitter.com/ceecUAbJUA
— MacDailyNews (@MacDailyNews) December 6, 2024
Apple needed new blood years ago, but the old blood simply won’t let go. – MacDailyNews, January 22, 2025
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“Squandered” sticks…it truly encapsulates what Mr. Wooden has done with AAPL. Even with great EPS gains, good for s-holders bags…a company dies when financialized.
Let’s hear it for a vibrant, exciting and innovative release of new emojis…with ethnicities and genders never yet seen.
Waiting next for the transgender emoji. The height of woke Apple innovation.
None of the “leaders” know how to spell “no”. Unfortunate.
Apple’s rainbow alter to wokeness and mediocrity in their courtyard in Cupertino needs to be dismantled, diced up into small bit, loaded up on a dumptruck and hauled to the burn pit section of the Cupertino dump.
I volunteer to strike the first match!
Just like Michael Dell when he said Apple should shutdown and give the money back to shareholders. Remember how well that turned out for Michael?
Don’t miss footnote² about John G, which reads:
“Federighi’s title is SVP of software, and Apple Intelligence and Siri are “software”, but John Giannandrea (SVP of machine learning and AI strategy) is Federighi’s peer, not subordinate, on the org chart — both report directly to Tim Cook — and is responsible for Siri and Apple Intelligence. Why it was Federighi, not Giannandrea, pitching those features in the iPhone 16 event keynote almost certainly comes down to Federighi’s presentation skills and stage presence, not responsibility for the features themselves. But who’s going on camera to pitch these features and promise their future availability the next time?”
Maybe Gruber should stop being a p*ssy and just call the man out next time.
I have posted for years, that Tim Cook (while a nice guy) needs to GO! As a CEO myself to numerous companies, I see a weak leader; that is VERY unfocused.
1 – Numerous years Apple has missed sales opportunities to have amble supply, for the demand, during the Holiday season. The small SKU count is mostly sold out, at the highest volume cycle. Missed revenue. And we have known this cycle for about 100 years.
2 – Tim fails (where Steve Jobs thrived) to Announce • Release • Show Financials, in ONE quarter, on new products. Doing so, gains higher FREE press on the “event”. It also creates a higher anticipation and call to action (buy) with the consumers.
3 – The lack of innovation is now showing in all its glory. Apple used to lead this category, lately, it feels like they are scrambling.. and that is on leadership. Vision.
4 – Most of Apple’s software development seems like it working backwards. More bugs. Less features. Harder to navigate. Just look at iTunes as an example of this.
5 – Lack of communication with developers. When Apple use to do an update, all the developers were ready on day one, with an update to ride WITH Apple. Lately, many developers (many in the Audio ecosystem) have to play catch up, to the new code, restrictions, and lack of communication from Apple.
6 – Shady activities. Did you know Apple removed some assets that you purchased from the Apple Movie Ecosystem. Removing purchases (not rentals) from the Apple TV world, without giving notice, or a refund, is theft. Don’t be surprised if a class action lawsuit comes one day from that fun activity.
7 – Bad acquisitions. When Apple paid $3 BILLION to acquire “Beats”, I knew Tim was a soft leader. A solid leader would have looked at the product, had R&D create an even better product, and told the world that this new Apple product was the best trend ever, and backed it up with quality. That could have been accomplished for less than $1 Billion, saving Apple $2 Billion. The acquisition said to be that Tim felt Beats had better street red than Apple. And THAT is a HUGE problem! Solid leaders to fear competition, they destroy them.
8 – Diversify manufacturing. I would take 1% of the companies profitability, and diversify manufacturing between America, Mexico, China, India and Vietnam; this way the SKU count can sustain a constant process and Apple will never have supply chain issues.
They had a visionary named Scott Forstall. He was fired for being too demanding.
“Demanding” is too harsh for the DEI-minded. “Excellence,” as well because it demands the outer reaches of human capacity, borders on the inhumane to the DEI crew.
Apple will not ship a product until it is ready. They have learned there lessons from the Newton and Apple Maps.
Duh. Fix the products that you have, develop what people WANT. Otherwise their money is going someplace else.
Apple hasn’t done demos in years, everything is prerecorded and scripted since at least mid 2020, what the hell is he talking about? This is a big blunder but the “culture of excellence” has been on life support for a long time. Gruber is also a mentally-ill Trump-hating fanatic, hardly someone I’d consider an authority for where the winds are blowing for Apple. As if there’s any other company even close to offering everything that they do. So iPhone sales might dip a bit more than usual until they launch this new Siri, tragic.
When you’re running a multi-$trillion company — one that is SO incredibly valuable and desirable that it is the jewel in Warren Buffett’s breathtaking portfolio — you have to totally ignore the strident and needy squealing dicks and press forward making stellar products along with absolutely stellar operating systems. The needy squealing dicks have literally no experience in this kind of awesome production environment. Apparently some need to be reminded that Apple is a computational powerhouse whose products are so spectacularly positioned and sought after that Google, of all companies, is willing to pay Apple $20fucking-billion each year just to have its search engine as the ‘initial’ default search engine on Apple’s new devices. THAT is a mind-boggling reality in the extreme. As for incorporating A.I. into its systems, my suggestion would be to let Google develop them for Apple and even if Apple has to pay Google $20fucking-billion each year for their A.I., then guess what … Apple breaks even. I use Siri periodically and it has always answered my questions and carried out my requests without difficulty. I’m not sure what the needy squealing dicks really require in the way of having A.I. agents kissing their lazy asses. As for Mr. G., he might well want to consider pulling his head out of his fat ass in order to see a little more clearly and perhaps gain some improved existential perspective. It has been said that critics are essentially useless parasites who attempt to gain some measure of self-importance by evaluating others’ genius. The cognoscenti always ignore them.
You have the exact mindset of those on the Board, or in the C-positions. Resting on laurels is the paradigm and it is a silent killer.
You and Apple leaders need the mindset driving the CEO of Nvidia. He wakes up at night pondering/considering it’s a reality their position could be lost. Greatness in a company, indi talent, wealth can be lost quickly and it’s YOUR EXACT mindset that’s exists prior to the fall. Am I saying the fall is imminent? No…but the frame is far from the mindset, Job’s birthed, that leads to innovation and tech growth. Financialization and EPS growth is no proof of “security,” when the monetary/fiscal situ feeds the big institutions/companies…regardless of innovation.
When gay Tim starting getting Apple more woke and adding lgbtq whatever, is when he lost the support of about 80 million Americans
Jobs always said, “Real artist ship” and “Real companies don’t do concept vehicles.”
The fact that Apple actually produced THREE advertisements for a product which did not exist is astonishing. Heads need to roll.
I would say that Cook has been a very good caretaker, and inventory manager–stuff ships, improvements are steadily added, and profit margins are always healthy. Apple Watch has prolly been the best, most compelling product on his watch, but no major innovations. Apple needs another visionary.
I still remember the “Knowledge Navigator” video. Was originally blown away, but then quickly realized, “nobody has the tech to do this stuff right now.”
Emblematic of the situ. Talk (ads) w/o substance. This has been a multi-yr reality.
Emojis (truly) have been AAPL’s “tip of the spear,” feeding the cultural’s drivel and equating it with technology expected from a co like AAPL.
WWSJD?
What would Steve Jobs Do?
NOT THIS. SIRI should by now be the leading edge of AI…