Comment by dvt
8 hours ago
> I think Tim Cook took Steve Job's vision and really took it to the moon.
I vehemently disagree with this. I think Cook's logistics and business-focused goals are, if not diametrically opposed to Job's product obsession, at the very least orthogonal to it. Almost everything about Apple the product, over the past 15 years, has either coasted (e.g. stayed at par with the rest of the industry) or gotten worse. The one exception is arguably Apple Silicon (and I'm sure their board is acutely aware of it).
In Steve Jobs biography, I read that he was obsessed with the factory they built to mass produce devices. I think he was in some way also obsessed with logistics of how things were made, and Tim Cook came in and not only helped Apple but also helped transform the global supply chain.
I also think most products apple makes are in the top tier of their respective category, if not the best.
I find this critique extremely odd. Sure, Apple isn't perfect, but literally every thing they do is top tier in the category they enter.
I started writing out a list of Apple's products and it was simply [x device] in [y category] is either the best or consistently rated in the top of that category.
Airpods? They make more than most SaaS decacorns. How can you not credit that as a massive success that came out of nowhere?
It's a stealth subscription product. People are losing those things all the time.
Yes, what about airpods? Little reason to buy them if you are not in the Apple ecosystem, and if you are, and you are a careful buyer, you'll probably settle with other brands which are technically ahead (in either of build, sound or ANR quality, or all, Apple being on the Pareto front of neither). I'm not dismissing the marketing forces behind airpods selling by the millions as a "status symbol", but that's very much a "high cost of living country" thing, Apple is inexistent elsewhere, which is most places.
I use AirPods and I have a Google Pixel, Windows laptop, and so on.
This comes off as a quite dismissive and incurious take. Are you quite sure that of the ~500 million consumers who bought a pair, nobody considered utility and it was simply a fashion choice? Or is it more likely that some consumers judge the utility differently from you?
> you'll probably settle with other brands which are technically ahead (in either of build, sound or ANR quality, or all, Apple being on the Pareto front of neither)
Like what? In the true wireless camp, the Sony's are much less comfortable (and more expensive), the Bose are not as good (and more expensive)...
There's cheaper options, sure, but you're sacrificing build, ANC, battery life, etc.
Except we can’t discount the fact that Jobs chose Cook as his successor. So there’s something Jobs clearly saw there, past being “diametrically opposed” to Jobs’ product obsession. Maybe Jobs felt there were enough product people.