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Apple cuts Tim Cook's pay 15% for missing sales goals

309 points by basseq 10y ago

gist 10y ago
As if this really matters to someone in Cooks position I would guess that the money loss is the least thing he actually cares about.
WalterSear 10y ago
Oh no, now he won't be able to afford that thing. Oh wait, yes he will. It seems to me that executive compensation has become so inflated, it's lost its incentive value.
- maxxxxx 10y ago
  I have read studies that too much reward actually destroys the incentive. Instead of doing the work they are supposedly incentivized to do the main focus shifts on getting the reward at any cost.
  - tonyedgecombe 10y ago
    I think I read that incentives only really work for mundane repetitive work. For anything intellectual or creative it is neutral or even negative.
    - maxxxxx 10y ago
      My company gives out bonuses in the range of 10%. I really appreciate that but it's not large enough for me to change my work. It probably makes me stay longer with the company. If my bonus was a multiple of my salary I would probably think more about increasing the bonus at any cost.
      - brianwawok 10y ago
        Investment banker then. Isn't normal bonus 2x salary? I would hate to rely so much on bonus. You can't count a mortgage payment on it. Shouldn't really count retirement on it.
        shostack 10y ago
        I have a relative that is an ibanker. His bonus was a little more than his base, but he's still somewhat junior (only a couple years in). He basically lives off his salary and is building up a reserve from the bonuses that he will then plan to spend in a controlled fashion. The general sentiment of that industry though seems to be "you should earn enough to not care about money, and if you don't you probably aren't good enough to deserve to be a banker."
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      - beamatronic 10y ago
        Especially when they pay it out every 6 months, which is standard practice. "Eh, I'm unhappy but I might as well stay around just another 6 months to get the next bonus. Then I'm gone."
  - WalterSear 10y ago
    There's that, but mostly when someone is being rewarded as much as the CEO of Apple, there's really not much they need money for, nor does a pay cut have any real material meaning.
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tyingq 10y ago
Mentioned, but this was a reduction in cash bonus of around 2.6 million. While approximately 136 million of his equity vested in the same year. And, he got a 1 million bump up in base salary. The total hit to his comp isn't terribly notable.
- jbigelow76 10y ago
  The pay dink is probably just the political cover for "sending a message".
aw3c2 10y ago
Oh noes, only 24k per day anymore!
Analemma_ 10y ago
It's not really a "pay cut"; he's not receiving the maximum potential value of his incentive bonus.
- enlightenedfool 10y ago
  yes, The cut doesn't affect him, but the low level workers can feel the affect because they too don't achieve the max.
- beambot 10y ago
  Pretext for dinging employee raises and bonuses? </speculation>
- Natsu 10y ago
  Also this is focused on salary... isn't it usually the case that the compensation they receive in stock is far more meaningful?
jeffehobbs 10y ago
Apple should have removed the indicator that showed Tim Cook what his sales goals were.
- hueving 10y ago
  Yeah, the sales goals were never accurate to begin with. :)
- mejari 10y ago
  That takes courage.
Waterluvian 10y ago
When you're that rich, money is more of a high score than a tool. A pay cut will have more symbolic and emotional effect than actually lacking that money.
- hartator 10y ago
  I am pretty sure Tim Cook doesn't care.
  - Domenic_S 10y ago
    You missed the point. Getting 100% or 120% of your bonus target says, "you're an awesome leader and people should respect you". Getting 89.5% says "get your life together". It's about pride and bragging rights. Nobody wants to go down in history as the one who led apple's implosion.
    - JustSomeNobody 10y ago
      I am pretty sure Tim Cook doesn't care. He is still the CEO of Apple.
    - slantyyz 10y ago
      >> Nobody wants to go down in history as the one who led apple's implosion. True, but in many ways, Tim Cook was the one who helped make Apple insanely profitable. If Tim Cook were to be ousted today, I'd bet there'd be a lineup of companies wanting him to be their CEO.
  - invisible 10y ago
    I'd argue he does care but isn't financially hurt. Being chastised by your peers isn't any less significant when you're rich.
    - existencebox 10y ago
      As someone who has climbed the income ladder significantly, I'd beg to differ. My ability to laugh off chastisement has correlated very directly with my financial stability. In fact I'd say the converse seems more likely, in that for someone without financial capital, social capital is all one has, whereas financial capital can certainly supplement or purchase a lack of social capital in many domains.
rackforms 10y ago
How is Tim Cook still CEO of Apple? Forget sales for a moment and just consider the damage Apple's brand is suffering. $300 books, headphone jacks, unreliable cloud services, missed product launches. In may ways Apples becoming the butt of jokes, a symbol of ignorance. Apple's in total disarray right now and the most loyal followers, myself included, are either jumping ship or seriously considering. The mistakes being made are all, without question, completely avoidable and yet here we are. So I ask again? Why benefit is Apple gaining keeping him on?
- usaphp 10y ago
  Your first reason for him being a bad CEO is a $300 book. A lot of companies have these type of books which are also costly, I don't think it's a good idea to start argument about him being a bad CEO with a book example.
  - jameskegel 10y ago
    No, it's a fine example, and makes a succinct point.
    - pducks32 10y ago
      It's a hobby project that keeps designers feel valued and most companies do it. Some release it, some don't. But they all do it.
      - hcoyote 10y ago
        Honestly, this cost is on par with other book-based photographic collections from small, bespoke printing companies (Such as Lodima Press). The real question is how many copies did they run. This will determine whether or not the cost is justified for the value you get from it. As an example, a few years ago, I purchased a copy of Edward Weston's "Life Work" from Lodima when it was released. I think I paid ~$150 for it. They're now selling it for $1000 per copy because they have a limited number left. If Apple printed thousands and thousands of these, then I doubt the cost is justified. But if it was a limited run, say less than a few thousand? Seems appropriate to me.
switchstance 10y ago
Personally, I'd hate to have his position. I can't imagine the pressure of trying to fill the shoes of Steve.
- beamatronic 10y ago
  All he has to do, really, is just not fuck up what Steve built. Focus on continuous iteration of all profitable products. Maybe introduce a few new ones, but make sure they are best-of-breed, premium products. Apple's status quo is (was) elegance and excellence.
  - harryh 10y ago
    This is wrong. It's the tech industry. The world changes fast and requires companies to make big bets if they want to stay on top.
    - beamatronic 10y ago
      Well one kind of big bet is "Let's make 1 TB of RAM standard on all Mac Book Pros" and another kind of big bet is "Let's remove keys and connector ports", so I would have to say I prefer the first kind of big bet.
      - harryh 10y ago
        Neither one of those are big bets. A big bet is abandoning a major product line in favor of a speculative one.
- existencebox 10y ago
  People always say this about CEOs, but I'd take that position in an instant. I'd let someone rake hot coals over my face for 100m+ (frankly, for 10m+ as well) The problem I find is ever climbing that ladder without being in an extremely lucky position. I've had a career track I'm both proud and grateful of, and still see no "feasible" route to ever having even orders of magnitude less than that sort of earning potential short of winning the lottery (real or startup, take your pick.) I'm sure I'll get the traditional rebuttle of "but CEO's provide some service worth xxxm"/"the job is so much more difficult" but what little research I've found on correlation of executive salary to performance has disagreed, and I'd respond with the somewhat engineer-centric answer that without a CEO, you still have a product. Without your line devs, you have nothing but a talking head.
nnain 10y ago
Looking at the last two years, it's difficult to be excited about this year's Apple Events. He did well in his role in Operations; but guess Apple needs someone from Products/Design division with a refreshing future vision.
rfrey 10y ago
I feel like appointing Tim Cook CEO was Steve Jobs' last, master stroke to secure Steve Jobs' legend.
mark_l_watson 10y ago
Apple's share price for the last year is up by about 10%, despite problems with disatisfation over MacBook Pro, no earphone jack, etc. Personally, the only thing I am really disappointed with is slow progress on web services. I was considering moving on from Apple myself, but decided that I like their hardware and my workflow is good on macOS and iOS (on a iPad Pro). I just bought a MacBook and when my Android phone is 4 years old (soon), I am going to get an iPhone. Apple products are expensive but I spend so much time with them that the extra cost is worth it. Still, I wish Tim Cook and the board of directors would sit down together and compare Siri with Google Now and Google Assistant.
- pducks32 10y ago
  Everyone I talk to in person loves their new MacBook Pro. They say it's their favorite MacBook ever.
  - badlucklottery 10y ago
    I think the new design/specs were polarizing enough to dissuade many devs (at least in my circle) from even bothering to upgrade. But those who were polarized in the positive direction probably got it and do love it.
    - lukifer 10y ago
      I use a 5yo MBP with 16G RAM; the idea of dropping 4 grand on a laptop that will still be capped at 16G 5 years from now is laughable.
      - wingworks 10y ago
        It is, but most people who'd buy the laptop will be just fine with 16GB for the next 1-2ish years.
      - redbeard0x0a 10y ago
        This is the single reason why I am waiting for next update. Which should give us the option of 32GB with LDDR4 (or whatever low power memory they are waiting for). This is possible because laptop speed doesn't really increase as much with each revision anymore.
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tarikjn 10y ago
To step away from sales, since everyone seems so focused on headphone jacks/MBPt. I think a lot of the uproar this year will subside over the next 1-2 years and the decisions Apple made will make sense. Apple has always made controversial decisions of this fashion in its history, many today don't remember because they weren't Apple customers then. I think those who said Steve Jobs wouldn't have let these decisions happen couldn't be further from the truth. But these decisions have usually paid off, there just were less people then to notice/complain. A lot of the decisions made on the products released last year actually make a lot of sense to me. If anything, Apple should simply stop including the earpods with the iPhone to reduce confusion and waste. Moving away from the headphone jack is not just about wireless and space, but making the DAC part of the speakers/drivers system. The lightning port is destined to disappear eventually too, with induction or wireless charging. I think a lot of this is the result of Apple being ahead of the curve (and partly driving it), and is consistent with Apple looking ahead and delivering long-term value products. A wise investor would see the stance of the company keeping course for the vision in the face of such bad publicity as a good sign it hasn't lost its edge.
- hrayr 10y ago
  Typo "subside" not "subsidize", confused me a bit.
  - tarikjn 10y ago
    corrected, thank you!
- jbmorgado 10y ago
  Apple's decisions "won't make sense" in 2 years, just like they don't make sense now. There is just no rational narrative applicable when Apple launches their 2 flaghip products separated by 2 months (iPhone and MacBook Pro) and they have totally different ports. That's a complete lack of strategy like the two teams didn't communicate with eachother.
- swang 10y ago
  > I think a lot of the uproar this year will subside over the next 1-2 years and the decisions Apple made will make sense. Uh, they subside because people don't want to argue over stuff that happened 1-2 years ago... do you still argue about apple's change from it's 30-pin to lightning connector that happened in 2012? no, because you either 1: just dealt with the annoyance that you had to rebuy charging cables or 2: decide buying these cables was not worth your loyalty to apple and just stopped buying iphones. i'm not going to argue about the new iphone only having a lightning connector and no headphone jack in 2 years. why? because i'll either be using a device that actually has a headphone jack or i'll just give in and buy lightning headphones. the difference between the "uproar" is whether this causes people to start rethinking buying an iphone. another thing: the decisions apple made for the macbook pro will _probably_ make sense in 2 years, the problem is this laptop exists now. not 1-2 years from now when, "it will make sense"
fleshweasel 10y ago
They should start paying Tim Cook in dongles.
quizzas 10y ago
Tim Cook has always been an efficiency expert. He is the master of supply chain management and logistics. He is perfect for operations and everything related to cost management. However, do his skills translate to the visionary tasks expected of the CEO? I understand he's delegated these tasks to others, but ultimately, these delegates have failed. Either Cook needs to find better visionaries, or step down, because Apple is completely rudderless as a purveyor of EXCITING consumer products. It's becoming more like LG, Samsung and Lenovo - a boring derivative consumer electronics product company.
- Turing_Machine 10y ago
  The problem is that it's almost impossible to hire a Steve Jobs-level visionary. Those people won't usually work for anyone but themselves (note that working for themselves may or may not result in actual success -- that's an orthogonal axis).
- Steko 10y ago
  > do his skills translate to the visionary tasks expected of the CEO So this is a real question, why does the CEO have to be the visionary? Why can't the product visionary role be supplied by Ive? According to Jobs himself, he 'set things up at Apple so that no one can tell Jony what to do'. It seems like Ive could have taken the CEO desk after Steve passed if that's what he wanted but because he isn't interested in doing the dog and pony stuff instead they came up with this dual split where Jony focuses on Products and Tim does all the stuff Tim did as COO and temp CEO when Steve was sick and it just so happens that Tim's nameplate says CEO and Jony's says CDO.
  - norea-armozel 10y ago
    I think the problem is that Tim is too focused on cost effectiveness and hasn't learned to reign in Jony and company which seem to not give a flip about UI and software. To them it seems software should "just work" without any effort on quality assurance. Seriously, either Jony needs to step down from being the big boss on the whole visionary stuff or pushed out. I love his hardware design but I really am hating his software decisions and choices.
rblatz 10y ago
People are all up in arms about headphone jacks, USB-C, and dongles. When the real issue is Apple completely missing huge new markets. Apple had Siri out and was in the lead with voice control, then they wasted it. I never use Siri, she is nearly worthless, but I do use Alexa multiple times a day. Amazon is Leading the voice assistant market, and Google is right on their heels. Home automation was supposed to get better with HomeKit but arrived basically stalled. They announced all these partners and sold their products at the Apple Store. Then when HomeKit finally was ready none of those products worked with HomeKit. You had to buy newer versions that had some proprietary Apple chip in it. Apple's cloud offering is confusing and hard to manage, also it doesn't work with other platforms besides their own. Amazon and Google both do this much better. AppleTv is a great product but Apple can't seem to really work with partners to make it actually innovative. The TV app is a cool idea, but I've yet to find any reason to actually use it. It just seems like they've been wondering aimlessly and dropping half products out there then never iterating and finishing them. Is there some other hidden project (car?) taking all their top talent? Is there some sort of corporate culture issue that has driven all the best and brightest brightest elsewhere? Is there a lot of mismanagement and mixed signals coming down from above?
- martinald 10y ago
  I agree. They seem to be making the same mistake as Microsoft did in the Ballmer years. Yes, they are poking at some new markets, but quite half heartedly and believing their own ecosystem hype too much. It feels like all the protests about Vista back then. When in reality this was trivial compared to the fact there was virtually nothing exciting coming out from them and they misstepped on huge new markets. I honestly get the impression they are shocked that people don't love all the new stuff as much as they expected.
  - Skunkleton 10y ago
    It shouldn't surprise anyone. Tim Cook and Steve Ballmer shared a similar roll when they were under their respective CEO/Celebrities.
- eridius 10y ago
DoodleBuggy 10y ago
"Apple Bosses See Pay Drop in 2016 as CEO Reaps $145 Million" https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-06/apple-executives-see-pay-drop-in-2016-as-ceo-reaps-145-million https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-06/apple-exe... I think he will get by.
ChuckMcM 10y ago
Like others I don't shed a lot of tears when an exec makes only 89% of their multi-million dollar target bonus :-) I asked an exec at Oracle once about how it was even motivating. For much of my career I've had some sort of bonus associated with my salary, at Sun, NetApp, Google all had bonus programs (with different tweaks). And for an engineer it could be a huge thing. At Google with all the multipliers in place you could get your entire salary paid again in just bonus money if you were a superstar. For an engineer that can be hugely motivating because they need their salary to live on, so bonus money is "extra". But when you're an executive and the different in bonus is $8M vs $5M? Sure its a huge number that you didn't get an extra three million dollars but what can you do differently with $8M that you can't do with $5M? So my question to the Oracle exec was "Does it really motivate you to work harder, smarter, etc if the difference between hitting it out of the park and not doing so has no impact on your lifestyle?" And his answer was that most of the people that he worked with were "score" motivated, it wasn't the money it was that they had a bigger score than their competitive exec. I'm not sure I really believe that. I mean could Oracle just have Brownie Points as their bonus metric and still get the same performance effort? But it really did surprise me that the number was important even though the effect of the number on their lifestyle was probably not noticeable. I think Tim needs to avoid being painted like Steve Ballmer, an exec that led Microsoft to higher growth, profit, and sales, and into the swamp. And for that reason, not the size of his bonus this year, he needs to pay attention to the changing forces in the market.
- Skunkleton 10y ago
  > I'm not sure I really believe that. I mean could Oracle just have Brownie Points as their bonus metric and still get the same performance effort? No, because brownie points are not backed by the full faith of the US government.
- karyon 10y ago
  This sounds a bit like "my income is normal, and everyone above that is rich"-thinking that a lot of people have.(if there's a word for that i'd appreciate any hints :) ) i'd definitely consider engineers at google to be rich and don't see how another 200k makes that much of a difference. you think these execs are rich and don't see how another million makes a difference. and the execs consider billionaires to be rich and don't see how another billion makes a difference. it's just different scales, but who's actually right? i think it's important to realise that the scale of income has an extreme range and we are already on the upper end and definitely rich by global standards. my personal opinion is that a majority of people living in the western world is actually rich and any complaints on salaries by these are just first world problems. on a more constructive note, i think i've seen a study that said that higher salary actually does motivate more, but hits the point of diminishing returns at about (i think) 80k or 100k. I don't remember which country and whether it was $ or €, but that should give a sense of the rough order of magnitude.
kingkawn 10y ago
All the resources in the world aren't worth much if you can't think of anything good to do.
TheRealPomax 10y ago
As clickbait bot would say "his salary went up from $2m to $3m/yr, and only his bonus got one-time slashed, still giving him $8.7m this year". This is not information worth reading on hackernews. If the article actually went into real detail why the sales goals were missed, and what made them reasonable goals in the first place, maybe that would have been a worthwhile article to read.
tannhaeuser 10y ago
It's easy to paint Tim Cook as beancounter and Steve Jobs as mastermind. But doesn't this story actually show that Apple's stock holders/investor relations are the prime reason Apple doesn't take risks/investments as they used to under Jobs? I think it's very short-sighted of Apple to neglect their MacOS business in favour of iOS devices, even though iPhone sales might trounch MacOS's now.
swang 10y ago
everyone keeps saying it's only HN commenters, r/apple techies that are complaining about Apple's new changes. calling us/these people "fringe" users. let's talk about what a "normal" user needs: web browsing and watching netflix. of course those users are happy. a macbook pro is an excellent $3000 netflix movie watcher and web browser. but my sister is an actual professional that uses macs because she works in video editing. her needs are above what a normal user needs in terms of everything: cpu/gpu power, memory, hard drive space, etc. how have her needs been met by apple? no mac pro. she had the old (g5?) tower and just had to straight up move to the imac because the trashcan darth vader mac pro was way out of her budget for what it offered. okay, so maybe the macbook pro is closer to what she needs right? except she has a whole bunch of legacy usb devices she needs to connect to and her idea of having to buy dongles or docks on top of the $$$ price tag does not appeal to her at all. what does she even get for spending this much money? prev generation cpu with a centimeter-high secondary touchscreen device that costs $200 more to get (vs last year's non-touchbar model). she does not use fcpx so she is not heavily attached to apple. she would rather stick with apple but at this point she is literally being offered zero options for doing her work. apple has left her and many other professionals in the dust. tim cook says they're working on mac pro / desktop models but if they don't come out soon they're asking for their lunch to be eaten up slowly just like what happened to microsoft. microsoft started losing customers in small amounts and they said, "WHERE ELSE WILL YOU GO?" and apple, and google answered. apple is now playing the same game. one more user using a google pixel smartphone, one more user using a microsoft surface studio, one more person using alexa instead of siri and it eats away at apple's ecosphere. we'll see if apple has the "courage" to change course.
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kabes 10y ago
I think it's time for Apple to open up and be less restrictive about their platform. As the competition is catching up with Apple, I see a lot of people are tempted to buy at least one product (laptop, phone, chromecast, ...) that is not Apple. The problem is that Apple only works great if you go 100% Apple. As soon as you have a couple of non-apple products, your apple products tend to loose a lot of value. You'll likely find you'd rather use Dropbox than iCloud. Rather share with Chromecast than airplay, ...
hyperion2010 10y ago
I have to say, I stopped by a university computer store today and they had the three new mac book pros on display. When I went to test out the keyboard I was horrified. How does anyone think that having sub millimetre key-action is acceptable? The things barely move! Same with the touchpads. Maybe I'm biased coming from thinkpad keyboads, but even compared to the previous generation of mac keyboards (which I have encountered from time to time when I need to help someone with a mac out) the new ones are a joke. Putting a multitouch screen with haptic feedback would be better. So serious question: does anyone actually like the new mac keyboards? They seem like a complete failure to me, it is like watching the apple engineers striving for further thinness because that is their only metric for goodness, forget trying to do usability studies.
- kevinherron 10y ago
  I actually really like the new keyboard. Not sure what to tell you. I was a little hesitant, but I think it feels better to type on than the old ones now. It's not like I'm used to shitty keyboards either - when I'm not on a laptop all my keyboards are mechanical.
  - TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago
    I'm the same, the new keyboard works fine for me.
    - BipolarElsa 10y ago
      The travel distance of the key strokes is becoming gradually smaller and smaller. What is Apple's endgame, you might ask? Get consumers used to a completely glass-touch based keyboard.
- mehrdada 10y ago
  > does anyone actually like the new mac keyboards? Yes. I have being using three 2016 MacBook Pros regularly so far (two 15" and one 13") and I absolutely prefer the new keyboard on two of them to the old ones. The keys are more stable and feel better in my opinion. That said, the larger keys (esp. Space Bar and Left Shift) on one of the 15" MacBooks are a bit less "clicky" and that is an absolute pain in the ass to use. I am thinking perhaps the new keyboards vary more or at least a slight imperfection in the build of a specific machine can make user feeling much worse. I also believe that the first gen butterfly keyboard (on 12" MacBook) feels much worse than the newer one on the MacBook Pros.
markpapadakis 10y ago
My theory (everyone has one) is that Tim Cook is excellent at delegating and orchestrating operations, but he lacks the combination of qualities, charisma and personality of Jobs that pushed(forced?) people to go above and beyond and surpass expectations. Jobs likely had zero tolerance for good enough products. Cook, I presume, would have wanted people to stay that course but looks like that didn’t happen, and he wouldn’t boss them around until it did, because maybe he himself doesn’t know what is great and what isn’t and delegates that to his lieutenants, and because that’s just not who he is and how he treats his people. Apple execs have to do a lot of soul searching to do and should put their resources to a better use. Invest in quality products(that was their trademark but they kind of lost their way there), invest in ‘cloud’ services and AI/ML because they can’t afford not to, innovate in hardware, and understand that many of their competitors are constantly and consistently out-Apple-ing them so time is ticking.
neovive 10y ago
It's hard to keep growing a company as big as Apple. Maybe they need to spin-off the desktop division into a separate company that can innovate independently of their mobile devices.
mmonihan 10y ago
This is an example of one of the more insidious cases of "fake news." His pay wasn't cut, he simply didn't earn 100% of it as he did in previous years because they missed their sales goals in 2016. That's baked into his contract, and isn't really "news." It may just be wording, but the headline makes the effect sound much more sensational than the reality. It's these instances of seemingly harmless clickbait that are eroding the public's trust in major news outlets.
crististm 10y ago
There is something that can be seen throughout history of mankind: Some dude leads a country for many years in prosperity and abundance. Because he has results, his opposition is practically non-existent and he stays in the lead until he dies. Another king comes but he is practically unable to raise to the same level as his predecessor. His opposition is stronger (relative to him) and he ends up either overthrown or burning all the money or both... This backlash effect is very clear after almost any powerful figure. Without peers of the same calibre, good results will soon be cancelled out as if non-existent.
drdoom 10y ago
Here is an insider point of view of the reason Tim Cook missed his sales goals as an Apple engineer describes it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXuVAi2bHdA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXuVAi2bHdA
noddingham 10y ago
The fact that Tim's compensation is tied to sales goals says all you need to know about Apple as a company. The idea presented here by Steve about what happens when sales people run the company is becoming more and more true: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBma82g3Uag https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBma82g3Uag
- dingdongding 10y ago
  That's how most CEOs are paid. Their compensation is tied to goals. Those goals can be sales figure like Apple or Car deliveries like Tesla. For Steve Jobs it was revenues.
norea-armozel 10y ago
It's not a huge surprise to me. Apple's UX and UI stuff has taken such a huge dive in quality. I had hoped someone else would take up the torch but not even Microsoft with Windows 10 is doing good enough IMO. It's weird how usability has taken a back seat to flashy movie style UIs which few can use effectively. Seriously, just give us similar stuff to the finder and the start menu and leave the flashy UI stuff to Hollywood films.
astaroth360 10y ago
Apple needs to get their shit together. OSX has gone downhill fast, they don't seem to know who their target audience is, the new Macbook Pro's have crap battery, what else could they even do wrong at this point? They need to completely turn things around if they are going to keep the developer community. I guess they just worry about the iPhone, but by ignoring everything else they're going to alienate their customers.
ry4n413 10y ago
it doesn't matter, he has US$785 million

309 points by basseq 10y ago

gist 10y ago

As if this really matters to someone in Cooks position I would guess that the money loss is the least thing he actually cares about.

WalterSear 10y ago

Oh no, now he won't be able to afford that thing. Oh wait, yes he will. It seems to me that executive compensation has become so inflated, it's lost its incentive value.

maxxxxx 10y ago
I have read studies that too much reward actually destroys the incentive. Instead of doing the work they are supposedly incentivized to do the main focus shifts on getting the reward at any cost.
- tonyedgecombe 10y ago
  I think I read that incentives only really work for mundane repetitive work. For anything intellectual or creative it is neutral or even negative.
  - maxxxxx 10y ago
    My company gives out bonuses in the range of 10%. I really appreciate that but it's not large enough for me to change my work. It probably makes me stay longer with the company. If my bonus was a multiple of my salary I would probably think more about increasing the bonus at any cost.
    - brianwawok 10y ago
      Investment banker then. Isn't normal bonus 2x salary? I would hate to rely so much on bonus. You can't count a mortgage payment on it. Shouldn't really count retirement on it.
      - shostack 10y ago
        I have a relative that is an ibanker. His bonus was a little more than his base, but he's still somewhat junior (only a couple years in). He basically lives off his salary and is building up a reserve from the bonuses that he will then plan to spend in a controlled fashion. The general sentiment of that industry though seems to be "you should earn enough to not care about money, and if you don't you probably aren't good enough to deserve to be a banker."
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    - beamatronic 10y ago
      Especially when they pay it out every 6 months, which is standard practice. "Eh, I'm unhappy but I might as well stay around just another 6 months to get the next bonus. Then I'm gone."
- WalterSear 10y ago
  There's that, but mostly when someone is being rewarded as much as the CEO of Apple, there's really not much they need money for, nor does a pay cut have any real material meaning.

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tyingq 10y ago

Mentioned, but this was a reduction in cash bonus of around 2.6 million. While approximately 136 million of his equity vested in the same year. And, he got a 1 million bump up in base salary. The total hit to his comp isn't terribly notable.

jbigelow76 10y ago
The pay dink is probably just the political cover for "sending a message".

aw3c2 10y ago

Oh noes, only 24k per day anymore!

Analemma_ 10y ago

It's not really a "pay cut"; he's not receiving the maximum potential value of his incentive bonus.

enlightenedfool 10y ago
yes, The cut doesn't affect him, but the low level workers can feel the affect because they too don't achieve the max.
beambot 10y ago
Pretext for dinging employee raises and bonuses? </speculation>
Natsu 10y ago
Also this is focused on salary... isn't it usually the case that the compensation they receive in stock is far more meaningful?

jeffehobbs 10y ago

Apple should have removed the indicator that showed Tim Cook what his sales goals were.

hueving 10y ago
Yeah, the sales goals were never accurate to begin with. :)
mejari 10y ago
That takes courage.

Waterluvian 10y ago

When you're that rich, money is more of a high score than a tool. A pay cut will have more symbolic and emotional effect than actually lacking that money.

hartator 10y ago
I am pretty sure Tim Cook doesn't care.
- Domenic_S 10y ago
  You missed the point. Getting 100% or 120% of your bonus target says, "you're an awesome leader and people should respect you". Getting 89.5% says "get your life together". It's about pride and bragging rights. Nobody wants to go down in history as the one who led apple's implosion.
  - JustSomeNobody 10y ago
    I am pretty sure Tim Cook doesn't care. He is still the CEO of Apple.
  - slantyyz 10y ago
    >> Nobody wants to go down in history as the one who led apple's implosion. True, but in many ways, Tim Cook was the one who helped make Apple insanely profitable. If Tim Cook were to be ousted today, I'd bet there'd be a lineup of companies wanting him to be their CEO.
- invisible 10y ago
  I'd argue he does care but isn't financially hurt. Being chastised by your peers isn't any less significant when you're rich.
  - existencebox 10y ago
    As someone who has climbed the income ladder significantly, I'd beg to differ. My ability to laugh off chastisement has correlated very directly with my financial stability. In fact I'd say the converse seems more likely, in that for someone without financial capital, social capital is all one has, whereas financial capital can certainly supplement or purchase a lack of social capital in many domains.

rackforms 10y ago

How is Tim Cook still CEO of Apple? Forget sales for a moment and just consider the damage Apple's brand is suffering. $300 books, headphone jacks, unreliable cloud services, missed product launches. In may ways Apples becoming the butt of jokes, a symbol of ignorance. Apple's in total disarray right now and the most loyal followers, myself included, are either jumping ship or seriously considering. The mistakes being made are all, without question, completely avoidable and yet here we are. So I ask again? Why benefit is Apple gaining keeping him on?

usaphp 10y ago
Your first reason for him being a bad CEO is a $300 book. A lot of companies have these type of books which are also costly, I don't think it's a good idea to start argument about him being a bad CEO with a book example.
- jameskegel 10y ago
  No, it's a fine example, and makes a succinct point.
  - pducks32 10y ago
    It's a hobby project that keeps designers feel valued and most companies do it. Some release it, some don't. But they all do it.
    - hcoyote 10y ago
      Honestly, this cost is on par with other book-based photographic collections from small, bespoke printing companies (Such as Lodima Press). The real question is how many copies did they run. This will determine whether or not the cost is justified for the value you get from it. As an example, a few years ago, I purchased a copy of Edward Weston's "Life Work" from Lodima when it was released. I think I paid ~$150 for it. They're now selling it for $1000 per copy because they have a limited number left. If Apple printed thousands and thousands of these, then I doubt the cost is justified. But if it was a limited run, say less than a few thousand? Seems appropriate to me.

switchstance 10y ago

Personally, I'd hate to have his position. I can't imagine the pressure of trying to fill the shoes of Steve.

beamatronic 10y ago
All he has to do, really, is just not fuck up what Steve built. Focus on continuous iteration of all profitable products. Maybe introduce a few new ones, but make sure they are best-of-breed, premium products. Apple's status quo is (was) elegance and excellence.
- harryh 10y ago
  This is wrong. It's the tech industry. The world changes fast and requires companies to make big bets if they want to stay on top.
  - beamatronic 10y ago
    Well one kind of big bet is "Let's make 1 TB of RAM standard on all Mac Book Pros" and another kind of big bet is "Let's remove keys and connector ports", so I would have to say I prefer the first kind of big bet.
    - harryh 10y ago
      Neither one of those are big bets. A big bet is abandoning a major product line in favor of a speculative one.
existencebox 10y ago
People always say this about CEOs, but I'd take that position in an instant. I'd let someone rake hot coals over my face for 100m+ (frankly, for 10m+ as well) The problem I find is ever climbing that ladder without being in an extremely lucky position. I've had a career track I'm both proud and grateful of, and still see no "feasible" route to ever having even orders of magnitude less than that sort of earning potential short of winning the lottery (real or startup, take your pick.) I'm sure I'll get the traditional rebuttle of "but CEO's provide some service worth xxxm"/"the job is so much more difficult" but what little research I've found on correlation of executive salary to performance has disagreed, and I'd respond with the somewhat engineer-centric answer that without a CEO, you still have a product. Without your line devs, you have nothing but a talking head.

nnain 10y ago

Looking at the last two years, it's difficult to be excited about this year's Apple Events. He did well in his role in Operations; but guess Apple needs someone from Products/Design division with a refreshing future vision.

rfrey 10y ago

I feel like appointing Tim Cook CEO was Steve Jobs' last, master stroke to secure Steve Jobs' legend.

mark_l_watson 10y ago

Apple's share price for the last year is up by about 10%, despite problems with disatisfation over MacBook Pro, no earphone jack, etc. Personally, the only thing I am really disappointed with is slow progress on web services. I was considering moving on from Apple myself, but decided that I like their hardware and my workflow is good on macOS and iOS (on a iPad Pro). I just bought a MacBook and when my Android phone is 4 years old (soon), I am going to get an iPhone. Apple products are expensive but I spend so much time with them that the extra cost is worth it. Still, I wish Tim Cook and the board of directors would sit down together and compare Siri with Google Now and Google Assistant.

pducks32 10y ago
Everyone I talk to in person loves their new MacBook Pro. They say it's their favorite MacBook ever.
- badlucklottery 10y ago
  I think the new design/specs were polarizing enough to dissuade many devs (at least in my circle) from even bothering to upgrade. But those who were polarized in the positive direction probably got it and do love it.
  - lukifer 10y ago
    I use a 5yo MBP with 16G RAM; the idea of dropping 4 grand on a laptop that will still be capped at 16G 5 years from now is laughable.
    - wingworks 10y ago
      It is, but most people who'd buy the laptop will be just fine with 16GB for the next 1-2ish years.
    - redbeard0x0a 10y ago
      This is the single reason why I am waiting for next update. Which should give us the option of 32GB with LDDR4 (or whatever low power memory they are waiting for). This is possible because laptop speed doesn't really increase as much with each revision anymore.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

tarikjn 10y ago

To step away from sales, since everyone seems so focused on headphone jacks/MBPt. I think a lot of the uproar this year will subside over the next 1-2 years and the decisions Apple made will make sense. Apple has always made controversial decisions of this fashion in its history, many today don't remember because they weren't Apple customers then. I think those who said Steve Jobs wouldn't have let these decisions happen couldn't be further from the truth. But these decisions have usually paid off, there just were less people then to notice/complain. A lot of the decisions made on the products released last year actually make a lot of sense to me. If anything, Apple should simply stop including the earpods with the iPhone to reduce confusion and waste. Moving away from the headphone jack is not just about wireless and space, but making the DAC part of the speakers/drivers system. The lightning port is destined to disappear eventually too, with induction or wireless charging. I think a lot of this is the result of Apple being ahead of the curve (and partly driving it), and is consistent with Apple looking ahead and delivering long-term value products. A wise investor would see the stance of the company keeping course for the vision in the face of such bad publicity as a good sign it hasn't lost its edge.

hrayr 10y ago
Typo "subside" not "subsidize", confused me a bit.
- tarikjn 10y ago
  corrected, thank you!
jbmorgado 10y ago
Apple's decisions "won't make sense" in 2 years, just like they don't make sense now. There is just no rational narrative applicable when Apple launches their 2 flaghip products separated by 2 months (iPhone and MacBook Pro) and they have totally different ports. That's a complete lack of strategy like the two teams didn't communicate with eachother.
swang 10y ago
> I think a lot of the uproar this year will subside over the next 1-2 years and the decisions Apple made will make sense. Uh, they subside because people don't want to argue over stuff that happened 1-2 years ago... do you still argue about apple's change from it's 30-pin to lightning connector that happened in 2012? no, because you either 1: just dealt with the annoyance that you had to rebuy charging cables or 2: decide buying these cables was not worth your loyalty to apple and just stopped buying iphones. i'm not going to argue about the new iphone only having a lightning connector and no headphone jack in 2 years. why? because i'll either be using a device that actually has a headphone jack or i'll just give in and buy lightning headphones. the difference between the "uproar" is whether this causes people to start rethinking buying an iphone. another thing: the decisions apple made for the macbook pro will _probably_ make sense in 2 years, the problem is this laptop exists now. not 1-2 years from now when, "it will make sense"

fleshweasel 10y ago

They should start paying Tim Cook in dongles.

quizzas 10y ago

Tim Cook has always been an efficiency expert. He is the master of supply chain management and logistics. He is perfect for operations and everything related to cost management. However, do his skills translate to the visionary tasks expected of the CEO? I understand he's delegated these tasks to others, but ultimately, these delegates have failed. Either Cook needs to find better visionaries, or step down, because Apple is completely rudderless as a purveyor of EXCITING consumer products. It's becoming more like LG, Samsung and Lenovo - a boring derivative consumer electronics product company.

Turing_Machine 10y ago
The problem is that it's almost impossible to hire a Steve Jobs-level visionary. Those people won't usually work for anyone but themselves (note that working for themselves may or may not result in actual success -- that's an orthogonal axis).
Steko 10y ago
> do his skills translate to the visionary tasks expected of the CEO So this is a real question, why does the CEO have to be the visionary? Why can't the product visionary role be supplied by Ive? According to Jobs himself, he 'set things up at Apple so that no one can tell Jony what to do'. It seems like Ive could have taken the CEO desk after Steve passed if that's what he wanted but because he isn't interested in doing the dog and pony stuff instead they came up with this dual split where Jony focuses on Products and Tim does all the stuff Tim did as COO and temp CEO when Steve was sick and it just so happens that Tim's nameplate says CEO and Jony's says CDO.
- norea-armozel 10y ago
  I think the problem is that Tim is too focused on cost effectiveness and hasn't learned to reign in Jony and company which seem to not give a flip about UI and software. To them it seems software should "just work" without any effort on quality assurance. Seriously, either Jony needs to step down from being the big boss on the whole visionary stuff or pushed out. I love his hardware design but I really am hating his software decisions and choices.

rblatz 10y ago

People are all up in arms about headphone jacks, USB-C, and dongles. When the real issue is Apple completely missing huge new markets. Apple had Siri out and was in the lead with voice control, then they wasted it. I never use Siri, she is nearly worthless, but I do use Alexa multiple times a day. Amazon is Leading the voice assistant market, and Google is right on their heels. Home automation was supposed to get better with HomeKit but arrived basically stalled. They announced all these partners and sold their products at the Apple Store. Then when HomeKit finally was ready none of those products worked with HomeKit. You had to buy newer versions that had some proprietary Apple chip in it. Apple's cloud offering is confusing and hard to manage, also it doesn't work with other platforms besides their own. Amazon and Google both do this much better. AppleTv is a great product but Apple can't seem to really work with partners to make it actually innovative. The TV app is a cool idea, but I've yet to find any reason to actually use it. It just seems like they've been wondering aimlessly and dropping half products out there then never iterating and finishing them. Is there some other hidden project (car?) taking all their top talent? Is there some sort of corporate culture issue that has driven all the best and brightest brightest elsewhere? Is there a lot of mismanagement and mixed signals coming down from above?

martinald 10y ago
I agree. They seem to be making the same mistake as Microsoft did in the Ballmer years. Yes, they are poking at some new markets, but quite half heartedly and believing their own ecosystem hype too much. It feels like all the protests about Vista back then. When in reality this was trivial compared to the fact there was virtually nothing exciting coming out from them and they misstepped on huge new markets. I honestly get the impression they are shocked that people don't love all the new stuff as much as they expected.
- Skunkleton 10y ago
  It shouldn't surprise anyone. Tim Cook and Steve Ballmer shared a similar roll when they were under their respective CEO/Celebrities.
eridius 10y ago

DoodleBuggy 10y ago

"Apple Bosses See Pay Drop in 2016 as CEO Reaps $145 Million" https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-06/apple-executives-see-pay-drop-in-2016-as-ceo-reaps-145-million https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-06/apple-exe... I think he will get by.

ChuckMcM 10y ago

Like others I don't shed a lot of tears when an exec makes only 89% of their multi-million dollar target bonus :-) I asked an exec at Oracle once about how it was even motivating. For much of my career I've had some sort of bonus associated with my salary, at Sun, NetApp, Google all had bonus programs (with different tweaks). And for an engineer it could be a huge thing. At Google with all the multipliers in place you could get your entire salary paid again in just bonus money if you were a superstar. For an engineer that can be hugely motivating because they need their salary to live on, so bonus money is "extra". But when you're an executive and the different in bonus is $8M vs $5M? Sure its a huge number that you didn't get an extra three million dollars but what can you do differently with $8M that you can't do with $5M? So my question to the Oracle exec was "Does it really motivate you to work harder, smarter, etc if the difference between hitting it out of the park and not doing so has no impact on your lifestyle?" And his answer was that most of the people that he worked with were "score" motivated, it wasn't the money it was that they had a bigger score than their competitive exec. I'm not sure I really believe that. I mean could Oracle just have Brownie Points as their bonus metric and still get the same performance effort? But it really did surprise me that the number was important even though the effect of the number on their lifestyle was probably not noticeable. I think Tim needs to avoid being painted like Steve Ballmer, an exec that led Microsoft to higher growth, profit, and sales, and into the swamp. And for that reason, not the size of his bonus this year, he needs to pay attention to the changing forces in the market.

Skunkleton 10y ago
> I'm not sure I really believe that. I mean could Oracle just have Brownie Points as their bonus metric and still get the same performance effort? No, because brownie points are not backed by the full faith of the US government.
karyon 10y ago
This sounds a bit like "my income is normal, and everyone above that is rich"-thinking that a lot of people have.(if there's a word for that i'd appreciate any hints :) ) i'd definitely consider engineers at google to be rich and don't see how another 200k makes that much of a difference. you think these execs are rich and don't see how another million makes a difference. and the execs consider billionaires to be rich and don't see how another billion makes a difference. it's just different scales, but who's actually right? i think it's important to realise that the scale of income has an extreme range and we are already on the upper end and definitely rich by global standards. my personal opinion is that a majority of people living in the western world is actually rich and any complaints on salaries by these are just first world problems. on a more constructive note, i think i've seen a study that said that higher salary actually does motivate more, but hits the point of diminishing returns at about (i think) 80k or 100k. I don't remember which country and whether it was $ or €, but that should give a sense of the rough order of magnitude.

kingkawn 10y ago

All the resources in the world aren't worth much if you can't think of anything good to do.

TheRealPomax 10y ago

As clickbait bot would say "his salary went up from $2m to $3m/yr, and only his bonus got one-time slashed, still giving him $8.7m this year". This is not information worth reading on hackernews. If the article actually went into real detail why the sales goals were missed, and what made them reasonable goals in the first place, maybe that would have been a worthwhile article to read.

tannhaeuser 10y ago

It's easy to paint Tim Cook as beancounter and Steve Jobs as mastermind. But doesn't this story actually show that Apple's stock holders/investor relations are the prime reason Apple doesn't take risks/investments as they used to under Jobs? I think it's very short-sighted of Apple to neglect their MacOS business in favour of iOS devices, even though iPhone sales might trounch MacOS's now.

swang 10y ago

everyone keeps saying it's only HN commenters, r/apple techies that are complaining about Apple's new changes. calling us/these people "fringe" users. let's talk about what a "normal" user needs: web browsing and watching netflix. of course those users are happy. a macbook pro is an excellent $3000 netflix movie watcher and web browser. but my sister is an actual professional that uses macs because she works in video editing. her needs are above what a normal user needs in terms of everything: cpu/gpu power, memory, hard drive space, etc. how have her needs been met by apple? no mac pro. she had the old (g5?) tower and just had to straight up move to the imac because the trashcan darth vader mac pro was way out of her budget for what it offered. okay, so maybe the macbook pro is closer to what she needs right? except she has a whole bunch of legacy usb devices she needs to connect to and her idea of having to buy dongles or docks on top of the $$$ price tag does not appeal to her at all. what does she even get for spending this much money? prev generation cpu with a centimeter-high secondary touchscreen device that costs $200 more to get (vs last year's non-touchbar model). she does not use fcpx so she is not heavily attached to apple. she would rather stick with apple but at this point she is literally being offered zero options for doing her work. apple has left her and many other professionals in the dust. tim cook says they're working on mac pro / desktop models but if they don't come out soon they're asking for their lunch to be eaten up slowly just like what happened to microsoft. microsoft started losing customers in small amounts and they said, "WHERE ELSE WILL YOU GO?" and apple, and google answered. apple is now playing the same game. one more user using a google pixel smartphone, one more user using a microsoft surface studio, one more person using alexa instead of siri and it eats away at apple's ecosphere. we'll see if apple has the "courage" to change course.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

kabes 10y ago

I think it's time for Apple to open up and be less restrictive about their platform. As the competition is catching up with Apple, I see a lot of people are tempted to buy at least one product (laptop, phone, chromecast, ...) that is not Apple. The problem is that Apple only works great if you go 100% Apple. As soon as you have a couple of non-apple products, your apple products tend to loose a lot of value. You'll likely find you'd rather use Dropbox than iCloud. Rather share with Chromecast than airplay, ...

hyperion2010 10y ago

I have to say, I stopped by a university computer store today and they had the three new mac book pros on display. When I went to test out the keyboard I was horrified. How does anyone think that having sub millimetre key-action is acceptable? The things barely move! Same with the touchpads. Maybe I'm biased coming from thinkpad keyboads, but even compared to the previous generation of mac keyboards (which I have encountered from time to time when I need to help someone with a mac out) the new ones are a joke. Putting a multitouch screen with haptic feedback would be better. So serious question: does anyone actually like the new mac keyboards? They seem like a complete failure to me, it is like watching the apple engineers striving for further thinness because that is their only metric for goodness, forget trying to do usability studies.

kevinherron 10y ago
I actually really like the new keyboard. Not sure what to tell you. I was a little hesitant, but I think it feels better to type on than the old ones now. It's not like I'm used to shitty keyboards either - when I'm not on a laptop all my keyboards are mechanical.
- TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago
  I'm the same, the new keyboard works fine for me.
  - BipolarElsa 10y ago
    The travel distance of the key strokes is becoming gradually smaller and smaller. What is Apple's endgame, you might ask? Get consumers used to a completely glass-touch based keyboard.
mehrdada 10y ago
> does anyone actually like the new mac keyboards? Yes. I have being using three 2016 MacBook Pros regularly so far (two 15" and one 13") and I absolutely prefer the new keyboard on two of them to the old ones. The keys are more stable and feel better in my opinion. That said, the larger keys (esp. Space Bar and Left Shift) on one of the 15" MacBooks are a bit less "clicky" and that is an absolute pain in the ass to use. I am thinking perhaps the new keyboards vary more or at least a slight imperfection in the build of a specific machine can make user feeling much worse. I also believe that the first gen butterfly keyboard (on 12" MacBook) feels much worse than the newer one on the MacBook Pros.

markpapadakis 10y ago

My theory (everyone has one) is that Tim Cook is excellent at delegating and orchestrating operations, but he lacks the combination of qualities, charisma and personality of Jobs that pushed(forced?) people to go above and beyond and surpass expectations. Jobs likely had zero tolerance for good enough products. Cook, I presume, would have wanted people to stay that course but looks like that didn’t happen, and he wouldn’t boss them around until it did, because maybe he himself doesn’t know what is great and what isn’t and delegates that to his lieutenants, and because that’s just not who he is and how he treats his people. Apple execs have to do a lot of soul searching to do and should put their resources to a better use. Invest in quality products(that was their trademark but they kind of lost their way there), invest in ‘cloud’ services and AI/ML because they can’t afford not to, innovate in hardware, and understand that many of their competitors are constantly and consistently out-Apple-ing them so time is ticking.

neovive 10y ago

It's hard to keep growing a company as big as Apple. Maybe they need to spin-off the desktop division into a separate company that can innovate independently of their mobile devices.

mmonihan 10y ago

This is an example of one of the more insidious cases of "fake news." His pay wasn't cut, he simply didn't earn 100% of it as he did in previous years because they missed their sales goals in 2016. That's baked into his contract, and isn't really "news." It may just be wording, but the headline makes the effect sound much more sensational than the reality. It's these instances of seemingly harmless clickbait that are eroding the public's trust in major news outlets.

crististm 10y ago

There is something that can be seen throughout history of mankind: Some dude leads a country for many years in prosperity and abundance. Because he has results, his opposition is practically non-existent and he stays in the lead until he dies. Another king comes but he is practically unable to raise to the same level as his predecessor. His opposition is stronger (relative to him) and he ends up either overthrown or burning all the money or both... This backlash effect is very clear after almost any powerful figure. Without peers of the same calibre, good results will soon be cancelled out as if non-existent.

drdoom 10y ago

Here is an insider point of view of the reason Tim Cook missed his sales goals as an Apple engineer describes it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXuVAi2bHdA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXuVAi2bHdA

noddingham 10y ago

The fact that Tim's compensation is tied to sales goals says all you need to know about Apple as a company. The idea presented here by Steve about what happens when sales people run the company is becoming more and more true: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBma82g3Uag https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBma82g3Uag

dingdongding 10y ago
That's how most CEOs are paid. Their compensation is tied to goals. Those goals can be sales figure like Apple or Car deliveries like Tesla. For Steve Jobs it was revenues.

norea-armozel 10y ago

It's not a huge surprise to me. Apple's UX and UI stuff has taken such a huge dive in quality. I had hoped someone else would take up the torch but not even Microsoft with Windows 10 is doing good enough IMO. It's weird how usability has taken a back seat to flashy movie style UIs which few can use effectively. Seriously, just give us similar stuff to the finder and the start menu and leave the flashy UI stuff to Hollywood films.

astaroth360 10y ago

Apple needs to get their shit together. OSX has gone downhill fast, they don't seem to know who their target audience is, the new Macbook Pro's have crap battery, what else could they even do wrong at this point? They need to completely turn things around if they are going to keep the developer community. I guess they just worry about the iPhone, but by ignoring everything else they're going to alienate their customers.

ry4n413 10y ago

it doesn't matter, he has US$785 million