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"When Jobs returned from his medical leave, Cook resumed his role as the person who kept the moving parts at Apple tightly meshed and remained unfazed by Jobs’s

"When Jobs returned from his medical leave, Cook resumed his role as the person who kept the moving parts at Apple tightly meshed and remained unfazed by Jobs’s tantrums.... 'I’m a good negotiator, but he’s probably better than me because he’s a cool customer,' Jobs later said. After adding a bit more praise, he quietly added a reservation, one that was serious but rarely spoken: 'But Tim’s not a product person, per se.'" -Steve Jobs, by Walter Isaacson

pducks32 9y ago
I’ll give Apple one full more year and see where Mac goes. Their hardware products are truly incredible...minus Macbook /Pro. And I personally love Apple Music over Spotify but I know many disagree.
- dingo_bat 9y ago
  > Their hardware products are truly incredible For example? All I see is outdated design and hardware. Only "incredible" hardware I can think of is the new chip in iphone x.
  - coldtea 9y ago
    What "outdated design and hardware"? The Macbook Pro is the best laptop out there as a power/battery life/build quality combo (having to spend for a "dongle" or new USB-C cables is not a technical concern for its technical capacity). The iPhone X is top notch (pun intended) and has been praised in reviews all around the world. The AirPods have been described as mostly magical by their users (I'd add to that). The Apple Watch is the best in its kind technologically, and has overtaken the #1 traditional watch maker in sales (and moves more units than competitive smart-watches). It's the only one that was deemed most accurate in its health measurements (heart, etc) from all smartwatches too in competitive tests. The iPad continues to be the best tablet technology wise. So?
    - Nullabillity 9y ago
      > The Macbook Pro is the best laptop out there as a power/battery life/build quality combo (having to spend for a "dongle" or new USB-C cables is not a technical concern for its technical capacity). You have to be joking. Apple charges $2k just to get a quad-core CPU or more than 8GB of RAM. Soldered, mind you, so you can't just replace it later. Oh, and I hope you don't need more than 500GB of storage! Build quality tends to include things like, you know, being able to fix it when things inevitably go wrong, rather than throwing it in the bin and paying $2k+ for another lottery ticket. > The Apple Watch is the best in its kind technologically, and has overtaken the #1 traditional watch maker in sales (and moves more units than competitive smart-watches). And Trump managed to get elected president. I guess that says more about the average consumer than about the product they're selling. > The iPad continues to be the best tablet technology wise. When was it ever?
      - coldtea 9y ago
        >You have to be joking. Apple charges $2k just to get a quad-core CPU or more than 8GB of RAM. Soldered, mind you, so you can't just replace it later. Oh, and I hope you don't need more than 500GB of storage! Well, I have 1TB or storage on mine, so? Second, whether it has cheap replacement options is not exactly a criterion about if it's the best out there or not. Besides, any competitor product I can buy that doesn't have "soldered RAM" and would allow me to upgrade its RAM 2 years in the future, will also have lost more of its resale value compared to an Apple laptop. I might as well sell my used MBPr for plenty of $$$ and buy a new model with more RAM 2-3 years down the road, than buy something that I can upgrade but would be selling for much much less than what I bought it for. >Build quality tends to include things like, you know, being able to fix it when things inevitably go wrong Horses for courses. I'd rather treat it as an opaque box, which either works or doesn't. I don't want to be the mechanic of my laptop. >rather than throwing it in the bin and paying $2k+ for another lottery ticket. Or you know, buying Applecare for it, and having the customer support that most people have rated as #1 in satisfaction in relevant surveys in the US for more than a decade. >And Trump managed to get elected president. I guess that says more about the average consumer than about the product they're selling. Well, Hillary got the popular vote, so where does that leave your argument? >When was it ever? Yes, since it's inception. In fact the competition for the first 2-3 years was so bad, it was laughed out of the market (not to mention the first competitors managed to cost even more than the iPad itself).
  - amedvednikov 9y ago
    5K iMacs
    - dingo_bat 9y ago
      It's a 5k screen with laptop parts. What's so great about the hardware? Surface studio is much more impressive, hardware and design wise.
- giancarlostoro 9y ago
  And the Mac Mini is stuck in limbo... Really want a Mac Mini upgrade that is completely worthwhile.
- nicky0 9y ago
  What happens in a year?
  - delinka 9y ago
    Hopefully (maybe) Apple shows us what they’re up to with the Mac Pro. If that doesn’t happen, in a year pducks32 leaves the platform ... along with everyone else along the way.
    - nicky0 9y ago
      Speak for yourself.
gizmo 9y ago
Apple is now operating at an almost inconceivable scale. Apple is on track to become the first 1tn company in the world. Apple is the absolute leader in mobile chip designs, and their lead is extending. The iPhone X is such a bold step forward, that in the Steve era we would assume a product like that could never happen without him. It's easy to see where Cook falls short. It's much harder to figure out what went right at Apple because of his leadership, that otherwise would have gone awry.
- sigmar 9y ago
  >The iPhone X is such a bold step forward What is "bold" about it, specifically?
  - Gloire_a_Satan 9y ago
    An entirely gesture based UI, where even going back to the home screen or switching apps requires gestures, rather than pressing a virtual or physical button. It's the only phone out of all the new "almost-bezel-free" crop that actually makes an effort to get rid of useless UI chrome so that the entire screen is about the content and what you can do with it. And those gestures are particularly well thought. Where the competition like the Samsung Galaxy series removed physical buttons but merely replaced them with virtual ones, you can see Apple going forward, not just mimicking the past, whenever there's a technological progress, like the ability to produce almost bezel-free phones. Making the bet that people are ready to pay a lot more just for the sake of having something that feels nicer to use is also what makes the iPhone X a bold step, although some of the techs existed in different forms in the previous iPhones. Yes, I'm using the word 'feels' here, it's about things like FaceID, 3D Touch, Taptic Engine and all the other things that make the iPhone X experience radically different to using something like the android competition. They actually had to completely redevelop 3D Touch for the iPhone X, the old 3D Touch technology depended on the LCD backlights which aren't a thing with OLED. They're things that don't dramatically improve productivity and they're not things that can be considered major features like having a better camera (like the Google Pixel 2 marketing). They're things whose sole purpose of existence is to make interacting with the device feel nicer. It's something that does not exist in android land. It's that sort of thing that makes me keep using Apple's laptops too, despite the many things I do not like about them (like the all USB-C ports). The Taptic Engine + Force Touch, oversized trackpad makes doing things like dragging something across the screen with only one finger feel so much better than what you have to do with other trackpads which require either pressing the trackpad itself on the bottom area or pressing a button. I'm still amazed they managed to make vibrations feel like you clicked a physical button.
raverbashing 9y ago
He doesn't need to go, he just needs to do what he does well (supply chain management) and let the experts do the rest However I do think the SW part has been going down for a while. Maybe not enough resources or management takes it for granted. And unfortunately to me bugs like "fails the 2nd time" or "fails at a specific date" (and yes I think the same of Android's missing month bug) means there are developers who don't know what they are doing.

pducks32 9y ago

I’ll give Apple one full more year and see where Mac goes. Their hardware products are truly incredible...minus Macbook /Pro. And I personally love Apple Music over Spotify but I know many disagree.

dingo_bat 9y ago
> Their hardware products are truly incredible For example? All I see is outdated design and hardware. Only "incredible" hardware I can think of is the new chip in iphone x.
- coldtea 9y ago
  What "outdated design and hardware"? The Macbook Pro is the best laptop out there as a power/battery life/build quality combo (having to spend for a "dongle" or new USB-C cables is not a technical concern for its technical capacity). The iPhone X is top notch (pun intended) and has been praised in reviews all around the world. The AirPods have been described as mostly magical by their users (I'd add to that). The Apple Watch is the best in its kind technologically, and has overtaken the #1 traditional watch maker in sales (and moves more units than competitive smart-watches). It's the only one that was deemed most accurate in its health measurements (heart, etc) from all smartwatches too in competitive tests. The iPad continues to be the best tablet technology wise. So?
  - Nullabillity 9y ago
    > The Macbook Pro is the best laptop out there as a power/battery life/build quality combo (having to spend for a "dongle" or new USB-C cables is not a technical concern for its technical capacity). You have to be joking. Apple charges $2k just to get a quad-core CPU or more than 8GB of RAM. Soldered, mind you, so you can't just replace it later. Oh, and I hope you don't need more than 500GB of storage! Build quality tends to include things like, you know, being able to fix it when things inevitably go wrong, rather than throwing it in the bin and paying $2k+ for another lottery ticket. > The Apple Watch is the best in its kind technologically, and has overtaken the #1 traditional watch maker in sales (and moves more units than competitive smart-watches). And Trump managed to get elected president. I guess that says more about the average consumer than about the product they're selling. > The iPad continues to be the best tablet technology wise. When was it ever?
    - coldtea 9y ago
      >You have to be joking. Apple charges $2k just to get a quad-core CPU or more than 8GB of RAM. Soldered, mind you, so you can't just replace it later. Oh, and I hope you don't need more than 500GB of storage! Well, I have 1TB or storage on mine, so? Second, whether it has cheap replacement options is not exactly a criterion about if it's the best out there or not. Besides, any competitor product I can buy that doesn't have "soldered RAM" and would allow me to upgrade its RAM 2 years in the future, will also have lost more of its resale value compared to an Apple laptop. I might as well sell my used MBPr for plenty of $$$ and buy a new model with more RAM 2-3 years down the road, than buy something that I can upgrade but would be selling for much much less than what I bought it for. >Build quality tends to include things like, you know, being able to fix it when things inevitably go wrong Horses for courses. I'd rather treat it as an opaque box, which either works or doesn't. I don't want to be the mechanic of my laptop. >rather than throwing it in the bin and paying $2k+ for another lottery ticket. Or you know, buying Applecare for it, and having the customer support that most people have rated as #1 in satisfaction in relevant surveys in the US for more than a decade. >And Trump managed to get elected president. I guess that says more about the average consumer than about the product they're selling. Well, Hillary got the popular vote, so where does that leave your argument? >When was it ever? Yes, since it's inception. In fact the competition for the first 2-3 years was so bad, it was laughed out of the market (not to mention the first competitors managed to cost even more than the iPad itself).
- amedvednikov 9y ago
  5K iMacs
  - dingo_bat 9y ago
    It's a 5k screen with laptop parts. What's so great about the hardware? Surface studio is much more impressive, hardware and design wise.
giancarlostoro 9y ago
And the Mac Mini is stuck in limbo... Really want a Mac Mini upgrade that is completely worthwhile.
nicky0 9y ago
What happens in a year?
- delinka 9y ago
  Hopefully (maybe) Apple shows us what they’re up to with the Mac Pro. If that doesn’t happen, in a year pducks32 leaves the platform ... along with everyone else along the way.
  - nicky0 9y ago
    Speak for yourself.

gizmo 9y ago

Apple is now operating at an almost inconceivable scale. Apple is on track to become the first 1tn company in the world. Apple is the absolute leader in mobile chip designs, and their lead is extending. The iPhone X is such a bold step forward, that in the Steve era we would assume a product like that could never happen without him. It's easy to see where Cook falls short. It's much harder to figure out what went right at Apple because of his leadership, that otherwise would have gone awry.

sigmar 9y ago
>The iPhone X is such a bold step forward What is "bold" about it, specifically?
- Gloire_a_Satan 9y ago
  An entirely gesture based UI, where even going back to the home screen or switching apps requires gestures, rather than pressing a virtual or physical button. It's the only phone out of all the new "almost-bezel-free" crop that actually makes an effort to get rid of useless UI chrome so that the entire screen is about the content and what you can do with it. And those gestures are particularly well thought. Where the competition like the Samsung Galaxy series removed physical buttons but merely replaced them with virtual ones, you can see Apple going forward, not just mimicking the past, whenever there's a technological progress, like the ability to produce almost bezel-free phones. Making the bet that people are ready to pay a lot more just for the sake of having something that feels nicer to use is also what makes the iPhone X a bold step, although some of the techs existed in different forms in the previous iPhones. Yes, I'm using the word 'feels' here, it's about things like FaceID, 3D Touch, Taptic Engine and all the other things that make the iPhone X experience radically different to using something like the android competition. They actually had to completely redevelop 3D Touch for the iPhone X, the old 3D Touch technology depended on the LCD backlights which aren't a thing with OLED. They're things that don't dramatically improve productivity and they're not things that can be considered major features like having a better camera (like the Google Pixel 2 marketing). They're things whose sole purpose of existence is to make interacting with the device feel nicer. It's something that does not exist in android land. It's that sort of thing that makes me keep using Apple's laptops too, despite the many things I do not like about them (like the all USB-C ports). The Taptic Engine + Force Touch, oversized trackpad makes doing things like dragging something across the screen with only one finger feel so much better than what you have to do with other trackpads which require either pressing the trackpad itself on the bottom area or pressing a button. I'm still amazed they managed to make vibrations feel like you clicked a physical button.

raverbashing 9y ago

He doesn't need to go, he just needs to do what he does well (supply chain management) and let the experts do the rest However I do think the SW part has been going down for a while. Maybe not enough resources or management takes it for granted. And unfortunately to me bugs like "fails the 2nd time" or "fails at a specific date" (and yes I think the same of Android's missing month bug) means there are developers who don't know what they are doing.