6 ms·

For Tim Cook it would be a good idea to take a closer look at this video...

by bjoko 8y ago

pjmlp 8y ago
Or the days of Apple without Steve Jobs for that matter. I remember pretty clearly how we all thought Apple would be doomed while they were still struggling to bring Copland out.
- microtherion 8y ago
  Ironically these were times when a TON of new products came out. There probably never were more simultaneous Mac models in the market, and there was OpenDoc, CyberDog, Quickdraw GX, QuickDraw 3D, QuickTime VR, HotSauce, Game Sprockets. The first few years of Steve 2.0 were largely about REDUCING the number of products, and improving the MARKETING. As for the products: * There was the iMac, which was notable for having FEWER features. Sure there was USB, but everybody was complaining about their ADB and serial peripherals no longer working without dongles, and about the omission of a floppy drive (sound familiar?). * There was the iBook, which certainly had an iconic look (especially the handle), but not one that had a lasting impact. * The PowerBooks were nice designs. * The Power Mac G3/G4 towers with the opening latch and handles were a really good product with a lasting form factor, in my opinion. * The Power Mac G4 cube was a commercial disaster, doomed, among other things, by bad pricing positioning in a weakening economy (sound familiar?). * And don't get me started about the hockey puck mouse — the kind of product design that tends to get forgotten in Steve Jobs nostalgia threads.
bagsvaerd70 8y ago
I'm not a big Apple fan. I've bought some of their laptops after the transition to Intel, but slowly switched away when macOS became less of a priority. That said, I think Apple is sitting on top of another blockbuster, similar to the iPhone in terms of impact, if they know how to play it well. I'm referring to the Apple Watch equipped with a non-invasive glucose sensor. I realize that they have a bit of a regulatory battle to fight before releasing it. But the potential is immense. It will change how people eat, not just diabetics. It's pretty well established science now that if we reduce the area under the glucose curve (read minimize glucose spikes), we will age more slowly and we will reduce metabolic disease enormously.
- saurik 8y ago
  > I'm referring to the Apple Watch equipped with a non-invasive glucose sensor. As someone who has dated someone that is diabetic and now works with someone who is diabetic--someone who likes to sit at the cutting edge of technology and is even using hacked equipment to improve his experience--I don't think we have that technology yet.
  - jf- 8y ago
    We don’t, the latest commercial technology consists of disposable sensors that require a probe to penetrate the skin. Whoever brings something non-invasive (and reusable) to market will be raking it in whether they’re apple or not.
    - bagsvaerd70 8y ago
      PKVitality has a sensor array that is pretty much non-invasive: https://www.pkvitality.com/ktrack-glucose/ https://www.pkvitality.com/ktrack-glucose/ There's also an alternative using radiofrequency: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4641327/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4641327/
      - fabricexpert 8y ago
        > PKVitality That product doesn't exist yet, the video on the home page is 18 months old so it's probably not feasible / accurate.
- MperorM 8y ago
  Could you provide a source on the last claim? I am generally quite skeptic whenever I hear anything in food science as being represented as well-established. Also, love your username, I grew up there!
  - bagsvaerd70 8y ago
    Sure. This recent Nature Reviews Genetics paper should describe the basic associations between DNA methylation and glucose levels, as well as point you towards more specific literature: http://173.239.45.5/~joshmitt/data-beta/Horvath-NatureRev2018.pdf http://173.239.45.5/~joshmitt/data-beta/Horvath-NatureRev201... Bagsvaerd is great. I was living in the Lyngby-Naerum-Birkeroed-Farum area for many years, working in formal methods. I hope to be back soon! Are you still in the area?
threeseed 8y ago
What you’re saying doesn’t make any sense to me. Tim Cook isn’t from a Sales/Marketing background whilst many of the VPs at Apple are from Product backgrounds. Also the company is one of the most product centric companies around. Also under Tim Cook’s reign Apple has dominated the wearables market with a product that everybody dismissed in the beginning.
- lalo2302 8y ago
  The Apple Watch was the last product Steve Jobs envisioned and planned. You can't put that on Tim Cook. And right now they are being more number centric rather than innovation centric as in the past years.
  - threeseed 8y ago
    No evidence Steve Jobs was involved in the planning/design of the Apple Watch. In fact during the Wired interview with Ive: “Ive began dreaming about an Apple watch just after CEO Steve Jobs’ death in October 2011. He soon brought the idea to Dye and a small group of others in the design studio.” And plenty of innovations for me: A12X/T2/W1 SOCs, FaceID, Apple Watch ECG, HomePod spatial detection, Beats1 Radio, Handoff/Continuity, Apple Pay.
ksec 8y ago
While Tim Cook is no Marketing or Sales Person, he is definitely a number person. All the % growth, YoY, revenue etc. One of the reason why Steve never initiated Stock buy back and were sitting on big pile of cash were simple, he could bet on products that might or might not make money. ( He was never really sure ) They will have enough resources to weather the storm. He knew technology moves so fast that one single misstep will means 2 - 3 years behind. As bad as Apple might seems today ( they aren't bad... we just thought it could be better ), it is still far better than it was in the 90s.
- threeseed 8y ago
  In the 90s Apple was on the verge of bankruptcy, was dependent solely on the Mac, contracting rather than growing and had no operating system strategy. Today, Apple earns 70b/year profit, is growing at 10% per year and is incredibly diversified. They could survive on any one of their businesses and in recent years grew two from nothing i.e. Services and Wearables into 1B+ businesses. And they still have their 1B/year content play starting in 2019 and they have AR glasses rumored for 2020. And you think Apple is doing bad as a company ?
  - ksec 8y ago
    >( they aren't bad... we just thought it could be better ) And those points are precisely, numbers. In terms of Products, Three years after the introduction of MacBook Pro Touch Bar, I still think the previous gen MacBook Pro is much better. Four Years after introduction of Homekit, Nearly 7 years since they kicked out Scott forstall because of Apple Maps, and it is still pieces of crap outside US, UK and China. How Many years after App Stores? Think MacBook Air was long in the work? It was because of huge amount of criticism from MBP they decided to make a Retina MacBook Air just to shut us up. ( For the time being ) It is not that their numbers aren't doing good, but their product and services quality are declining. Most of their Product Line seems like a mess. And we are paying a premium for it, we are not iSheep, but that value proposition is declining everyday. Oh, Did I mention All MacBook Pro TouchBar had a design flaw with Thunderbolt that increase the MacBook failure rate? Yes these things happen under Steve as well, but once these were known a new iteration of design would have been make a year later, instead we are sitting on the same shit for years.
mikece 8y ago
Or Cook could just listen to the legions of formerly loyal iPhone customers who refuse to buy phones that don't have a 3.5mm plug or require one to use Face ID. Or the Mac users who are eternally pissed off that products are too expensive and under-equipped (Mac mini) or "intentionally broken" (Touch Bar on MacBook Pro) or forgotten (is the Mac Pro ever going to get a hardware update -- or the iPod Touch for that matter?). Innovation is good but don't ditch products that work (iPhone SE, iPod nano) in the name of "innovations" that are proven flops. Formerly loyal customers are giving Apple TONS of great product ideas but they aren't listening.
- Austin_Conlon 8y ago
  You can turn Face ID off, and Apple publicly stated the Mac Pro is coming in 2019.
- sbuk 8y ago
  I remeber the same arguments for serial ports, ethernet ports, ADB ports and optical drives. The headphone jack is gone and not coming back to the iPhone.
  - mikece 8y ago
    > The headphone jack is gone and not coming back to the iPhone. Just like many former buyers of iPhone will not be coming back. Apple can "innovate" all they want, but customers aren't going to blindly buy it.
- jvzr 8y ago
  I don't think you could make legions out of iPhone users not wanting Face ID. I can't say the same for 3.5mm (although I think both groups are misguided).
_s 8y ago
I think it's quite the opposite - I think Apple have always had issues with every product launch, but the number of people now using them, and the bar / expectations are so much higher - they can't catch a break, rightly so - they charge a premium, and for 10% of the cost you pay Apple you can get a competitors product that's 90% there. Tim Cook & Apple's board have an absolutely stellar team of VP's, from customer service to engineering, but I think they've given themselves too much freedom in terms of "throwing shit at the wall and seeing what sticks". They're so comfortable with their brand, cash piles and whatnot, that they can release so many variants of so many products and not even worry about the wasted man-hours and resources spent on it. I get the feeling there hasn't been anyone there taking a step back and going "Y'kno, we can totally do this, but we shouldn't". Butterfly keyboard? I love how slim their laptops are now, but did they really have to go and re-engineer how a keyboard works? Even in its 3rd iteration, I have a space bar on an almost new Macbook Pro that just won't stop sticking. iPhone XR? We've priced out the XS for most folks, but let's make a cheaper one too! Oh wait, we have the 8! Watch Hermes? Or ceramic? Around the $3k mark you're in Rolex, Omega territory; and those watches will be worth more in a few years than anything Apple release. Etc etc. I don't know what motivates a lot of folks to buy Apple, but for me it boils down to: - Stellar customer support - Reliability & durability I don't particularly care too much about having the latest / greatest hardware inside my products; but so far Apple are still lightyears ahead of the competition on those two fronts. I can be pretty much anywhere in the world that has an apple store, walk in and get my keyboard issue sorted, and my many other iDevices have easily lasted a few years and are still going strong.
gdubs 8y ago
People give Tim Cook a hard time, but he’s objectively a brilliant executive. What people have been seeking since Jobs died is a spiritual leader, and, well, those don’t come around as often. I will say though, the current jumble of iPhone models reminds me a lot of all the various power macs available when Jobs returned to Apple, got rid of them all, and established the 4-quadrant product line of personal/professional, desktop/portable.

For Tim Cook it would be a good idea to take a closer look at this video...

by bjoko 8y ago

For Tim Cook it would be a good idea to take a closer look at this video...

Or the days of Apple without Steve Jobs for that matter. I remember pretty clearly how we all thought Apple would be doomed while they were still struggling to bring Copland out.

microtherion 8y ago
Ironically these were times when a TON of new products came out. There probably never were more simultaneous Mac models in the market, and there was OpenDoc, CyberDog, Quickdraw GX, QuickDraw 3D, QuickTime VR, HotSauce, Game Sprockets. The first few years of Steve 2.0 were largely about REDUCING the number of products, and improving the MARKETING. As for the products: * There was the iMac, which was notable for having FEWER features. Sure there was USB, but everybody was complaining about their ADB and serial peripherals no longer working without dongles, and about the omission of a floppy drive (sound familiar?). * There was the iBook, which certainly had an iconic look (especially the handle), but not one that had a lasting impact. * The PowerBooks were nice designs. * The Power Mac G3/G4 towers with the opening latch and handles were a really good product with a lasting form factor, in my opinion. * The Power Mac G4 cube was a commercial disaster, doomed, among other things, by bad pricing positioning in a weakening economy (sound familiar?). * And don't get me started about the hockey puck mouse — the kind of product design that tends to get forgotten in Steve Jobs nostalgia threads.

bagsvaerd70 8y ago

I'm not a big Apple fan. I've bought some of their laptops after the transition to Intel, but slowly switched away when macOS became less of a priority. That said, I think Apple is sitting on top of another blockbuster, similar to the iPhone in terms of impact, if they know how to play it well. I'm referring to the Apple Watch equipped with a non-invasive glucose sensor. I realize that they have a bit of a regulatory battle to fight before releasing it. But the potential is immense. It will change how people eat, not just diabetics. It's pretty well established science now that if we reduce the area under the glucose curve (read minimize glucose spikes), we will age more slowly and we will reduce metabolic disease enormously.

saurik 8y ago
> I'm referring to the Apple Watch equipped with a non-invasive glucose sensor. As someone who has dated someone that is diabetic and now works with someone who is diabetic--someone who likes to sit at the cutting edge of technology and is even using hacked equipment to improve his experience--I don't think we have that technology yet.
- jf- 8y ago
  We don’t, the latest commercial technology consists of disposable sensors that require a probe to penetrate the skin. Whoever brings something non-invasive (and reusable) to market will be raking it in whether they’re apple or not.
  - bagsvaerd70 8y ago
    PKVitality has a sensor array that is pretty much non-invasive: https://www.pkvitality.com/ktrack-glucose/ https://www.pkvitality.com/ktrack-glucose/ There's also an alternative using radiofrequency: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4641327/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4641327/
    - fabricexpert 8y ago
      > PKVitality That product doesn't exist yet, the video on the home page is 18 months old so it's probably not feasible / accurate.
MperorM 8y ago
Could you provide a source on the last claim? I am generally quite skeptic whenever I hear anything in food science as being represented as well-established. Also, love your username, I grew up there!
- bagsvaerd70 8y ago
  Sure. This recent Nature Reviews Genetics paper should describe the basic associations between DNA methylation and glucose levels, as well as point you towards more specific literature: http://173.239.45.5/~joshmitt/data-beta/Horvath-NatureRev2018.pdf http://173.239.45.5/~joshmitt/data-beta/Horvath-NatureRev201... Bagsvaerd is great. I was living in the Lyngby-Naerum-Birkeroed-Farum area for many years, working in formal methods. I hope to be back soon! Are you still in the area?

threeseed 8y ago

What you’re saying doesn’t make any sense to me. Tim Cook isn’t from a Sales/Marketing background whilst many of the VPs at Apple are from Product backgrounds. Also the company is one of the most product centric companies around. Also under Tim Cook’s reign Apple has dominated the wearables market with a product that everybody dismissed in the beginning.

lalo2302 8y ago
The Apple Watch was the last product Steve Jobs envisioned and planned. You can't put that on Tim Cook. And right now they are being more number centric rather than innovation centric as in the past years.
- threeseed 8y ago
  No evidence Steve Jobs was involved in the planning/design of the Apple Watch. In fact during the Wired interview with Ive: “Ive began dreaming about an Apple watch just after CEO Steve Jobs’ death in October 2011. He soon brought the idea to Dye and a small group of others in the design studio.” And plenty of innovations for me: A12X/T2/W1 SOCs, FaceID, Apple Watch ECG, HomePod spatial detection, Beats1 Radio, Handoff/Continuity, Apple Pay.

ksec 8y ago

While Tim Cook is no Marketing or Sales Person, he is definitely a number person. All the % growth, YoY, revenue etc. One of the reason why Steve never initiated Stock buy back and were sitting on big pile of cash were simple, he could bet on products that might or might not make money. ( He was never really sure ) They will have enough resources to weather the storm. He knew technology moves so fast that one single misstep will means 2 - 3 years behind. As bad as Apple might seems today ( they aren't bad... we just thought it could be better ), it is still far better than it was in the 90s.

threeseed 8y ago
In the 90s Apple was on the verge of bankruptcy, was dependent solely on the Mac, contracting rather than growing and had no operating system strategy. Today, Apple earns 70b/year profit, is growing at 10% per year and is incredibly diversified. They could survive on any one of their businesses and in recent years grew two from nothing i.e. Services and Wearables into 1B+ businesses. And they still have their 1B/year content play starting in 2019 and they have AR glasses rumored for 2020. And you think Apple is doing bad as a company ?
- ksec 8y ago
  >( they aren't bad... we just thought it could be better ) And those points are precisely, numbers. In terms of Products, Three years after the introduction of MacBook Pro Touch Bar, I still think the previous gen MacBook Pro is much better. Four Years after introduction of Homekit, Nearly 7 years since they kicked out Scott forstall because of Apple Maps, and it is still pieces of crap outside US, UK and China. How Many years after App Stores? Think MacBook Air was long in the work? It was because of huge amount of criticism from MBP they decided to make a Retina MacBook Air just to shut us up. ( For the time being ) It is not that their numbers aren't doing good, but their product and services quality are declining. Most of their Product Line seems like a mess. And we are paying a premium for it, we are not iSheep, but that value proposition is declining everyday. Oh, Did I mention All MacBook Pro TouchBar had a design flaw with Thunderbolt that increase the MacBook failure rate? Yes these things happen under Steve as well, but once these were known a new iteration of design would have been make a year later, instead we are sitting on the same shit for years.

mikece 8y ago

Or Cook could just listen to the legions of formerly loyal iPhone customers who refuse to buy phones that don't have a 3.5mm plug or require one to use Face ID. Or the Mac users who are eternally pissed off that products are too expensive and under-equipped (Mac mini) or "intentionally broken" (Touch Bar on MacBook Pro) or forgotten (is the Mac Pro ever going to get a hardware update -- or the iPod Touch for that matter?). Innovation is good but don't ditch products that work (iPhone SE, iPod nano) in the name of "innovations" that are proven flops. Formerly loyal customers are giving Apple TONS of great product ideas but they aren't listening.

Austin_Conlon 8y ago
You can turn Face ID off, and Apple publicly stated the Mac Pro is coming in 2019.
sbuk 8y ago
I remeber the same arguments for serial ports, ethernet ports, ADB ports and optical drives. The headphone jack is gone and not coming back to the iPhone.
- mikece 8y ago
  > The headphone jack is gone and not coming back to the iPhone. Just like many former buyers of iPhone will not be coming back. Apple can "innovate" all they want, but customers aren't going to blindly buy it.
jvzr 8y ago
I don't think you could make legions out of iPhone users not wanting Face ID. I can't say the same for 3.5mm (although I think both groups are misguided).

_s 8y ago

I think it's quite the opposite - I think Apple have always had issues with every product launch, but the number of people now using them, and the bar / expectations are so much higher - they can't catch a break, rightly so - they charge a premium, and for 10% of the cost you pay Apple you can get a competitors product that's 90% there. Tim Cook & Apple's board have an absolutely stellar team of VP's, from customer service to engineering, but I think they've given themselves too much freedom in terms of "throwing shit at the wall and seeing what sticks". They're so comfortable with their brand, cash piles and whatnot, that they can release so many variants of so many products and not even worry about the wasted man-hours and resources spent on it. I get the feeling there hasn't been anyone there taking a step back and going "Y'kno, we can totally do this, but we shouldn't". Butterfly keyboard? I love how slim their laptops are now, but did they really have to go and re-engineer how a keyboard works? Even in its 3rd iteration, I have a space bar on an almost new Macbook Pro that just won't stop sticking. iPhone XR? We've priced out the XS for most folks, but let's make a cheaper one too! Oh wait, we have the 8! Watch Hermes? Or ceramic? Around the $3k mark you're in Rolex, Omega territory; and those watches will be worth more in a few years than anything Apple release. Etc etc. I don't know what motivates a lot of folks to buy Apple, but for me it boils down to: - Stellar customer support - Reliability & durability I don't particularly care too much about having the latest / greatest hardware inside my products; but so far Apple are still lightyears ahead of the competition on those two fronts. I can be pretty much anywhere in the world that has an apple store, walk in and get my keyboard issue sorted, and my many other iDevices have easily lasted a few years and are still going strong.

gdubs 8y ago

People give Tim Cook a hard time, but he’s objectively a brilliant executive. What people have been seeking since Jobs died is a spiritual leader, and, well, those don’t come around as often. I will say though, the current jumble of iPhone models reminds me a lot of all the various power macs available when Jobs returned to Apple, got rid of them all, and established the 4-quadrant product line of personal/professional, desktop/portable.