17 ms·

Tim Cook is running out of ideas

42 points by elsewhen 2y ago

CodeWriter23 2y ago
http://archive.today/9RjBv http://archive.today/9RjBv
DarkNova6 2y ago
The most crucial sentence is the following: > "For years, it has been clear that there is no next iPhone." Now that Apple has failed to deliver a big step forward with the Vision Pro or Apple Car, its retreat into AI suggests it's chasing trends to keep up interest as it struggles to chart a defining next step. and also: > The drawbacks of Cook's divestment from product design and development are now becoming clearer. While Cook is no Ballmer, his time is reminiscent of many other companies that slowly lose touch with product design and tend towards their brand as an end-all-be-all answer.
- JKCalhoun 2y ago
  But what consumer product has there been that Apple missed in the past decade or so? There are inevitable periods of drought in the tech-consumer space. And if you think Apple should just "invent a thing" ... they've never really done that.
  - mdorazio 2y ago
    I think this is a good point. Apple’s product innovation has historically been to take something that already exists but isn’t very good and turn it into a top-tier product for the mass market. Looking at things as widespread as even the iPad in the last 10 years, it’s really been services rather than devices. Netflix, Uber, food delivery, etc. You could make an argument for wireless earbuds, bud Apple does pretty well with AirPods. They tried with VR and electric cars - the former remains niche and the latter failed.
  - piva00 2y ago
    > And if you think Apple should just "invent a thing" ... they've never really done that. Some people seem to miss that Apple has been a really, really good integrator of technologies into their products. Their innovation edge is in polishing existing technologies into a more cohesive and complete whole. The early Macs lifted GUIs into a useful computer, blatantly stealing tech from Xerox PARC and polishing it. The iPod was the polished version of MP3 players, those existed much earlier than when the iPod released but the iPod was a very ergonomic solution. The iPhone polished touchscreen interfaces, and the experience of navigating the web on a phone, all of that existed previously, they just made it better. The polish has value, it made a lot of tech quite useful in the mainstream and the focus on the experience of using them is what always gave Apple an edge. They don't make the most tinkerable/power-user friendly devices and that's not their business, as much as we like to complain about that on HN and other geeky places, the real users of Apple devices don't care about that aspect if the experience works really well for them.
    - mike_hearn 2y ago
      Well, except for the Apple TV, which isn't actually a TV and thus "fights" with the actual TV, duplicating its menus, services and features. Making an integrated TV would seem to be an obvious move where stuff doesn't work well (saying that as the owner of a sad Sony Android TV).
      - piva00 2y ago
        TV hardware has such low margins that I don't think it's worth the hassle for Apple. I actually much prefer to have my Apple TV and just plug into new screens if I swap them, there are pretty decent panels in the market that I don't think I'd ever purchase an Apple-branded TV just for the sake of having an embedded tvOS in it. Might be I'm a special case but I haven't touched the TV remote in many years, I turn it on through whatever device I'm using and when I switch the device off my TV switches off as well.
  - mike_hearn 2y ago
    > But what consumer product has there been that Apple missed in the past decade or so? There are some obvious consumer products with very ropey user interfaces, which are already invented, where Apple could have had a big impact: 1. Games consoles. Microsoft is giving up on the Xbox, even, so the field is open for more competition. It's well within Apple's bailiwick, being just a specialized locked down computer. 2. Televisions. Actual TVs, not the Apple TV set top box. 3. eBook readers. The ones with eInk displays that last a super long time. 4. Kitchen equipment. There seems to be an unwritten rule that all kitchen equipment must have terrible user interfaces. 5. Heck they could have another go at the workstation/laptop market. It's not like MacOS is the last word in workstation design. 6. Printers/copiers. They all suck. Yes I know Apple used to do these and got out due to lack of focus, but they didn't have the same culture around quality in the 90s. 7. The web. Yeah, the app store is sort of a parallel non-web ecosystem but not really.
- darkerside 2y ago
  Why is Cook no Ballmer? Both seem like competent but maligned CEOs who ruthlessly capitalized on their predecessors' innovations, resulting in tremendous cash flow and short term shareholder value while neglecting to chat a course for creating meaningful user value in new ways in the future.
  - Invictus0 2y ago
    Tim Cook grew apple massively since he took over, Ballmer left without growing Microsoft's market cap at all.
velcrovan 2y ago
When you’re 63 and a multimillionaire and had a great run, maybe it’s fine to not have lots of ideas. It’s a great time to retire and keep bees or something.
- bdjsiqoocwk 2y ago
  While I don't necessarily disagree, I don't see why a young age like 63 should be the end of your career. Maybe i'm too young to have felt how age affects your mental abilities (Im 39, is that too young for this?)
  - dsign 2y ago
    Mental decline with age is a thing, and in my personal experience, it starts right at the boundary of the forties. All said, if I had as little as 200k in my bank account, I would start investing less time on getting more money and more time and money on getting more health. From my very personal point of view, a person who has millions on their name and who is still working for more money has a bit of a death wish.
  - anonzzzies 2y ago
    63 is young; most my current business partners are over 50-60 and a few of them are over 70-80s and all of them work full time. They are all millionaires for a long time already but they like work and enjoy building things. So do I; I don't think I will quit before I die or until my brain indeed doesn't work anymore. The 70+ guys are not quick with some things, but have tons of experience which makes them better/quicker in other stuff which matters far more to the business than tech, speed or 'good hip ideas'.
- sp332 2y ago
  He's been a billionaire since 2020. How can you run a business like Apple when your personal finances take so much attention?
  - pavlov 2y ago
    It seems to me that personal finances should take a lot less time for someone who has a billion dollars vs. someone who has, say, $100k. The latter can lose it all on a bad financial decision, and probably has ideas for what they could do if only they could double or 10x or 100x the money, so risks can be worthwhile. The billionaire will keep getting richer beyond human comprehension even if they just put the entire fortune into treasury bonds. 4% interest on $1B is objectively so much money that you shouldn't bother trying to get more if there's anything else in your life that you'd rather spend time on. (Of course a lot of billionaires get there because the single one thing they want in life is to make money and see the number grow, but Cook doesn't seem that way.)
bunny720 2y ago
[dead]
JKCalhoun 2y ago
> But while AI might drive short-term investor interest ... it's unlikely to be the kind of product that makes a big difference to the bottom line I guess I disagree. Custom silicon, running a local AI (no network or network agency) in your pocket would be a game changer. Apple has to move fast to catch up on the software, but they own the hardware already, can design the AI-forward silicon.
- cmsj 2y ago
  Apple has included NPU hardware in its SoCs since the A11 in 2017. It has been used for a variety of local AI in your pocket since then. This "Neural Engine" has only gotten more powerful with each iteration of their SoC in the intervening years.
- jl6 2y ago
  I agree. An AI assistant with the following properties would make me upgrade my phone: 1) fully local / ultra low latency; 2) privacy guarantees; 3) access / training / fine-tuning over all the data on my phone. But it would probably require at least a 10x increase in on-device compute/memory resources to achieve that, unless they can pull off an efficiency miracle (1.58bit models?).
jl6 2y ago
Holy cow, I didn't know they spent $10bn on the car project. That's nearly a month's worth of profit!
- bdjsiqoocwk 2y ago
  I guess Apple has to keep its shareholders happy. I wish we had cleaner proxies into shareholder opinion. If you polled apples shareholders, what percentage do You think would answe yes to the question "are you ok with Apple spending a months worth of profit on tim cooks latest idea?", weighted by number of shares.
thunderbong 2y ago
Actual title - "Apple desperately needs its Next Big Thing" From the HN Guidelines - Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- fullshark 2y ago
  The url suggests the headline was altered
  - silverquiet 2y ago
    Headlines are A/B tested to see what drives engagement at the cost of shared reality.
- Brian_K_White 2y ago
  Thank god for the police out there keeping everyone in line. Only problem is who polices the police? The url literally says "apple-tim-cook-running-out-of-ideas"
yurishimo 2y ago
I would argue Cook hasn't really had _any_ ideas. It's all been about supply chain management and raising services revenue. Apple TV+ is literally just Netflix with Apple branding; there was no risk there. The Vision Pro is the first "new" product that Apple has released and I fear it's been hamstrung by Apple's desire to tightly control the ecosystem. It's possible that Vision Pro could be amazing for games (a proven VR market) but Apple won't open up the hardware/software enough to port existing apps. I like all of my current Apple devices, but I'm not naïeve enough to believe that fact of today will stay true forever.
- TheAceOfHearts 2y ago
  Apple isn't taking VR seriously, if they were they'd be funding the creation of more VR-native content in order to make the platform more attractive. Look at how much money Meta is dumping into VR and compare it with Apple.
  - fidotron 2y ago
    There is a meaningful lack of conviction from Apple wrt Vision Pro. This may be the result of them having such an easy ride getting developers to jump through hoops for iOS devices, but I think it does reflect that the wider company just doesn’t believe in it.
    - zmmmmm 2y ago
      It's kind of baffling and fascinating at the same time : a company with an infinite dump truck of money launches a once in a generation new kind of product and .... forgets to fund even basic content for it? Even their first party content (new environments etc) is languishing. I kind of wonder if they have a sort of internal view that it needs to survive on its own merits or die - like putting your newborn babies out in the cold the first night. Even if they lack belief, it is surprising that even the parts that just consist of signing checks seem anaemic.
- taylodl 2y ago
  > The Vision Pro is the first "new" product that Apple has released You forgot all about the Apple Watch?
Waterluvian 2y ago
> The following year, his strategy bore fruit. Jobs unveiled the iMac, and its vibrant plastic shell instantly flew off the shelves and into the annals of iconic design. > But other than the Apple Watch, which was already in the works before Jobs' death, there have been no earth-shattering product launches. Unless the iMac was designed and built in a year, this feels like the writer is being dishonest and sloppy in attempt to make reality match their narrative.
- rvense 2y ago
  It kind of was, I think. The case design is what made the iMac so striking, it didn't really contain anything much new. On a technical level, what set it apart was a newer processor, the G3, (which debuted in the Power Macintosh line in '97) and USB on the motherboard. They had an existing line of beige all-in-ones (e.g. Performa 5200) that the iMac was very much an iterative improvement on. The most talked about feature at the time was probably the colorful plastics and lack of a floppy drive, and neither of which I'd say are year-long engineering efforts. Except for the fact that Apple was allegedly six months away from going out of business before Jobs returned and slashed operating costs, it's not entirely unlikely that a consumer Mac with comparable internals would have come out as the Performa G3 or whatever in much the same timeframe.
- deleted 2y ago
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drdrek 2y ago
When this specter is common in mainstream media will be a great point to buy Apple stock. Oh no my 3T money printer takes time to get to 10T :O Sell!!
jakubmazanec 2y ago
That Tim Cook would take this course was AFAIK entirely predicted (and it wasn't hard to predict) when Jobs died. No surprise here. I guess he was counting on the walled garden too much. I'm really glad that EU exists.
oldprogrammer2 2y ago
Innovation doesn't always mean new products, sometimes it means making the current ones better. In the case of laptops, tablets, phones, and smart watches: thinner, lighter, more power, and longer battery life are the innovations most people want. In support of that, Apple Silicon was an incredibly important innovation that was not even mentioned once in the article.
- itsoktocry 2y ago
  Isn't this exactly what they are doing? 99% of buyers don't need thinner, lighter or more powerful devices. Maybe battery life, but even that's getting pretty good. These things are nice to have, but no one is going to go by a new iPad pro because it's 0.5mm thinner and 20g lighter. As far as power, normies aren't even approaching the limits.
  - mcphage 2y ago
    > but no one is going to go by a new iPad pro because it's 0.5mm thinner and 20g lighter You're right, but these aren't products designed in isolation—the engineering required to make devices thinner and lighter is used in both iPhones and iPads... and then can be utilized in new products like the Apple Vision, where it is currently too large and too heavy.
cyclecount 2y ago
I think Vision will be as big as the iPhone and this will be clear in 3-4 years.
Apreche 2y ago
Here are the ideas Tim. Stop egregiously upcharging on RAM and storage. Allow full sideloading. Hide it away in deep place with warnings so normal people don’t use it, but let us nerds have it. Stop charging $100 for developer accounts. Release your dev tools so people can build apps for iOS using computers that aren’t Macs. Also, full XCode on iOS itself so you can make iOS apps on iOS. A Mac Pro with an M4 Ultra AND NVidia GPUs. All other consumer computers will bow down. Get the Rosetta team to make something similar to Valve’s Proton to actually get the games running on Mac once and for all. Repairability and upgradability, for real. No ridiculous tools. Stop with the parts pairing. etc. MacOS and iOS have lots of bugs that are weird edge cases and are not getting fixed. They don’t affect many users, but they strongly impact the users that experience them. Those many bugs add up to a lot of users. Real intelligent human support for advanced support issues. The real genius bar for us nerds who need it. Fix the documentation. You like to brag about being best in the world at so many things. Why isn’t your documentation best in the world? Let Apple Watches work without iPhones. Better yet, let them work with Android phones. Better yet, let iPhones work well with smart watches that aren’t Apple Watches. I could go on, but I think that’s enough.
- kiru_io 2y ago
  What is the issue of charging $100 for the developer accounts?
  - beeboobaa3 2y ago
    It's just ridiculous. The fee is too low to actually matter too apple, and it's ridiculous to have to pay a yearly fee so you can add value to Apple's ecosystem for them. You even have to pay it to publish free/open source apps. Then if you dare to think about charging for your app, they take 30% on top of that. It also means hobby programmers are much less likely to get started with developing for iPhones because for most of them it'll be a (at least) $100/year loss.
    - mingus88 2y ago
      Framing this expense to hobby programmers as a “$100/year loss” seems opposed to the entire concept of a hobby. Everything will be a loss; it’s a hobby. If you are doing it to profit then it’s a side gig or an actual job. What kind of hobby can you pick up for less than $100? You can’t even take up hiking or walking without spending that much on shoes and socks.
fidotron 2y ago
Apple should break themselves up for their own good, before it is forced upon them on less favourable terms. Keep the hardware, OS and app store together, and get out of things like music, books and video distribution where the anti competitive stuff sticks because it is too obvious. We need to face the fact Apple has become the Toyota of computing and this isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
petesergeant 2y ago
> we've seen two major flops from Apple. The first is the Vision Pro headset ... Meanwhile, the Apple Car didn't even make it out of the gate Calling the Apple Vision Pro a "major flop" seems bizarrely premature if you consider it to be the beach head presumably it's meant as. If they can't shift version 2 or 3, then sure. Complaining about cutting the Apple Car after praising Jobs for cutting off ideas that didn't pan out is weird.
WillAdams 2y ago
What are the tech gadgets which folks need which haven't been made yet? What market share does Apple need to profitable stay in business? Why won't stockholders be satisfied with business-as-usual, and an existing customer base? The iPhone (and iPad Mini) obviously subsume the Newton --- so folks have a small pocketable device with them almost constantly. The larger iPad works well for convenient media consumption, and with a keyboard and Apple Pencil, works as a sketchpad/notepad/creative device (and can be paired w/ a Mac via Sidecar) --- so folks have a medium-size device for a bag or coffee table readily available. The Mac is available in multiple form-factors, from small portable suited for a bag/Starbucks/airplane seat table to small/inexpensive or large/powerful for a desk. For larger media access there's the Apple TV. Virtual reality à la the Apple Vision Pro is one lacunae --- but really needs software support, and a form-factor comfortable enough for folks to wear for lengthy timeframes, making the Apple Pencil suited to replace the Newton's stylus might be another. I wish that they would standardize on sizes/proportions and connector types/locations so that accessories could be carried forward and only upgraded when they wear out.
- nottorp 2y ago
  > What are the tech gadgets which folks need which haven't been made yet? We don't know. It's just that they're not likely to come out of Apple during Cook's reign.
  - WillAdams 2y ago
    Lenovo has been doing some interesting things --- pairing e-ink w/ LCDs is kind of neat (I wish that they'd done a better job with that, or would revisit it), and the transparent display concept seemed especially apt for didactive usage, or technical tasks such as repair or assembly. Their Lenovo Yogabook 9i seems especially promising, and I hope it will create a new product category in-between tablets and laptops --- I'd've bought one if it had a Wacom EMR stylus, and really hope that Samsung will make a competitor w/ an S-Pen (which is Wacom EMR).
    - taylodl 2y ago
nerdjon 2y ago
Looking at it another way, what has Apple missed? Very rarely has Apple truly been the first to a market, their strategy has always been to see an upcoming technology and... well make it good. (not always the first time, but still). Smartphones, tablets, smart watches, even AR. Sure the price is insane but you can't ignore just how polished it is compared to a lot of what is out there. Apple was not the first to any of these, but when they came out with theirs they redefined expectations. Before anyone says AI, AI isn't a product. It's a feature. I really hate that we see the Vision Pro being considered a Flop. It feels like from the beginning Apple knew where this device geared towards and that it was not going to be a mass market device. But it gets it out the door so people can start playing with it while the hardware catches up with the software. And like the Apple Watch, they can see what customers actually want and refocus their software efforts. The fact is, Apple's products are the best they have been. The Apple silicone continues to be regarded as the best out there. The new iPad is getting rave reviews, even if iPad OS may be holding it back a bit. Apple TV+ keeps putting out amazing shows. I just don't buy this article, it feels like we are in a weird quiet period in tech. There are a lot of things that could be done, but we just don't have the hardware to really back it up for things like AR and other wearables. But in the meantime we will just be doing a bunch of AI features. Also, if we are going to call the Car a "flop" but then criticize them for not finding a new product. You don't get it both ways. Same with the Vision Pro.
pornel 2y ago
Cook has bet on increasing services revenue instead. Financially, this has been very successful, and has given AAPL growth even when they could not grow hardware sales. However, this strategy has turned Apple into a rent-seeking company that must continuously expand subscription services, while locking down the devices and giving themselves a preferential treatment, to avoid competitors undercutting Apple's high prices. This motivates Apple to obstruct integrations with 3rd party services instead of giving their users choice and good UX. If Apple didn't try to maximize services revenue, they could have run AppStore with merely a healthy margin, rather than a duopoly fee that keeps alienating developers. There would not be a messy battle with Epic, and the EU could not justify a major intervention.
- outcoldman 2y ago
  As a developer (just $1,000 MRR from App Store) - I don't care about 30% fee (actually 15% in my case because of Small Business Program). The only other developers that are mad are other large corporations, that are also fighting for profit. For me, as an indie developer - I love that Apple takes care of many things for me on the App Store side. I am ok with sharing my revenue with them. I hate the App Store for other reasons, but not the 15-30% share. Apple became too big. Other companies will sue them for one reason or another. Whatever they do - other companies will sue them.
  - StewardMcOy 2y ago
    I'm a slammer developer in a similar boat, and while I still think the 15% SPP fee is too high, it's not what really bothers me about being in the App Store. It's the Kafkaesque app review process and the inversion of power between platform holders and third-party developers. I remember a time when I sold my software directly to users over the web. It certainly didn't cost me 15% of my revenue to process payments and refunds, but I'm actually fine paying Apple a few extra percent to cake care of that internationally. Back in those days, the prevailing wisdom was that platforms competed for third-party devs in order to make their platforms useful for their users and increase market share. If you read the arguments around the new EU rules for platforms, there's a lot of talk about the platform holders' "rights" to "monetize their IP" or similar language. Apple says it. Google says it. Gruber and other influencers parrot it. I hate it. Developing the OS isn't free, but the revenue from end users more than pays for it. Developing the developer tools isn't free, but the $99/year revenue from developers more than pays for it. Combined, they probably more than pay for development and hosting of the App Store. I get that Apple has no shortage of people wanting to develop for their platform, so they don't need to compete for third-party developers anymore. I don't like it, but I understand it. I just wish they wouldn't try to rent-seek on top of it. I wish app review weren't so complicated, self-serving, inconsistent, and useless. Apple likes to publish statistics on how many fraud apps they keep off the App Store, but in my opinion, it still has far too much trash and scam apps to argue that app review works well for anyone but Apple.
uptown 2y ago
Here’s one: An Apple phone marketed towards kids. Has email, music, iMessage/SMS, phone, maps, FindMy. No web. No apps. A smart phone form factor with dumb phone features.
exodust 2y ago
Everyone is waiting for AI robots in the home. We're just filling in time until then. Robot dogs; J.F Sabastian's toy soldiers greeting you at the door; carers, cooks, maids, bodyguards, pleasure models, personal trainers... Engineers can enjoy making robots without ridiculous constrains like "thinnest/lightest ever" or VR contraptions that most people can't stand after 10 minutes. It will be great.
b3ing 2y ago
Is it really only up to him to come up with ideas? I’m sure he mostly sees what his workers have done or suggest then take those ideas to figure out what path to go down. Apple Pay is a big money maker.
jillesvangurp 2y ago
Here's a free idea: sell more than 1 device to your users. Why sell people only 1 phone? Phones could be like shoes: you have different pairs for different occasions. Some people go all Imelda Marcos on that front (she was famous for her large shoe collection). A lot of Apple devices are as much a fashion accessory as a useful tool. So, why not have lots of them that you can use interchangeably. They half went there with the iwatch, mac/ios integration. And now with the VR goggles. But they are still separate things. Apple has been focusing on selling people just 1 phone. Changing that requires two things: 1) Multi modality of the end user experience: users should be able to access the same software and data on any (Apple) device they own. And possibly even temporarily on devices owned by others. (tv in your hotel, car integration in a rental car, etc.). 2) Diversifying the product range to have devices optimized for different use cases, usages, and environments such that users might want to own several of them. A useful side effect of this is that losing or breaking a device becomes less of a disaster because you can just pick up any of your other devices and continue.
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PedroBatista 2y ago
Did he ever had any? If we want to dramatize a bit, Tim is basically the guy who made Steve Jobs dreams possible. A new product, even as vertically integrated as Apple likes them to be, requires huge numbers of parts and suppliers and Tim basically made it possible for Apple to sell great products using mostly their suppliers money and risk. I'm sure Steve knew all of this and Apple didn't needed another "Steve" with big ideas and all the attached risk, by 2011 Apple was already a huge and stable company with great products and solid business. Probably ego was a big part too but bringing a guy like Tim Cook was a logical move. He is Apple's version of Sundar Pichai, he manages and makes numbers go up, sure he's not a robot but it's by design. The constant nickel and dimming and "mistakes" like the Apple Silicon DTK where developers paid ~$500 to test their apps on Apple Silicon before the official M1 launch with the agreement of them sending back the hardware when Apple tells them to and then Apple only returned $200 out of the 500 to them. Yes Apple backtracked after all the noise, but this "incident" is all you need to know about Tim Cook.
- atq2119 2y ago
  The title is just weird framing in general. In a large company, the CEO's role generally shouldn't be having ideas, except perhaps in companies that are still founder-led (though even then I'd be skeptical). Instead, their role should be to cultivate many people having ideas, and a healthy process for filtering for the best ones. A single person is simply inferior in terms of brain power compared to a collective.
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luke-stanley 2y ago
Apple could make the products hackable in the right way by end users, doing what they want with their own data, kinda like they used to at the start. Apple should experiment with the magic of getting rid of opaque magic and help make powerful, easy to user apps that non-developer users can modify themselves by investing in the hard design work of empowering users. Help users see what is meaningful and help them make meaning. Maybe they should ask Woz what to do more! What are the gaps in education and ability? Why is it so hard to share data and make apps? Too much of a good thing can be bad. They need to unwall their garden. And so on.
indigo0086 2y ago
There's an infinite amount of mm to play with, he's just not thinking outside the box
pentagrama 2y ago
Yes, to me Apple lately didn't launch a groundbreaking or good consumer product like the iPod, MacBook, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, AirPods, only good copycats like HomePod (Alexa), Apple Music (Spotify), Apple TV Plus (Netflix), AirTag (Tile), or bad copycats Vision Pro (Meta Quest). But let's say from 2015 to today, what new groundbreaking or innovative consumer product was launched? I can only count Chat GPT. Stadia was innovative but failed. Self-driving cars are a thing but there are not yet for prime time.
hackerbeat 2y ago
Just give us a 32 inch iMac already.
rifty 2y ago
I think people expect more from Apple moment to moment because of their storied history then their identity really aspires to release at a rate of. At the same time, there is probably some place for a change of strategy if they did want to be awe inspiring to the masses still and not just dependable. If Apple wants to keep bringing awe inspiring consumer products out, they can’t just be late to make technology products non technical, they need to be investing and releasing new technology earlier. Their historic influence on the industry means new technology today takes being consumer ready seriously from the start.

42 points by elsewhen 2y ago

http://archive.today/9RjBv http://archive.today/9RjBv

The most crucial sentence is the following: > "For years, it has been clear that there is no next iPhone." Now that Apple has failed to deliver a big step forward with the Vision Pro or Apple Car, its retreat into AI suggests it's chasing trends to keep up interest as it struggles to chart a defining next step. and also: > The drawbacks of Cook's divestment from product design and development are now becoming clearer. While Cook is no Ballmer, his time is reminiscent of many other companies that slowly lose touch with product design and tend towards their brand as an end-all-be-all answer.

JKCalhoun 2y ago
But what consumer product has there been that Apple missed in the past decade or so? There are inevitable periods of drought in the tech-consumer space. And if you think Apple should just "invent a thing" ... they've never really done that.
- mdorazio 2y ago
  I think this is a good point. Apple’s product innovation has historically been to take something that already exists but isn’t very good and turn it into a top-tier product for the mass market. Looking at things as widespread as even the iPad in the last 10 years, it’s really been services rather than devices. Netflix, Uber, food delivery, etc. You could make an argument for wireless earbuds, bud Apple does pretty well with AirPods. They tried with VR and electric cars - the former remains niche and the latter failed.
- piva00 2y ago
  > And if you think Apple should just "invent a thing" ... they've never really done that. Some people seem to miss that Apple has been a really, really good integrator of technologies into their products. Their innovation edge is in polishing existing technologies into a more cohesive and complete whole. The early Macs lifted GUIs into a useful computer, blatantly stealing tech from Xerox PARC and polishing it. The iPod was the polished version of MP3 players, those existed much earlier than when the iPod released but the iPod was a very ergonomic solution. The iPhone polished touchscreen interfaces, and the experience of navigating the web on a phone, all of that existed previously, they just made it better. The polish has value, it made a lot of tech quite useful in the mainstream and the focus on the experience of using them is what always gave Apple an edge. They don't make the most tinkerable/power-user friendly devices and that's not their business, as much as we like to complain about that on HN and other geeky places, the real users of Apple devices don't care about that aspect if the experience works really well for them.
  - mike_hearn 2y ago
    Well, except for the Apple TV, which isn't actually a TV and thus "fights" with the actual TV, duplicating its menus, services and features. Making an integrated TV would seem to be an obvious move where stuff doesn't work well (saying that as the owner of a sad Sony Android TV).
    - piva00 2y ago
      TV hardware has such low margins that I don't think it's worth the hassle for Apple. I actually much prefer to have my Apple TV and just plug into new screens if I swap them, there are pretty decent panels in the market that I don't think I'd ever purchase an Apple-branded TV just for the sake of having an embedded tvOS in it. Might be I'm a special case but I haven't touched the TV remote in many years, I turn it on through whatever device I'm using and when I switch the device off my TV switches off as well.
- mike_hearn 2y ago
  > But what consumer product has there been that Apple missed in the past decade or so? There are some obvious consumer products with very ropey user interfaces, which are already invented, where Apple could have had a big impact: 1. Games consoles. Microsoft is giving up on the Xbox, even, so the field is open for more competition. It's well within Apple's bailiwick, being just a specialized locked down computer. 2. Televisions. Actual TVs, not the Apple TV set top box. 3. eBook readers. The ones with eInk displays that last a super long time. 4. Kitchen equipment. There seems to be an unwritten rule that all kitchen equipment must have terrible user interfaces. 5. Heck they could have another go at the workstation/laptop market. It's not like MacOS is the last word in workstation design. 6. Printers/copiers. They all suck. Yes I know Apple used to do these and got out due to lack of focus, but they didn't have the same culture around quality in the 90s. 7. The web. Yeah, the app store is sort of a parallel non-web ecosystem but not really.
darkerside 2y ago
Why is Cook no Ballmer? Both seem like competent but maligned CEOs who ruthlessly capitalized on their predecessors' innovations, resulting in tremendous cash flow and short term shareholder value while neglecting to chat a course for creating meaningful user value in new ways in the future.
- Invictus0 2y ago
  Tim Cook grew apple massively since he took over, Ballmer left without growing Microsoft's market cap at all.

velcrovan 2y ago

When you’re 63 and a multimillionaire and had a great run, maybe it’s fine to not have lots of ideas. It’s a great time to retire and keep bees or something.

bdjsiqoocwk 2y ago
While I don't necessarily disagree, I don't see why a young age like 63 should be the end of your career. Maybe i'm too young to have felt how age affects your mental abilities (Im 39, is that too young for this?)
- dsign 2y ago
  Mental decline with age is a thing, and in my personal experience, it starts right at the boundary of the forties. All said, if I had as little as 200k in my bank account, I would start investing less time on getting more money and more time and money on getting more health. From my very personal point of view, a person who has millions on their name and who is still working for more money has a bit of a death wish.
- anonzzzies 2y ago
  63 is young; most my current business partners are over 50-60 and a few of them are over 70-80s and all of them work full time. They are all millionaires for a long time already but they like work and enjoy building things. So do I; I don't think I will quit before I die or until my brain indeed doesn't work anymore. The 70+ guys are not quick with some things, but have tons of experience which makes them better/quicker in other stuff which matters far more to the business than tech, speed or 'good hip ideas'.
sp332 2y ago
He's been a billionaire since 2020. How can you run a business like Apple when your personal finances take so much attention?
- pavlov 2y ago
  It seems to me that personal finances should take a lot less time for someone who has a billion dollars vs. someone who has, say, $100k. The latter can lose it all on a bad financial decision, and probably has ideas for what they could do if only they could double or 10x or 100x the money, so risks can be worthwhile. The billionaire will keep getting richer beyond human comprehension even if they just put the entire fortune into treasury bonds. 4% interest on $1B is objectively so much money that you shouldn't bother trying to get more if there's anything else in your life that you'd rather spend time on. (Of course a lot of billionaires get there because the single one thing they want in life is to make money and see the number grow, but Cook doesn't seem that way.)

bunny720 2y ago

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JKCalhoun 2y ago

> But while AI might drive short-term investor interest ... it's unlikely to be the kind of product that makes a big difference to the bottom line I guess I disagree. Custom silicon, running a local AI (no network or network agency) in your pocket would be a game changer. Apple has to move fast to catch up on the software, but they own the hardware already, can design the AI-forward silicon.

cmsj 2y ago
Apple has included NPU hardware in its SoCs since the A11 in 2017. It has been used for a variety of local AI in your pocket since then. This "Neural Engine" has only gotten more powerful with each iteration of their SoC in the intervening years.
jl6 2y ago
I agree. An AI assistant with the following properties would make me upgrade my phone: 1) fully local / ultra low latency; 2) privacy guarantees; 3) access / training / fine-tuning over all the data on my phone. But it would probably require at least a 10x increase in on-device compute/memory resources to achieve that, unless they can pull off an efficiency miracle (1.58bit models?).

jl6 2y ago

Holy cow, I didn't know they spent $10bn on the car project. That's nearly a month's worth of profit!

bdjsiqoocwk 2y ago
I guess Apple has to keep its shareholders happy. I wish we had cleaner proxies into shareholder opinion. If you polled apples shareholders, what percentage do You think would answe yes to the question "are you ok with Apple spending a months worth of profit on tim cooks latest idea?", weighted by number of shares.

thunderbong 2y ago

Actual title - "Apple desperately needs its Next Big Thing" From the HN Guidelines - Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

fullshark 2y ago
The url suggests the headline was altered
- silverquiet 2y ago
  Headlines are A/B tested to see what drives engagement at the cost of shared reality.
Brian_K_White 2y ago
Thank god for the police out there keeping everyone in line. Only problem is who polices the police? The url literally says "apple-tim-cook-running-out-of-ideas"

yurishimo 2y ago

I would argue Cook hasn't really had _any_ ideas. It's all been about supply chain management and raising services revenue. Apple TV+ is literally just Netflix with Apple branding; there was no risk there. The Vision Pro is the first "new" product that Apple has released and I fear it's been hamstrung by Apple's desire to tightly control the ecosystem. It's possible that Vision Pro could be amazing for games (a proven VR market) but Apple won't open up the hardware/software enough to port existing apps. I like all of my current Apple devices, but I'm not naïeve enough to believe that fact of today will stay true forever.

TheAceOfHearts 2y ago
Apple isn't taking VR seriously, if they were they'd be funding the creation of more VR-native content in order to make the platform more attractive. Look at how much money Meta is dumping into VR and compare it with Apple.
- fidotron 2y ago
  There is a meaningful lack of conviction from Apple wrt Vision Pro. This may be the result of them having such an easy ride getting developers to jump through hoops for iOS devices, but I think it does reflect that the wider company just doesn’t believe in it.
  - zmmmmm 2y ago
    It's kind of baffling and fascinating at the same time : a company with an infinite dump truck of money launches a once in a generation new kind of product and .... forgets to fund even basic content for it? Even their first party content (new environments etc) is languishing. I kind of wonder if they have a sort of internal view that it needs to survive on its own merits or die - like putting your newborn babies out in the cold the first night. Even if they lack belief, it is surprising that even the parts that just consist of signing checks seem anaemic.
taylodl 2y ago
> The Vision Pro is the first "new" product that Apple has released You forgot all about the Apple Watch?

Waterluvian 2y ago

> The following year, his strategy bore fruit. Jobs unveiled the iMac, and its vibrant plastic shell instantly flew off the shelves and into the annals of iconic design. > But other than the Apple Watch, which was already in the works before Jobs' death, there have been no earth-shattering product launches. Unless the iMac was designed and built in a year, this feels like the writer is being dishonest and sloppy in attempt to make reality match their narrative.

rvense 2y ago
It kind of was, I think. The case design is what made the iMac so striking, it didn't really contain anything much new. On a technical level, what set it apart was a newer processor, the G3, (which debuted in the Power Macintosh line in '97) and USB on the motherboard. They had an existing line of beige all-in-ones (e.g. Performa 5200) that the iMac was very much an iterative improvement on. The most talked about feature at the time was probably the colorful plastics and lack of a floppy drive, and neither of which I'd say are year-long engineering efforts. Except for the fact that Apple was allegedly six months away from going out of business before Jobs returned and slashed operating costs, it's not entirely unlikely that a consumer Mac with comparable internals would have come out as the Performa G3 or whatever in much the same timeframe.
deleted 2y ago
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drdrek 2y ago

When this specter is common in mainstream media will be a great point to buy Apple stock. Oh no my 3T money printer takes time to get to 10T :O Sell!!

jakubmazanec 2y ago

That Tim Cook would take this course was AFAIK entirely predicted (and it wasn't hard to predict) when Jobs died. No surprise here. I guess he was counting on the walled garden too much. I'm really glad that EU exists.

oldprogrammer2 2y ago

Innovation doesn't always mean new products, sometimes it means making the current ones better. In the case of laptops, tablets, phones, and smart watches: thinner, lighter, more power, and longer battery life are the innovations most people want. In support of that, Apple Silicon was an incredibly important innovation that was not even mentioned once in the article.

itsoktocry 2y ago
Isn't this exactly what they are doing? 99% of buyers don't need thinner, lighter or more powerful devices. Maybe battery life, but even that's getting pretty good. These things are nice to have, but no one is going to go by a new iPad pro because it's 0.5mm thinner and 20g lighter. As far as power, normies aren't even approaching the limits.
- mcphage 2y ago
  > but no one is going to go by a new iPad pro because it's 0.5mm thinner and 20g lighter You're right, but these aren't products designed in isolation—the engineering required to make devices thinner and lighter is used in both iPhones and iPads... and then can be utilized in new products like the Apple Vision, where it is currently too large and too heavy.

cyclecount 2y ago

I think Vision will be as big as the iPhone and this will be clear in 3-4 years.

Apreche 2y ago

Here are the ideas Tim. Stop egregiously upcharging on RAM and storage. Allow full sideloading. Hide it away in deep place with warnings so normal people don’t use it, but let us nerds have it. Stop charging $100 for developer accounts. Release your dev tools so people can build apps for iOS using computers that aren’t Macs. Also, full XCode on iOS itself so you can make iOS apps on iOS. A Mac Pro with an M4 Ultra AND NVidia GPUs. All other consumer computers will bow down. Get the Rosetta team to make something similar to Valve’s Proton to actually get the games running on Mac once and for all. Repairability and upgradability, for real. No ridiculous tools. Stop with the parts pairing. etc. MacOS and iOS have lots of bugs that are weird edge cases and are not getting fixed. They don’t affect many users, but they strongly impact the users that experience them. Those many bugs add up to a lot of users. Real intelligent human support for advanced support issues. The real genius bar for us nerds who need it. Fix the documentation. You like to brag about being best in the world at so many things. Why isn’t your documentation best in the world? Let Apple Watches work without iPhones. Better yet, let them work with Android phones. Better yet, let iPhones work well with smart watches that aren’t Apple Watches. I could go on, but I think that’s enough.

kiru_io 2y ago
What is the issue of charging $100 for the developer accounts?
- beeboobaa3 2y ago
  It's just ridiculous. The fee is too low to actually matter too apple, and it's ridiculous to have to pay a yearly fee so you can add value to Apple's ecosystem for them. You even have to pay it to publish free/open source apps. Then if you dare to think about charging for your app, they take 30% on top of that. It also means hobby programmers are much less likely to get started with developing for iPhones because for most of them it'll be a (at least) $100/year loss.
  - mingus88 2y ago
    Framing this expense to hobby programmers as a “$100/year loss” seems opposed to the entire concept of a hobby. Everything will be a loss; it’s a hobby. If you are doing it to profit then it’s a side gig or an actual job. What kind of hobby can you pick up for less than $100? You can’t even take up hiking or walking without spending that much on shoes and socks.

fidotron 2y ago

Apple should break themselves up for their own good, before it is forced upon them on less favourable terms. Keep the hardware, OS and app store together, and get out of things like music, books and video distribution where the anti competitive stuff sticks because it is too obvious. We need to face the fact Apple has become the Toyota of computing and this isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

petesergeant 2y ago

> we've seen two major flops from Apple. The first is the Vision Pro headset ... Meanwhile, the Apple Car didn't even make it out of the gate Calling the Apple Vision Pro a "major flop" seems bizarrely premature if you consider it to be the beach head presumably it's meant as. If they can't shift version 2 or 3, then sure. Complaining about cutting the Apple Car after praising Jobs for cutting off ideas that didn't pan out is weird.

WillAdams 2y ago

What are the tech gadgets which folks need which haven't been made yet? What market share does Apple need to profitable stay in business? Why won't stockholders be satisfied with business-as-usual, and an existing customer base? The iPhone (and iPad Mini) obviously subsume the Newton --- so folks have a small pocketable device with them almost constantly. The larger iPad works well for convenient media consumption, and with a keyboard and Apple Pencil, works as a sketchpad/notepad/creative device (and can be paired w/ a Mac via Sidecar) --- so folks have a medium-size device for a bag or coffee table readily available. The Mac is available in multiple form-factors, from small portable suited for a bag/Starbucks/airplane seat table to small/inexpensive or large/powerful for a desk. For larger media access there's the Apple TV. Virtual reality à la the Apple Vision Pro is one lacunae --- but really needs software support, and a form-factor comfortable enough for folks to wear for lengthy timeframes, making the Apple Pencil suited to replace the Newton's stylus might be another. I wish that they would standardize on sizes/proportions and connector types/locations so that accessories could be carried forward and only upgraded when they wear out.

nottorp 2y ago
> What are the tech gadgets which folks need which haven't been made yet? We don't know. It's just that they're not likely to come out of Apple during Cook's reign.
- WillAdams 2y ago
  Lenovo has been doing some interesting things --- pairing e-ink w/ LCDs is kind of neat (I wish that they'd done a better job with that, or would revisit it), and the transparent display concept seemed especially apt for didactive usage, or technical tasks such as repair or assembly. Their Lenovo Yogabook 9i seems especially promising, and I hope it will create a new product category in-between tablets and laptops --- I'd've bought one if it had a Wacom EMR stylus, and really hope that Samsung will make a competitor w/ an S-Pen (which is Wacom EMR).
  - taylodl 2y ago

nerdjon 2y ago

Looking at it another way, what has Apple missed? Very rarely has Apple truly been the first to a market, their strategy has always been to see an upcoming technology and... well make it good. (not always the first time, but still). Smartphones, tablets, smart watches, even AR. Sure the price is insane but you can't ignore just how polished it is compared to a lot of what is out there. Apple was not the first to any of these, but when they came out with theirs they redefined expectations. Before anyone says AI, AI isn't a product. It's a feature. I really hate that we see the Vision Pro being considered a Flop. It feels like from the beginning Apple knew where this device geared towards and that it was not going to be a mass market device. But it gets it out the door so people can start playing with it while the hardware catches up with the software. And like the Apple Watch, they can see what customers actually want and refocus their software efforts. The fact is, Apple's products are the best they have been. The Apple silicone continues to be regarded as the best out there. The new iPad is getting rave reviews, even if iPad OS may be holding it back a bit. Apple TV+ keeps putting out amazing shows. I just don't buy this article, it feels like we are in a weird quiet period in tech. There are a lot of things that could be done, but we just don't have the hardware to really back it up for things like AR and other wearables. But in the meantime we will just be doing a bunch of AI features. Also, if we are going to call the Car a "flop" but then criticize them for not finding a new product. You don't get it both ways. Same with the Vision Pro.

pornel 2y ago

Cook has bet on increasing services revenue instead. Financially, this has been very successful, and has given AAPL growth even when they could not grow hardware sales. However, this strategy has turned Apple into a rent-seeking company that must continuously expand subscription services, while locking down the devices and giving themselves a preferential treatment, to avoid competitors undercutting Apple's high prices. This motivates Apple to obstruct integrations with 3rd party services instead of giving their users choice and good UX. If Apple didn't try to maximize services revenue, they could have run AppStore with merely a healthy margin, rather than a duopoly fee that keeps alienating developers. There would not be a messy battle with Epic, and the EU could not justify a major intervention.

outcoldman 2y ago
As a developer (just $1,000 MRR from App Store) - I don't care about 30% fee (actually 15% in my case because of Small Business Program). The only other developers that are mad are other large corporations, that are also fighting for profit. For me, as an indie developer - I love that Apple takes care of many things for me on the App Store side. I am ok with sharing my revenue with them. I hate the App Store for other reasons, but not the 15-30% share. Apple became too big. Other companies will sue them for one reason or another. Whatever they do - other companies will sue them.
- StewardMcOy 2y ago
  I'm a slammer developer in a similar boat, and while I still think the 15% SPP fee is too high, it's not what really bothers me about being in the App Store. It's the Kafkaesque app review process and the inversion of power between platform holders and third-party developers. I remember a time when I sold my software directly to users over the web. It certainly didn't cost me 15% of my revenue to process payments and refunds, but I'm actually fine paying Apple a few extra percent to cake care of that internationally. Back in those days, the prevailing wisdom was that platforms competed for third-party devs in order to make their platforms useful for their users and increase market share. If you read the arguments around the new EU rules for platforms, there's a lot of talk about the platform holders' "rights" to "monetize their IP" or similar language. Apple says it. Google says it. Gruber and other influencers parrot it. I hate it. Developing the OS isn't free, but the revenue from end users more than pays for it. Developing the developer tools isn't free, but the $99/year revenue from developers more than pays for it. Combined, they probably more than pay for development and hosting of the App Store. I get that Apple has no shortage of people wanting to develop for their platform, so they don't need to compete for third-party developers anymore. I don't like it, but I understand it. I just wish they wouldn't try to rent-seek on top of it. I wish app review weren't so complicated, self-serving, inconsistent, and useless. Apple likes to publish statistics on how many fraud apps they keep off the App Store, but in my opinion, it still has far too much trash and scam apps to argue that app review works well for anyone but Apple.

uptown 2y ago

Here’s one: An Apple phone marketed towards kids. Has email, music, iMessage/SMS, phone, maps, FindMy. No web. No apps. A smart phone form factor with dumb phone features.

exodust 2y ago

Everyone is waiting for AI robots in the home. We're just filling in time until then. Robot dogs; J.F Sabastian's toy soldiers greeting you at the door; carers, cooks, maids, bodyguards, pleasure models, personal trainers... Engineers can enjoy making robots without ridiculous constrains like "thinnest/lightest ever" or VR contraptions that most people can't stand after 10 minutes. It will be great.

b3ing 2y ago

Is it really only up to him to come up with ideas? I’m sure he mostly sees what his workers have done or suggest then take those ideas to figure out what path to go down. Apple Pay is a big money maker.

jillesvangurp 2y ago

Here's a free idea: sell more than 1 device to your users. Why sell people only 1 phone? Phones could be like shoes: you have different pairs for different occasions. Some people go all Imelda Marcos on that front (she was famous for her large shoe collection). A lot of Apple devices are as much a fashion accessory as a useful tool. So, why not have lots of them that you can use interchangeably. They half went there with the iwatch, mac/ios integration. And now with the VR goggles. But they are still separate things. Apple has been focusing on selling people just 1 phone. Changing that requires two things: 1) Multi modality of the end user experience: users should be able to access the same software and data on any (Apple) device they own. And possibly even temporarily on devices owned by others. (tv in your hotel, car integration in a rental car, etc.). 2) Diversifying the product range to have devices optimized for different use cases, usages, and environments such that users might want to own several of them. A useful side effect of this is that losing or breaking a device becomes less of a disaster because you can just pick up any of your other devices and continue.

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PedroBatista 2y ago

Did he ever had any? If we want to dramatize a bit, Tim is basically the guy who made Steve Jobs dreams possible. A new product, even as vertically integrated as Apple likes them to be, requires huge numbers of parts and suppliers and Tim basically made it possible for Apple to sell great products using mostly their suppliers money and risk. I'm sure Steve knew all of this and Apple didn't needed another "Steve" with big ideas and all the attached risk, by 2011 Apple was already a huge and stable company with great products and solid business. Probably ego was a big part too but bringing a guy like Tim Cook was a logical move. He is Apple's version of Sundar Pichai, he manages and makes numbers go up, sure he's not a robot but it's by design. The constant nickel and dimming and "mistakes" like the Apple Silicon DTK where developers paid ~$500 to test their apps on Apple Silicon before the official M1 launch with the agreement of them sending back the hardware when Apple tells them to and then Apple only returned $200 out of the 500 to them. Yes Apple backtracked after all the noise, but this "incident" is all you need to know about Tim Cook.

atq2119 2y ago
The title is just weird framing in general. In a large company, the CEO's role generally shouldn't be having ideas, except perhaps in companies that are still founder-led (though even then I'd be skeptical). Instead, their role should be to cultivate many people having ideas, and a healthy process for filtering for the best ones. A single person is simply inferior in terms of brain power compared to a collective.

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luke-stanley 2y ago

Apple could make the products hackable in the right way by end users, doing what they want with their own data, kinda like they used to at the start. Apple should experiment with the magic of getting rid of opaque magic and help make powerful, easy to user apps that non-developer users can modify themselves by investing in the hard design work of empowering users. Help users see what is meaningful and help them make meaning. Maybe they should ask Woz what to do more! What are the gaps in education and ability? Why is it so hard to share data and make apps? Too much of a good thing can be bad. They need to unwall their garden. And so on.

indigo0086 2y ago

There's an infinite amount of mm to play with, he's just not thinking outside the box

pentagrama 2y ago

Yes, to me Apple lately didn't launch a groundbreaking or good consumer product like the iPod, MacBook, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, AirPods, only good copycats like HomePod (Alexa), Apple Music (Spotify), Apple TV Plus (Netflix), AirTag (Tile), or bad copycats Vision Pro (Meta Quest). But let's say from 2015 to today, what new groundbreaking or innovative consumer product was launched? I can only count Chat GPT. Stadia was innovative but failed. Self-driving cars are a thing but there are not yet for prime time.

hackerbeat 2y ago

Just give us a 32 inch iMac already.

rifty 2y ago

I think people expect more from Apple moment to moment because of their storied history then their identity really aspires to release at a rate of. At the same time, there is probably some place for a change of strategy if they did want to be awe inspiring to the masses still and not just dependable. If Apple wants to keep bringing awe inspiring consumer products out, they can’t just be late to make technology products non technical, they need to be investing and releasing new technology earlier. Their historic influence on the industry means new technology today takes being consumer ready seriously from the start.