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Comment by bnchrch | Hacker News Reader

If you check my comments Im a routine critic of Apple. Specifically its mis-management of Siri.

But, in my mind, Tim Cook is also responsible for the only exceptional qualities of Apple. Namely its production of the M series chips and the Vision Pro (yes really).

They better have someone outstanding in mind as a replacement.

Otherwise I could easily see the successor mildly improve Siri/AI functions, while continuing Apples new disastrous design language and drop the ball on the supply chain and vertical integration that makes their hardware products second to none.

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Ternus is the leading candidate; VP of Hardware Engineering. He was very likely more directly responsible than Cook for all the things you liked about Cook's Apple.

My fear for Apple right now is how most decisions they make appear to incentivize them toward becoming a perpetual middle-man in all aspects of your interactions with their products. They don't manufacture much of anything anymore; its on-contract. They design the M-Series chips, but don't make them. Their software sucks; they'd rather just take 30% of your interaction with actually-good software. Their AI and search sucks; they just pay Google $30B a year for theirs. Etc and etc.

What incentive do they have otherwise?

Wait, Apple Pay Google for search?

No, it’s the other way around. Comment above is confused about the relationship.

He's referring to the AI part of his sentence.

Reports say that Apple will be paying Google a billion a year for a Gemini‘d Siri

No, but Apple is likely to be paying Google for access to Gemini in the upcoming Siri revamp, and relies on Google's technology for the default safari search experience, which is what I was referencing.

I thought they're buying a custom model they can run (likely for privacy reasons)

Ternus team didn’t create M-series.

Johny Srouji team did instead.

https://www.apple.com/leadership/johny-srouji/

https://www.apple.com/leadership/john-ternus/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johny_Srouji

Their Siri sucks so they just borrowed Google Gemini.

Very few tech companies make the whole stack. Making chips requires specialization and is required for high end chips. Samsung is probably the only company that makes chips for their own phones.

As to succession, Cook is an operations maniac. Hopefully that carries to preparing and planning potential successors.

I think it should be Sabih. Having worked with him he has a great head on his shoulders.

With the right visionary, $2k phones and $500 textile cases will not be impossible...

$2k phones has been a thing for a while now, with the folding phones. Samsung Galaxy Z Fold currently starts at $1700 and Google Pixel Pro Fold starts at $1800, and both are over $2100 for the 1TB models.

I think we’ll be seeing a lot more, from Vision. The Liquid GlArse thing is because they want to make every app a Vision app.

Don’t forget how unimpressive the iPhone was, when it was first introduced. It has probably become the most successful product in history.

> Don’t forget how unimpressive the iPhone was, when it was first introduced

We have very different recollections, then. People audibly gasped when Steve demoed slide-to-unlock on stage. The first generation was sold out for a long time despite being eye-wateringly expensive compared to competing devices like the BlackBerry.

> despite being eye-wateringly expensive compared to competing devices like the BlackBerry.

That’s sort of what I meant.

The people who poo-poohed it, were marketing folks at more traditional companies (like the one I worked for, at the time).

They literally laughed themselves into the poorhouse. I watched that happen, right in front of my eyes.

How unimpressive the first iPhone was??

Yeah, totally... a full touchscreen computer in your pocket with no physical keyboard, pinch-to-zoom magic people thought was CGI, a browser that wasn't a joke, visual voicemail, and an OS so smooth it made every other phone look like it ran on car batteries. Truly underwhelming stuff.

It literally redefined an entire industry, vaporized half the product lines at Nokia/BlackBerry/Palm/Microsoft, and set the blueprint for every smartphone that exists today.

But sure..."unimpressive."

This is the weirdest revisionist history I've ever heard.

If you mean that the iPhone has come a long way and that it was unimpressive relative to the phones we have 18 years later, sure. But unimpressive it was not.

> This is the weirdest revisionist history I've ever heard.

I thought we were supposed to find less abrasive ways to engage each other, around these parts.

In any case, I admit that I could have phrased it better.

What I meant, was that “professionals” laughed at it (and there were a lot of them), but “customers,” did not.

I worked for a company, where they literally laughed in my face, when I told them “This thing will be trouble for us.” A few years later, their own product line was a smoking crater in the ground.

Comparing the Vision Pro customer response and iPhone customer response is laughable, imo

The VP is cool, but it's still hard to see a future where everyone has one. As soon as I got my original iPhone it was clear that it changed everything going forward. The entire market changed on the spot. The VP has not done that, even if it may ultimately be successful.

Good point.

Given the VP price, it’s clear that it’s aimed at high-end “fancy toy” buyers; not mainstream users.

I have not used one, but everyone I know, that did test one (and I don’t know anyone that actually brought one), has that “Moses coming off Mount Sinai” look [0]. It’s clear that Apple has done a great job of implementing an AR platform, but the price is far too high to fairly compare to the iPhone I, which was pricey, but not inaccessibly so.

If they are effective in reducing the cost, and improving the comfort, we may see some real success.

[0] https://www.ocregister.com/wp-content/uploads/migration/kzw/...

Changing chip is way too little of an accomplishment in 10+ years of leadership of what was once the biggest tech company on the planet.

The company isn't growing from years, and it's only saved by the positive offset coming from advertisement and app store growth.

MacBooks outclass any other laptop in the market thanks to those chips.

Listen, I don't really like the direction Apple has taken either, but since Tim Cook became CEO of Apple in August 2011 the company's stock went from like $15 to like $275; it had a value of $400 billion and now it's worth $4 trillion, ten times as much. Any characterization of him as some kind of failure who killed Apple ("once the biggest tech company on the planet", "isn't growing", "only saved"...) is completely out-of-touch.

How can we be sure this is specifically due to Cook and not the ecosystem overall?

A lot has changed since 2011. Some was likely Cook continuing execution of things lined up by Jobs. Some could just be tech sector in general, etc.

In some ways it doesn't matter. A bad CEO would have fucked up the ecosystem.

> likely Cook continuing execution of things

I love how people say 'execution' like it's an insult. Execution on the scale of Apple is an incredible challenge. Apple sells something like 425 iPhones per minute. It could be argued that execution is the biggest Apple innovation ever.

It sailed on Jobs‘ monumental accomplishments, and still does. Including AirPods and Vision Pro, much of what fell into Cook‘s era was already well underway when Jobs died. Cook is a fantastic executor, fulfilling Jobs‘ legacy. But the tank is empty now, has been for a while.

Every bit of your second sentence is wrong. None of that was even on the drawing boards when Steve passed away.

Look it up. Both have been prototyped for more than a decade before being released. Like most recent Apple products.

As a customer and tech enthusiasts I couldn't care less about the stock performance of Apple, truly.

It's a tech company, I'm interested in the tech they produce. On that front, the company hasn't been innovative for ages.

in house chips are pretty cool. Shared memory is a really nice architectural advancement.

What is your specific definition of "in house" chips ?

Usually we'd apply that to Samsung's exynos or Sony's image sensors for their DSLRs. Would Google's Tensor for instance fit in that definition ?

Apple Silicon and everything related to it is deeply innovative, it's just not at all flashy.

This is one of the least reality-based statements ever.

Just take AirPods Pro at a minimum. Apple is doing thing with AirPods that other brands can’t even dream of, and it’s all technical engineering.

APP and my AW are instant-replace products if I lose/damage them. The M-series chips have made my MBP the same.

It's hard to say Apple hasn't innovated for both regular consumer and tech enthusiasts.

MBP = Macbook Pro AW = Apple Watch? What is APP?

AirPods Pro.

10x over 15 years is not really impressive for a tech company

Show me the other tech companies that have done anywhere near as good as

It’s not the only thing. The scale up of Apple is massive and so is the supply chain. Those are not really things consumers don’t see directly (just indirectly)

"…and it's only saved by the positive offset coming from advertisement and app store growth"

That has been part of the plan for a decade now since Eddy Cue was tasked with boosting Apple's income from "services". (It's worked pretty well for Microsoft.)

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