Apple CEO Tim Cook's Legacy Is Dull Products and Spineless Capitulation | Hacker News Reader

Apple CEO Tim Cook's Legacy Is Dull Products and Spineless Capitulation

karlbode.com

44 pointsHotGarbage44 comments

I kind of want to flag this because it reads like dumb rage bait, but I'll comment instead.

> While Apple certainly made boatloads of money during Cook's tenure, the company also steadily morphed into something unthinkable to company founders Jobs and Steve Wozniak: it became not just increasingly unethical...

If you think Tim Cook is/was less ethical than Steve Jobs of all people, my only rational conclusion is that you don't know Jobs' history or you're an idiot.

"Colligan attached an email he sent to Jobs in Aug. 2007, in which he told the late Apple exec that his idea was "likely illegal.""

https://www.pcmag.com/news/steve-jobs-threatened-palm-with-p...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...

https://conversableeconomist.com/2025/10/31/the-silicon-vall...

It's pretty unhinged, I made it about three paragraphs before closing the tab. But sometimes even ragebait can be useful for the discussion in the comments, I suppose.

There is a lot to criticize about TC, but if you think the Apple Silicon move is dull (not in terms of technology, but what experiences it opens), you are incredibly stupid and shortsighted.

TL;DR Cook kept an already mature Jobs era initiative alive

Apple's first chip, A4, was released in 2010 before Jobs was gone

Given how long it took then to get a single chip physically manufactured the business plan had been sorted out for years, likely not long after the switch to Intel

They were just waiting for manufacturers to hit the right metrics

I like the other article today, where Tim Cook has gone from "possibly the best manufacturing and logistics person in the world", to "Apple blindsided by demand for AI use of products".

The phone I bought from China eats Apple hardware for breakfast. It's got IP69 protection, only 7mm thick, a massive battery that charges incredibly quickly (4800mah). It's basically like an iPhone air but it only cost me about $500 (Motorola X70 Air)

When Apple embraces Silicon Carbide batteries I'm sure they're going to make amazing stuff.

It's not like they haven't impressed on the hardware side. If you look at something like the M4 iPad Pro which was released 2 years ago, there is no competition even close. Nor with their laptops.

Except it's got a mid-tier processor, and likely pretty under-performant cameras like most Motorola stuff? Compromises here.

The processor is great and so is the camera.

Chinese handsets have had better cameras since the late 2010s. Xiaomi ate Samsung, Google and Apple for breakfast if you followed the DXOMark scores: https://www.dxomark.com/xiaomi-mi-9-camera-review/

People trust DXOMark as a authority in comparing smartphone cameras?

Also, even by your own source, Xiaomi is bested by the iPhone and Google Pixel. Motorolas flagship phones place much lower, and I don’t see any phone that costs $400 place anywhere near the top.

Worthington's Law strikes again: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vudnMLzZjTg

seems to be:

People who make more money than you are *better* than you, and are therefore above reproach.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Worthington%27s_law

Seems a lot of people bought those dull products.

"Supersize Me" iPhones.

I was thinking more like:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8a/Markham-...

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fe/South_Sa...

tell you what, that crack is a really more-ish

Because users like dull products that just work

Great article but I think the better one is linked at the bottom of the page. I'll paste it here for convenience:

https://karlbode.com/the-hulk-hates-fascist-media-consolidat...

It seems, sadly, that the techbros aren't trying to change the world for must of us. Perhaps change it for themselves, certainly prevent their pile from being reduced. More "F*ck you, I got mine!" I guess.

tale as old as time. cis gay white men joining the Log Cabin and advocating against trans rights as soon as they taste power is another example

it reminds me of playground socialization. the cool kids bully you for a long time and so you socialize with the outcasts. one day you get invited into the cool crowd, minimally welcomed with some reservations, and suddenly you're bullying the outcasts you used to associate with even harder than the cool kids ever did because you think it'll help elevate your status with your new in-group

it's really a gross, childish thing but so so common to people who come into power after having it withheld for so long, at least in some Western societies

Have you ever wondered how you sound to other people?

I'm very comfortable with not being liked by people :)

Well, then I suppose you're very comfortable with people paying your opinion no regard.

one could say that that's what it means to be resilient and emotionally mature, to not desperately seek approval from only external sources, and to be content with expressing yourself however you'd like to :)

You claim not to seek approval, but you post little smiley faces at the end of every post, which tells me you desperately want some kind of reaction. If you truly didn't care how people receive your opinion, you wouldn't be conspicuously trying to convince the same people that you don't care how they receive your opinion.

Arguing with an indifferent brick wall is not what a fella would consider resilient or emotionally mature behavior. Frankly, any halfway competent bonafide troll would get a kick out of knowing he or she played you into wasting precious time out of your own life.

now why would an indifferent brick wall decide to reply to a comment in the first place? seems fairly atypical of a brick wall to be honest :)

I never said I am the brick wall, just that I was as far as you admitted 2-3 posts ago. That is, somewhere in between your screed about eligible gay bachelors defecting to the "Log Cabin" for mainstream cultural acceptance and me pointing out that for most of those times you think you "1337 pwn3d" somebody on "teh internets," they were just entertaining themselves by provoking you into wasting your time.

Do with that what you will. Despite seeing you as just some annoying weirdo committing some petty form of shitting where I eat, I'm just trying to arm you with knowledge that might better your life. In the process of you becoming less miserable, you'll also be less of a detriment to everyone around you.

you're so right bud, great job :)

> Our dull corporate press is unsurprisingly obsessed with wealth. If you make large gobs of money you are inherently very smart, skilled, and good. Absolutely everything else is a pesky afterthought. It's why Elon Musk, an unremarkable bigot cosplaying as a supergenius engineer, so easily enamoured a shaky U.S. media for the fifteen year run up to his recreational ketamine-fueled nazi ego implosion.

What a fantastic piece of writing. I reread this five times.

This reads like a particularly biased and hateful rage-infused hit piece by someone suffering from woke psyschosis.

That’s a whole lot of words that, when strung together, mean absolutely nothing. Good job.

Made perfect sense to me, not sure why you think it means "absolutely nothing", even if you disagree.

Using “woke psychosis” seriously in a sentence is its own kind of psychosis.

Seems quite a good phrase to me.

>despite no limit of "fuck you money" (Apple has a $4.665 trillion market cap and $62.5 billion cash on hand).

$62 billion is not a lot of money for Apple's size. And if there is one major thing that changed between Steve Jobs and Tim Cook's Apple, it is Steve Jobs prioritise a lot more for stakeholders, while Tim Cook 100% prioritise for shareholder. They went from being a pirate to become the navy.

Other than that the whole piece is more about Apple getting close to Trump than anything else.

"Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn't matter to me. Going to bed at night saying we've done something wonderful -- that's what matters to me." - SJ

"presumably to be replaced with younger white men similarly incapable of standing up to fascism"

Wow. Google, Microsoft, IBM, Intel, Micron, Nvidia all have Asian men incapable of standing up to fascism.

White CEOs appear to be the minority in tech companies.

Fascism is literally the union of corporations and the state. So why would a CEO stand up against it?

Only the people will stand up against fascism, in a mass movement for freedom and democracy.

It's not about their race. Plenty of Asian people in Silicon Valley. Or even their personal beliefs. It's about the interests of shareholders, which they have to (by law!) satify. That means making profit.

I would point out that the Apple Watch and AirPods are both great rather than dull products, but I strongly suspect the author here was not making a good faith attempt to analyze Tim Cook's product legacy.

Removing headphone socket under the premise of thinness just to force consumers into buying wireless ones was a genius move for their profits. They should have made them a bit easier to loose too.

I understand why some people get annoyed, but my jeans no longer get a phone bulge pattern worn into them and my headphone cords don't try to strangle me at the gym. For me these were both great innovations.

The 3.5mm headphone jack adapter is $9. How are they forcing people to buy wireless ones?

Lightning and USB-C adapters have been a thing since that change was made if not before. Even assuming the one time cost of $10 for Apple’s adapter was too rich for your blood, you can get a 5 pack on Amazon for $8. And that’s before you get k to the usb headphones out there.

No one, absolutely no one was “forced” to buy wireless headphones.

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