back to article 'Apple is not going to change,' new boss says

Lest fans worried otherwise, Apple's new CEO is assuring world+dog that the company won't lose its mojo under his leadership. In an email sent early Thursday and leaked to reporters in record time, Tim Cook told employees Apple would be the same juggernaut it was under the watch of outgoing CEO Steve Jobs and echoed the oft- …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    Failed before he started

    Jobsy would never publish such a gushy sentimental email like that.

    Come to think of it, he probably wouldn't publish any kind of email of any sort.

    The silence would be deafening.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Pint

      Also,

      "we're not going to change" is one of the worst messages a leader can give. Not changing means an inflexible, almost dogmatic approach to business- exactly the opposite to what Jobs did (just look at how little attention the Mac range gets compared to iPod/iPhone/iPad- or even how little the non-touch ipods get, even though those are what the business grew on for a long time).

      For a guy who's taken over the company who prided themselves on their ability to Think Different, he's not doing a particularly good job of it so far!

      1. SoftFox
        Stop

        Re: Also, → #

        As general business comment entirely agree.

        However,,..This statement wasn't meant for general consumption. It was purely issued for investors/ the Stock market straight after Jobs announced his retirement

        Re-assurance is the word...Business as normal

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Thumb Up

          I kinda agree.

          But when you hear a politician say, "I have complete faith in <insert condemned politician>", you know they are on the way out.

          You only have to say it if it isn't patently true, and perhaps that is right in this case.

        2. ChrisB 2
          Thumb Up

          SoftFox is spot on

          That's exactly what this message is - messaging is all about audience.

  2. DavCrav

    Hmm...

    "...C.E.O. of the most innovative company in the world..."

    Sorry, this Apple, right? List of Apple inventions:

    iPod, iPad (both of which were not inventions as examples existed before).

    List of a few DuPont inventions (very much non-exhaustive):

    Lycra, Teflon, neoprene, Kevlar.

    That's one example of a more innovative company. I can think of many more...

    1. ThomH

      News just in...

      "Man who wants to make Apple sound uninventive only able to supply short list of Apple inventions"

      I think Apple are more innovative than the market average but so are several others. In that list I'd include some of their direct competitors, such as Google and Microsoft.

      If I had to think of a quality that makes Apple unique I'd be much more likely to pick uncompromising. I think that's the quality that makes their products either brilliant or worthless, depending on which side of the debate you're on.

    2. TheOtherHobbbes

      Apple was always

      much better at marketing than technology.

      Other hardware companies invented MP3 players, but only Apple invented the evangelism needed to sell the iPod as a desirable concept.

      Apple's schtick is a combination of laser-guided brand management, clever attention-seeking PR, top-notch industrial design - which is rarer than it should be in tech - and simple stick-on colouring book USPs which made otherwise ordinary products stand out from me-too Japanese mass-market design, and made it possible for former CEO Jobs to end his presentations with 'and one last thing.'

      The tech itself is somewhere between decent and mediocre - sometimes broken or failure prone (see iPhone 4 antenna), not infrequently poorly implented (iTunes is particularly user hostile), but often easier to use than the alternatives. (Not that that's saying much, most of the time.)

      But Steve understood that more than anything else Apple is about making pretty things, love-bombing customers with an illusion of distinction and specialness, and selling access to a total experience, not just a box with a thing in it.

      Tim may or may not get that.

      I'm guessing not so much. But time will tell.

      1. chr0m4t1c

        So close

        >Other hardware companies invented MP3 players, but only Apple invented the evangelism needed to sell the iPod as a desirable concept.

        Not quite, Apple worked out what message to give people, the evangelism followed from it.

        Here's what was being sold before the iPod:

        "MP3 player, 4Gb. Comes with software to rip your CDs. A three-minute song is approximately 3Mb (3000 bytes) when converted at 128kbps."

        Here's what Apple sold:

        "1,000 songs in your pocket."

    3. Ascylto

      12345

      You still haven't got it, have you?

      The Apple Marketing people may give you your buzzwords like ... innovative, magical et al. Believe them or not, just as you will; but what Apple ARE good at is taking a design or concept (often someone else's) and making it work for most folk.

      Take the iPad for example ... it is NOT a full blown computer but it does what many people want. It scans the web, does email, does photos, gives a bit of fun and does a bit of music ... in other words, it does what many, many people want. And it does it well.

      Take the iPod ... Sony could have had the whole music thing sorted but they didn't, Apple came along and wiped the floor with them. Why? Because they provided people with WHAT THEY WANT. Apple don't provide geeky stuff which is difficult they provide something which generally works well, does what people want and looks good.

      Just look at their stores ... I can go into my local Apple Store and, if I want, check my emails, mess about with Photobooth and even check price comparisons. I can do what I WANT and not have some spotty yoof (who doesn't even know his products) tell me what to think and what to buy. Some firms are actually catching on.

      Apple DO have a walled garden. Apple are control freaks wanting you to buy from them and use their products but ... and this is what you don't get ... IT WORKS for most of us. I really don't care whether it's better than the competition ... it's good enough and it works ... FOR ME!

  3. DEAD4EVER

    apple ceo

    hum dont matter who is the new ceo weather its tom cook or anyone else cause i wont be buying any of apples products and be paying premium stuff when i can get a cheaper product that does the same thing.

    1. Chad H.
      Thumb Down

      Thank you

      For choosing to waste your time, and everyones time with such a useless comment.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re

        ^Irony.

    2. Goat Jam
      Headmaster

      @DEAD4EVER

      Apparently your desire to not pay for premium products extends to your education.

      A less coherent mess of a post is hard to imagine.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Good to...

    ... fianaly get confirmation that Steve Jobs had no effect on Apple what so ever. After all how could he have had if everything it the same wether he is there or not.

  5. Chris Miller
    Gimp

    Stephen Fry's view:

    "I don't think there is another human being on the planet who has been more influential in the last 30 years on the way culture has developed."

    "There are few more important people on the planet, and if I had said that 10 years ago you'd have thought I was completely insane."

    Stephen, you're completely insane. Five minutes more of luvvy gushing (sickbag strongly advised) here:

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-14661845

    1. Rob
      WTF?

      Worst still....

      .... is they have given that dribbling idiot a programme all about gadgets in which he will be telling all who watch, what, in his opinion, is some of the best gadgets invented. Expect to see it heavily endorsing Apple and Twitter cause that's all Fry knows.

      And this is the reason Jobs will never fully reitre, because he can never sit down with a Stephen Fry firmly lodged up his arse.

  6. Kris Chaplin
    FAIL

    Fail

    Anyone in business who says "it's in our DNA" should probably ignored. Probably not the best person to have as CEO!

    1. Robert E A Harvey

      Created, not bred

      Presumably, in the USA, appealing to an invisible intelligent designer would be more influential than to the mechanism underlying evolution?

    2. deadlockvictim

      Fanboi DNA

      I wouldn't dismiss the DNA comment.

      God knows what bizarre genetic experiments happen in 1, Infinite Loop. I, myself, had expected his Jobsness to make a keynote speech in a Davros-like wheelchair, but, alas, he sent an underling instead.

      The wholesale production of Fanbois has been a terrific success and it goes to show what can be done in the field of DNA manipulation.

    3. Armando 123

      Personally

      I like the phrase because it conveys the meaning clearly, concisely, and effectively.

      But perhaps you'd prefer language didn't evolve. áblinn nú.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Tim has had long enough

    To learn how not to make a mess of things (Rule 1: Doing things the Steve way keeps us growing). I'm optimistic that things will continue to go very well for Apple. It's the eventual (and inevitable) post Tim period that any gushing fanboi should be worried about. Executive recruitment; that is the process of recruiting someone who will not screw up a good thing is a bloody nightmare!

    Also, don't forget that Tim 's the man who turned Apple from a manufacturing company to a design/software company. We're not talking about a bland, "in the background man" here. Anyone can manufacture. You need well educated people who've been bought up to think for themselves to excel in design/innovation.

  8. Thom Brown
    Meh

    So...

    Apple isn't going to change? It's not going to stop being a litigious church of pointless consumerism hell-bent on creating a media frenzy every time they update their online catalogue, which strangely requires bringing their site down temporarily, unlike any other company which manages to update their product lines without such downtime, exaggerating every feature in every product like it's a revolution and as if they invented it, but all they did was add a gloss-style curve to everything, discontinuing products the second a new version is released, and continue to fail to interoperate, continue to keep their walled gardens and sealed un-upgradable products where something as basic as wanting to replace a battery has been relegated to fantasy?

    Well... it makes them money through the endless sea of drones who buy anything they release. Why would they want to change that?

    [Typed begrudgingly on a work Macbook Pro, 9 months old, 12 kernel panics and counting]

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Gimp

      12 kernel panics in 9 months??

      What did you DO to that poor machine??

      1. Graham Dawson Silver badge

        Perhaps...

        Perhaps he took, it down from its pedestal under the soft glow of display lights and actually used it.

        But, then, macs crash whenever I go near them so I know I'm not exactly impartial about their reliability.

      2. Ilgaz

        I can bet

        He should run Apple hardware check. It almost shouts as "bad RAM".

        Other hardware could be the issue, a badly coded rootkit, "virus" (note the quotes) or horribly coded 3rd party hardware kernel extension.

      3. jai

        He probably

        installed Vista on it

        1. Thom Brown
          Meh

          Well...

          @Anonymous Coward

          Not much. I use Chrome, LibreOffice, TextEdit, VLC, Finder, pgAdmin, psql, Terminal, Skype and Adium most of the time. That's pretty much it, just essentials to get work done.

          @Graham Dawson

          Yes, I use it entirely for work, and occasionally the odd episode of some random TV series while travelling. My much older Acer Aspire One netbook has never yet failed me and I'm more productive on it. And the kernel panics are the tip of the iceberg. The whole list of qualms is too long to go through here. Actually, maybe a blog post is called for, but considering how litigious Apple have been lately, I'd probably be hauled into court over some blasphemy law which they probably now qualify for.

          @OrsonX

          But I didn't buy it. As I said, it's a work machine. I actually asked to pick something cheaper and more powerful, but I didn't have a say in the decision.

          @Ilgaz

          The "geniuses" at the "Genius Bar" have looked at it twice, and run all manner of tests on it which took hours. No hardware issues were shown.

          @jai

          Fortunately there are no forms of Microsoft Windows installed anywhere within my household. Long may that be the case.

          1. OrsonX
            Thumb Down

            re: work machine

            -1

            for me

    2. OrsonX
      FAIL

      @Thom Brown

      er, okay, well if you don't like it don't buy it

      oh wait

      you did.

    3. Dana W
      Stop

      Yeah right.

      Stop using discount ram

      1. Graham Dawson Silver badge

        Dana W might be half right.

        If it's tossing kernel panics so regularly then there's probably a hardware issue behind it, and it's most likely the ram. My *buntu box was panicing almost daily until I found out it had duff ram in it. Worth running memtest to see.

        1. Dana W
          Facepalm

          Truth.

          Sorry I came off as a bit of an ass. But the only thing I've ever seen throw a Mac into constant Kernel panics has been ram issues.

          I should have been clearer.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Won't Change

    The supposed most innovative company in the world isn't going to change?

    Good work there Tim.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      FAIL

      Trolling troll trolls...

      Good work there Bullseyed. Anything original to add?

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The beginning of the end

    I suppose there is a loss in the sense that Steve Jobs cannot continue. He did take a lot of ideas and bring them to the consumer and created healthy competition. If it weren't for him, I think we would still be begging Nokia for their next Symbian increment, getting 1 meg of data with our contracts, staring at Windows 3.8 "tablet" with half an hour of battery life (hyperbole, yes, but you get my drift)

    Apple so far has never bowed to industry peer pressure, ignoring trends like outsourcing, high-cost low-cost "mix" ratios, and other unproven numbers-driven concepts. Things unfortunately every other CEO has to yield to for their institutional shareholders (read:bankers).

    As much as I despise the control freakery, the hubris they stoke now, Jobs is directly responsible for giving direction to the company, taking risks, and just believing in ideas instead of analyst reports and what shareholders cry about, or his next bonus. He has his flaws, but he has overall done more good than bad so far.

    I doubt Tim Cook will not be second guessed. I wait for the dividend announcement; that, IMO, would be moment Apple becomes just another tech company, at the mercy of banker bonuses.

    1. gavpowell

      "ignoring trends like outsourcing"?

      The factory with all the suicides that makes the ipad or the iphone or whatever it is, is a Foxconn factory, not an Apple one - that sounds like outsourcing to me.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        R&D outsourcing

        Fair point, it was r&d I was talking about which is where other companies are falling behind on. I wasn't explicit in my comment.

        Manufacturing has been commoditised now. Apple bankrolls the factories for exclusivity. Also something unique to them. There are no competitive manufacturing facilities left in the west for this kind of stuff anyway.

        Also, an aside, foxconn is involved in making almost every tech product. I'm not an Apple fan, but I never understand why somehow it's a bigger sin when they are involved.

        It's almost certain we all have a foxconn product at arm's length when reading this.

  11. Goffee
    Terminator

    Next up TVs and games?

    And if they conquer those I think the Apple robot army beckons... http://www.cmswire.com/cms/mobile/steve-jobs-steps-down-welcome-to-the-new-apple-future-012499.php

    1. Quantum Leaper
      Facepalm

      Second go around with Games?

      They tried video games, it was called Pippin and it failed quickly.... TVs would be just rebranded, which someone else makes, I would rather buy from the manufacturer.

    2. Turtle_Fan

      Yeah, good luck with that

      So, given a refresh cycle of 6-9 years (depending on your source) for TV's how would anything built-in to a TV be up-to-date 6 years from launch?

      Or do you think that i-Shinies will make people refresh every two years and throw away perfectly functioning nearly-new TV's worth £££'s?

      Apple TV and associated thingies are fine as people would not mind changing a little box every now and again. But a huge, big f-off, screen? Prolly not!

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Ahhh 12 kernel panics on a work machines

    Most likely PC Windows company anti-virus or security lazy software port to OS X and complete ignoramce of UNIX architecture. Just like the good old days where running Norton software on your Mac foo bar'd your entire file system and lost all your data. Bring rubbish Windows mentality, programs, users, and laziness and lack of care or moral compass over and get what you deserve I say!

    1. Thom Brown
      Meh

      Re: Ahhh 12 kernel panics on a work machines

      It was brand new and the company didn't install anything. Windows is rarely used within the company and control over the machine is pretty much left to me, not some clueless centralised IT dept. I do know the type you mean though as I did work for such an outfit once.

  13. OrsonX
    Coffee/keyboard

    "we're not going to change"

    that's what all new bosses say....

    ....before they change everything.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    So the new bloke is called Tim

    That's going to disappoint anyone who was hoping for a 'Gordon' so they could finally have Flash on their iPad.

  15. DelM
    Joke

    The Onion Rulz

    http://www.theonion.com/articles/new-ceo-tim-cook-im-thinking-printers,21207/

    "Following the resignation of Apple founder Steve Jobs, incoming CEO Tim Cook called a meeting of shareholders and members of the press Thursday morning to announce that he envisioned printers as the company’s future. ..."

    The link has the rest of the hilarity. Of course, PostScript printers today owe a great deal to the Apple of a couple decades ago.

  16. Lord Lien
    Mushroom

    Please wait before...

    ... you start having a pop at Tim, he has only been in the job for only 30 seconds.

    He needs at least 6 months before we throw him to the Lions & then you can take a pound of flesh. If it was my 1st day a CEO my letter to the team would read :-

    Team:

    Your all fucked, I've spent the money on booze & slags.... last one down the job centre is a rotten Apple!!!

    Lord Lien

    1. ThomH

      You're no lord

      You are Liam Byrne MP and I claim my five pounds.

    2. I_am_Chris

      6 months

      "He needs at least 6 months before we throw him to the Lions & then you can take a pound of flesh."

      He *has* been in charge for 6 months; while Steve's been on sick leave. So far, I think he's done fine overseeing the launch of the iPad 2 and refreshing the MacBooks.

      Now we need to see what his 'vision' is like...

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        re: 6 months

        “He *has* been in charge for 6 months; while Steve's been on sick leave. So far, I think he's done fine overseeing the launch of the iPad 2 and refreshing the MacBooks.

        Now we need to see what his 'vision' is like...”

        Absolutely – and Cook's been in charge of day to day operations for longer. When Jobs took his first two lots of medical leave, Cook took over as CEO on a temporary basis.

        Also, when Cook has been profiled, it’s usually commented that his duties as Chief Operating Officer are what would be expected of the vast majority of CEOs. Effectively, he’s been responsible for the day to day running of the company for over three years.

        In terms of vision, Jobs has reportedly said he’s going to be a very hands-on chairman – so I don’t think there’s going to be much change there and my guess is that Jobs’ stepping down as CEO is largely to do with the public perception of the company. Longer term, Cook’s very much a finance and operations kinda guy, so I wonder if it’s going to be less about his vision and more to do with nurturing the creativity of those under him.

  17. kain preacher

    Job center ?

    This is California. You half some half ass place thats run by contractors that are 30 seconds from being unemployed them selfs .

    1. Ascylto

      12345

      California?

      I'll bet there are SOME people there who can

      Spell correctly

      Use the apostrophe.

      But then you did choose an Austrian ex-movie star as a Governor!

      Kain ... go and annoy another forum.

      Oh, wait, you've done that!

  18. Tom 64
    Coffee/keyboard

    ugh

    I think i'm going to puke

  19. wayward4now
    Big Brother

    I thusly maintain

    ...that if it wasn't for The Woz, Steve Jobs would have been selling term life to blue rinsed old ladies, while drinking wine coolers barefooted. The Woz was Linus Torvald before there was a Linus. When he created the original Apple ][ the Woz designed all of it. The Woz wrote the 6502 assembler, both Integer and AppleSoft Basic's and then published the source code in the Red And Blue manuals for the world to marvel over. Right there in plain sight! Open Source!! In 1978!

    Then the Evil Steve stepped up to the plate, about that time. The Apple][ plus didn't have source code listings in the manuals . The Apple][plus didn't drop into mini assembler when you hit the reset key which had made copying software a piece of cake. Oh no! Hitting the reset key made it reboot the floppy stopping you from copying what was in memory. THAT was when it all changed from Steve the Woz, to Steve the Jobs. From that point on, I departed the Apple scene as a user and went to CP/M and the XT. Apple left the market wide open for IBM to create a similar computer that you could open and put boards into a standardized set of slots. The way I see it, Jobs made Bill Gates rich by being such a jerk and tossing away his initial user base. Maybe he had to, we were far more loyal to The Woz.

  20. Christian Berger

    Moving from Hardware manufacturing was a bad choice

    Of course there will always be people who buy Macs because of their software. Even so frankly MacOSX hasn't lived up to its expectations yet.

    However the big no-no for any professional user is hardware reliability. Apple's entry level products are, unfortunately, far less reliable than business level products of other companies. OK, to be fair you can get a Mac-Mini from Apple for less than the price of a Windows licence.

    As for mobile devices it doesn't seem to be much different. There are reports of iPhones breaking when falling down!

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Devil

    ... because you know him personally?

    "Jobsy would never publish such a gushy sentimental email like that."

    ... because you know him personally?

  22. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    Perhaps not if you are Apple?

    ""we're not going to change" is one of the worst messages a leader can give."

    Perhaps not if you are Apple and already at the top of the tree. Clearly what they have been doing has served them well.

    Maybe they would be better to dump their tablet and phone business - oh sorry that's HP.

  23. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    By the same token.

    "hum dont matter who is the new ceo weather its tom cook or anyone else cause i wont be buying any of apples products and be paying premium stuff when i can get a cheaper product that does the same thing."

    There are cheap, nasty cars and nicer, more expensive cars as well.

    By the same token make sure you wear Asda £3 trainers and not fancy Nike Air £80 ones.

  24. Gobhicks
    Devil

    IMHO

    The iPod/iTunes would never have gained traction without Gracenote, and subsequent history would have been very different.

  25. Adrian Jones

    Most important question

    Has ElReg asked him to pronounce "Jaguar" yet?

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