Six things I'll remember when I think about Tim Cook's version of Apple

Hardware introduced during Cook’s tenure, on the other hand, tended to be at its best when it extended or sat atop those Jobs-era products in some way. The AirPods and the wider universe of Beats headphones are the archetypal example—wireless headphones with just enough proprietary Apple technology in them that they’re much easier and more pleasant to use with other Apple products than typical Bluetooth headphones. Similarly, the Apple Watch is a convenient way to tap into a tiny subset of your iPhone’s communication capabilities (plus fitness tracking). The HomePod is a speaker version of AirPods. I don’t know a kid with an iPad who doesn’t also have an Apple Pencil for doodling and sketching. Apple never released a TV set, but the Apple TV is the streaming box that makes the TV I already have feel the most like a TV and the least like a billboard. Apple never released a car, but it did introduce CarPlay, a useful add-on that is a prerequisite for me when I’m in the market for a car. The iCloud branding was introduced at the tail end of Jobs’ tenure, but its growth (and the growth of most Apple services and subscriptions) all happened on Cook’s watch. In 2011, Cook’s first year as CEO, Apple brought in a then-record $102.5 billion in annual revenue; in 2025, the Services division alone pulled down more than $109 billion in revenue. Not bad for a collection of features that rose from the ashes of the failed MobileMe service (and .Mac and iTools before it). I don’t think the rise and increasing importance of the Services division has been entirely good for Apple or its users. The need to convert customers into subscribers and to upsell current subscribers to higher service tiers means that Apple’s users are now subject to some of the same kinds of notifications and reminders that so richly annoy PC users in Windows 11. The new Creator Studio versions of Pages, Keynote, and Numbers, while still free to use, are now festooned with purple buttons encouraging users to become paid subscribers. If you buy a new Apple product, the Settings app on all your other Apple devices will light up with free trials and AppleCare+ reminders. Every once in a while, I see a push notification for a movie or TV show I do not care about and have never given any indication of caring about. Similar forces have led to ads that subtly clutter up Apple’s App Stores and some that occasionally expose users to low-quality and scammy apps. Similar ads will start showing up in the Maps app soon, and it remains to be seen how obtrusive and useful (or anti-useful) they’ll be. While it lacked somewhat in world-changing, all-new products, Cook’s Apple was also very good at relentlessly iterating on and improving Apple’s core products. The iPad’s hardware evolution is a textbook example. When he took over in 2011, Apple sold one iPad: the iPad 2, an updated version of the original. Then it got a Retina screen. Then Apple made a mini version. Then it decided to make an even nicer, more expensive one called the iPad Pro. Then it made a cheap one to appeal to people who just needed something basic and functional. Then it revived the iPad Air as an in-betweener model to cover the gap between the cheap one and the expensive one. Over a yearslong process, Apple went from having a single one-size-fits-all iPad to offering a different model for just about every conceivable niche. The iPhone and Mac lineups have morphed in similar ways. Calling all of these changes “iterative” can mask the impressiveness of the underlying achievements. Though it started under Jobs, the Apple Silicon initiative was a monumental accomplishment: taking low-power smartphone chips and relentless improving them, year after year, over the course of more than a decade, until they were power-efficient enough to power pocket-sized smartphones; cheap enough to build that they could go inside $99 smart speakers and $130 streaming boxes; and powerful enough to drive everything from the MacBook Pro to the Mac Studio desktop. But Cook’s Apple operates on a reliable cadence; if you don’t like this year’s version of something, hey, you’re only a year or so away from a fresh iteration that could fix all your problems! Hope springs eternal. Whether it’s because of the price or because people just don’t want a massive computer strapped to their face, the Vision Pro currently exists in some kind of purgatory. It was given a perfunctory update late last year to update its chip, but little effort was made to address any of its fundamental shortcomings, including the price. You’ll periodically see news about a new high-profile third-party app or new first-party apps and features. But consumer and app developer apathy have both kept Vision Pro from getting multiple must-have killer apps the way that the iPhone (and to a lesser extent, the iPad) did. A lack of killer apps means even less interest from buyers, which means even less reason for developers to bother. Some reporting has already suggested that John Ternus didn’t love the Vision Pro. But he’s also said to be more “decisive” and less “deliberative” than Cook. Either way, this sounds like a death knell for the current product: It either goes away, or Ternus spearheads a dramatic rethinking that gives it a shot in the arm. Vision Pro could still succeed in a different form at a different time; it’s well within the realm of possibility that Vision Pro will serve as the seed of a more successful product down the road. If this happened, though, it would be a different pathway to success than any other Apple product has followed. Apple’s revenue soared precipitously in the mid-2010s partly due to strong sales in China. As CFO under Jobs, Cook had overseen the outsourcing of most of Apple’s manufacturing to China and other countries, and by the mid-2010s, the iPhone was earning more in China than it was in the United States. But needing access to Chinese workers and customers also made Apple more reliant on the good graces of the Chinese government. During Trump’s second term, Cook has also joined most other tech executives in lavishing Trump more directly with money and praise, the kind of performative obsequiousness that many CEOs have engaged in to secure contracts, tariff exemptions, and other forms of preferential treatment. Cook personally donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration, which he also attended; Apple has donated an undisclosed amount to Trump’s White House ballroom project; and Cook personally delivered an autographed statue to the president along with more commitments to domestic investment. In the words of the president himself, Cook has been more than willing to “kiss [his] ass” in exchange for “BIG HELPS.” And as in China, these efforts to curry favor have (so far) gotten Apple what it has wanted. The company has never come close to making a single iPhone or even a MacBook entirely in the US, but it has also repeatedly avoided the worst of the administration’s various tariff regimes. Whether Jobs, Ternus, or any other CEO would have handled these situations any differently is up for debate. But one of Cook’s duties as Apple’s executive board chairman will be “engaging with policymakers around the world.” To me, that signals he will continue to be Apple’s face in dealing with governments and politicians, suggesting that Ternus’ Apple will maintain its mostly conciliatory, bottom-line-maximizing approach. Cook clearly never had the zeal for the stage that Jobs did, and from early in his tenure, he seemed content to take the stage mostly to deliver introductory remarks and then pass the baton to someone else. Starting during the pandemic, the live-on-stage sections of Apple’s product events (and developer sessions) essentially ended, in favor of more heavily produced pre-recorded video. These videos still usually feature a person on a stage in front of a screen accompanied by a slide deck. They’re also delivering the same basic information about the improvements and benefits of new products. You’re just not looking at a person presenting live on a real stage in front of a real screen anymore. This is probably a bit easier on the people doing the presenting—to know they can flub a line or do another take —and to never have to be afraid that a demo will fail because of non-compliant Wi-Fi. But above all, it makes these presentations more predictable, and for better or worse, predictability is one of the hallmarks of Cook’s time as Apple’s CEO.