Tim Cook's Failed Apple Pitch

Tim Cook is being taken to task in this Bloomberg article on the current state of Apple. The author of the article feels that Apple has been misjudging its own business, which has led to a $250 billion decline in Apple's market value over the last thirteen months.

Apple CEO Tim Cook insisted last week that everything was great with his company despite its first quarterly revenue decline since 2003. He and Apple's chief financial officer used the word "optimistic" 10 times during a conference call with analysts. Then the company's share price pessimistically fell for eight consecutive market days -- something that hasn't happened to Apple in nearly 18 years.

I was really surprised he went on Cramers show. They really need a game changing product or feature very quickly. Android has become good enough or better in some examples.

Tim Cook is no Steve Jobs. That is 50% of the problem.

As the old saying goes...

A salesman is only as good as thier last sale.

And... Tim Cook needs a lot more sales, Apple is a huge machine to feed!

Simply history repeating itself... except there will be no Steve Jobs to ride in and rescue the company.

pgdeaner said:

Tim Cook is no Steve Jobs. That is 50% of the problem.

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I think that's like 90% of the problem. Apple didn't do well when Steve Jobs left the first time. They shambled along as a shell of their former selves until Steve Jobs returned. He brought in the right people and managed them in the right way and turned Apple back into a powerhouse. Tim Cook was never going to be another Jobs. But he's also shackled by the fact that he's the first after Jobs which has to suck because he'll always be most directly compared with his predecessor.

Apple has enough cash and clout that it can shamble along like a zombie crapping out half-hearted iPhone updates, and be profitable at it, for at least another decade but the fat cat times are likely over unless they can stumble into another prodigal son CEO.

Dwango said:

I think that's like 90% of the problem. Apple didn't do well when Steve Jobs left the first time. They shambled along as a shell of their former selves until Steve Jobs returned. He brought in the right people and managed them in the right way and turned Apple back into a powerhouse. Tim Cook was never going to be another Jobs. But he's also shackled by the fact that he's the first after Jobs which has to suck because he'll always be most directly compared with his predecessor.

Apple has enough cash and clout that it can shamble along like a zombie crapping out half-hearted iPhone updates, and be profitable at it, for at least another decade but the fat cat times are likely over unless they can stumble into another prodigal son CEO.

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I dunno I think Steve's strength wasn't in his management style.. heard he was quite a dick. I think it was his vision and his micro management when it came to the end-user experience (which is basically his vision). His management style pretty much forced his way or the highway, which was very successful at the time.

Personally I don't believe Steve could have prevented what is occurring, maybe slowed it down but not prevent. The same dictatorship vision that lead to the success of the ipad/iphone was starting to show it's issues when the competition caught up. Steve said he would never offer a large screen phone, yet the 6 inch has been a success etc. IF Steve stuck to his guns it is possible things could have been worse, but maybe he would have demanded different features for the iwatch etc so it would have been more successful? I don't think Steve would have liked the ipad pro... but you never know.

dandirk said:

I dunno I think Steve's strength wasn't in his management style.. heard he was quite a dick. I think it was his vision and his micro management when it came to the end-user experience (which is basically his vision). His management style pretty much forced his way or the highway, which was very successful at the time.

Personally I don't believe Steve could have prevented what is occurring, maybe slowed it down but not prevent. The same dictatorship vision that lead to the success of the ipad/iphone was starting to show it's issues when the competition caught up. Steve said he would never offer a large screen phone, yet the 6 inch has been a success etc. IF Steve stuck to his guns it is possible things could have been worse, but maybe he would have demanded different features for the iwatch etc so it would have been more successful? I don't think Steve would have liked the ipad pro... but you never know.

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But if Steve Jobs was still around Apple wouldn't be sitting on it's laurels going "It's like the old one but bigger!" they'd be pushing hard into new areas. Jobs two greatest assets were seeing where technology could go before anyone else and realizing when Apple had fucked up and changing the course of the company when that happened. People don't remember it now but apps weren't a thing when the iPhone first launched and Apple had no plans to make them a thing. Everything was going to be HTML5 and it was all going to be web based. Once enough developers lamented the limitation of that approach Jobs realized they were right and had the developers at Apple hastily put together an SDK for the iPhone and, BOOM!, a whole new market for Apple opened up instantly.

IF jobs was around, they'd being going, ts' new and innovative, REALLY, that other one that looks like it isn't, not at all.

I don't care for apple products. Their price/performance has been abysmal for quite awhile now. Like Microsoft, I keep hoping their day in the sun will be over sooner then later.

pgdeaner said:

Tim Cook is no Steve Jobs. That is 50% of the problem.

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Even Steve jobs would have failed. They tried for innovation into the next market well before Jobs left. They were failing. Remember the original Apple TV?

So the ship was already on a heading for the iceberg. It was only a matter of time before it hit.

playrh8r said:

I was really surprised he went on Cramers show. They really need a game changing product or feature very quickly. Android has become good enough or better in some examples.

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LOL. Have we seen the latest round of investment calls from HTC, Samsung, LG. Things are tanking for all involved in the smartphone market. Why...I guess selling the same thing with incremental updates at ridick prices seem to be the leading cause. The market in general has become stale as HELL. Innovations are either just updates rather then ground breaking design. Combined that with device costs that have not moved an inch on elite tier devices.

Subsidies moved people to buy more, regardless of cost, since telling a person you owe $0*** is better then teliing them you owe $30 a month + $80 of taxes upfront.

in addition cheaper alternatives are appealing more since a midtier android device or one of the Nexus devices satisfies most of the needs/wants of a consumer. Plus the whole lets sell refurb devices for a profit in 3rd world nations just got setback by India, so back to the drawing board I guess

At this point, a component shortage that selectively favors Apple, brand spanking new idea that no one has launched, VR surprise, better pricing will only allow Apple to be Apple. Business as usual will make those 8 days of drop commonplace for Apple and to be frank everyone in the market. HTC is on lifesupport, Samsung has become more of a component supplier then device seller

I think a big reason that the cell phone and tablet market is down is because the current (last gen) products that people have enough performance and features for the time being.

My old phone was a Samsung Galaxy S5. My new one which I got pretty much free after promotions/rebates is the LG G4. I could get a new phone in a month or two after my S5 is payed off, but why?

Same goes for my wife. She has an iPhone 6 64GB. She sees absolutely no reason to get a new phone. It is payed off and has reduced our monthly bill.

Our cell phone bill will also go down even more once my S5 is payed off.

It really simple economics. Keep current good enough phones and save around $60 per month on the cell phone bill or get new phones which we don't need and keep paying the $60/month in cell phone payments.

Which would you choose?

cyclone3d said:

It really simple economics. Keep current good enough phones and save around $60 per month on the cell phone bill or get new phones which we don't need and keep paying the $60/month in cell phone payments.

Which would you choose?

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Depends, I normally get really annoyed with my Cell phone at the 18-24 month mark because the battery life has gone to shit and its "slow" even ever wiping it.

What is basically going on is the market is saturated with product and there really isn't anything compelling to buy....iPods were small at first and coming out with larger memory models helped keep $$$ coming in. Smartphones are more or less a commodity item now with Android devices being more or less equal to the iPhone.

There is no Gotta have it product, which Apple was the master or well the master of Hyping up their products to be that. Its like the PC gaming business about 15-20 years ago...GPU and CPU performance was doubling nearly every 18-24 months. Now a top end PC from 2-3 years ago can still play new release games without much issue...along as the resolution isn't jacked up past 1080.

Now the time is ripe for someone new to come along and release something that everyone wants....just a matter of figuring out what that is.

.....Or maybe the dumb sheep are finally waking up?

Senses of value, desires for liberty and aversions to sweat shop labor are not bad things...and Apple respects none of that.

Reality distortion fields don't last forever, apparently.


P.S. I can safely say I have never spent one plug nickel on any Apple product,..ever.

I wonder if we will start seeing stories about how the Smart phone is dead and people are replacing them with something else

TXHardhead said:

.....Or maybe the dumb sheep are finally waking up?

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I think we all [sadly] know the answer...

I always LOL when I see android people, who blindly accept android as the be all end all no matter what, call Apple people sheep.

Of course they're too busy judging people and having a ROM comparison circle jerk to see the irony, but that just makes it that much more hilarious.

Keep on being you, Android folk, everyone else enjoys the laughs.

O to the SmartPhone

IPhone users use their tool,
Android users compare and measure their tool prowess,
The vast halls of BlackBerry are now echo, their users having moved on,
Hardcore Flip-Phone users laugh and $ave,
And Window phone users... are just confused.