This morning’s New York Times article on Tim Cook is wide-reaching, discussing Cook’s past, his environmental passion, product strategy and more. The piece praises Cook’s decision to launch the iPad mini and outlines how the CEO is trying to fill the role of his predecessor:
Mr. Cook is amassing a creative brain trust, according to Bono, the lead singer of the band U2, who befriended Mr. Jobs and worked closely with him and Apple’s team on developing a U2-branded iPod, as well as on charitable work in Africa. Mr. Cook is not saying “I’m here to replace him,” said Bono, who is a managing director and co-founder of the venture capital firm Elevation Partners. “He’s saying, ‘I’ll try to replace him with five people.’ It explains the acquisition of Beats.”
The influx of high-level staff has to be balanced with the loss of Forstall and Mansfield, but clearly Cook is trying to round out his roster.
I don’t think that’s a bad thing, and while it’s too early to tell, I believe the strategy will be a successful one.
The end of the article, however, didn’t sit well with me. Chen and Richtel quote developers from Orca Health:
They found one thing particularly jarring in the keynote: Apple did not hew to its tradition of pairing hardware and software. Specifically, Apple introduced a program called Health — which helps consumers and doctors monitor health status, like heart rate or glucose levels — but did not also introduce a piece of hardware to measure those results. That is something the new smartwatch is rumored to do.
“They just released the software,” said Mr. Zeluff, sounding surprised.
“It’s something Steve wouldn’t have done,” Mr. Brown said. It’s an impossible comparison. But it’s the one that Mr. Cook is being held to, at least until he makes enough magic of his own.
Brown’s view on Apple’s new Health platform is something I’ve heard from people who aren’t super familiar with the company, but to hear a successful developer make sure remarks surprised me a little.
More often than not, Apple’s software offerings aren’t paired with first-party hardware. Apple doesn’t sell instruments for GarageBand users, cameras for Aperture users or barcode printers for Passbook fans. iTunes was out for nine months before the iPod was introduced.
Having people disappointed that a watch (that’s never been confirmed by Apple) wasn’t introduced at WWDC is exactly why Tim Cook can’t seem to meet people’s expectations: they are simply unreasonable.