World's blandest man steps down from CEO job to spend more time in tastefully appointed home
- Reference: 1776723816
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2026/04/20/apple_tim_cook_ceo_leaving_john_ternus/
- Source link:
You can't fault Cook's performance on a pure financial basis. Since he took over, Apple's stock is up over 18-fold. Annual revenues and profit have grown roughly 4x, to approximately $416 billion and $112 billion respectively in Cupertino's last fiscal year ending September 27. That's massive growth from a massive base.
During this time, Apple also established itself as a designer of cutting-edge chips, with its own Apple silicon now used in Macs and iDevices.
[1]
But over the same period, Apple lost its sizzle. Its most successful brand new product was a set of wireless earbuds that appeared with what looked like a ridiculously long stem at the time, but they have become such standard issue that nobody even notices them anymore.
[2]
[3]
The Watch was fine. Impressive from an engineering perspective, but of limited real-world utility, and certainly nothing like the culture-changing hits of the iPhone, iPod, iTunes, and the Mac (original, iMac, Air...). The Vision Pro virtual reality headset, like all VR products before (and - prediction - all VR products hence), seems to be shaping up as an expensive flop. You'd probably have to stretch your mind to think of another big new Apple product announced over the last 15 years? Apple Intelligence?
Cook himself? He was the first major company CEO to make a public announcement that he was gay, a laudable moment of personal courage that no doubt gave comfort and solace to millions, particularly younger people coming to grips with their sexuality. But his awkward delivery and forced enthusiasm during Apple's increasingly rote stage demos was painful to watch. He was not a showman.
[4]
Tim Cook is bland, and the company became bland under him. It would've been hard for anybody to follow the ultimate showman hustler, Steve Jobs, but Cook was like the anti-Jobs.
[5]Locked-out iPhone user tells The Reg that Apple is scrambling to fix character flaw passcode bug
[6]Apple update looks like Czech mate for locked-out iPhone user
[7]Apple signs meaningless deal to make some less-important parts in America
[8]Apple's chips are the core of a new landscape, but its biggest win is Windows
Ternus? He seems competent and well-spoken enough in this [9]recent video interview with Tom's Guide. A [10]long profile in Bloomberg over the weekend says he recently took over a secret internal project to develop robots, including a device whose screen swivels around to face the person speaking during a group video call. The report also says that he'll lead plans to develop a whole bunch of new products, including a folding iPhone, and realizes that he's got to do more to make Apple a player in AI. (Hey, John, we actually agree with what you're quoted as saying on Good Morning America, which is if you're truly doing AI right, nobody will even notice it. AI just becomes computing eventually.)
The world is more interesting when Apple is more interesting, so here's hoping this next bite has a lot more spice than the applesauce of the last few years. ®
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[5] https://www.theregister.com/2026/04/17/iphone_keyboard_error_fix/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2026/04/12/ios_passcode_bug/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2026/03/26/apple_expands_list_of_bits/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2026/04/07/opinion_column_apple_vs_microsoft/
[9] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkBudtxgor0
[10] https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2026-apple-next-ceo/
[11] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Yes Apple hasn't introduced any groundbreaking products
Alright mate, I'm sure there'll be a support group soon where you can all cry on each other .
Re: Yes Apple hasn't introduced any groundbreaking products
Arguably, Apple Silicon falls into that category. It has quietly shaken up the home computer and laptop market and brought ARM CPUs into consumer mainstream. The decision to shift away from Intel was quite bold, even if it wasn't as visionary as the iProduct line.
Apple's approach to AI
I think Apple has the perfect approach to AI, they let me turn it off. I hope this continues.
Re: Apple's approach to AI
If only Microsoft did it. Turn it all off in one place with one setting.
The Neo has been a seismic shift for the low wnd of the market
Forget AI for a moment except to say thanks for letting me turn it off.
Apple going for the low end of the market is a good idea, may hay while the sun shines, thanks to Microslop shooting itself in the foot.
A lower cost item that gets people familiar with the Apple OS is a good way to get more users. As along as they resist doing a MS and try to monitize users on the current trajectory we should be OK.
Good luck to the new guy
World's blandest man
Is he working for [1]World, inc. now?
[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp9vppem4evo
Finally, a product person back in the CEO seat.
Tim Cook was arguably one of the greatest Chief Operating Officers in the history of the role. His work on Apple's supply chain management is the stuff of legends if you're into that sort of admittedly very niche thing.
As a CEO? Maybe they didn't have anyone better. He was a vary solid caretaker, but a company like Apple needs a lot more than that. Cook isn't a product person. Jobs, for better and worse, obsessively loved Apple's products. By most accounts he loved them more than his own children. Tim Cook loved Apple the company, but simply didn't have the over-the-top obsessive passion for the products that made Apple great. The quality decline with him at the helm was noticeable. As was the otherwise un-Apple "wall spaghetti" (undisciplined) product introduction of the Vision Pro and various AI initiatives.
Hopefully Ternus can bring back some of the magic and discipline. Supposedly he championed the touch bar (which I mostly liked; I think the advantages outweighed the drawbacks) and the butterfly keyboard (no excuse). But allegedly he also pushed some of the major improvements on the iPad and in iPadOS that made it far more useful than most tablets. Software quality desperitely really needs a really strong kick, and we'll see if he can deliver that.
Time will tell.
Hey
But what about that other guy?
You know, Tim Apple?
- Don
Re: Hey
I’m surprised he didn’t legally change his name to avoid embarrassing The Orange One.
cringeworthy product launches…
Mr. praying hands will remain to me the face and dull voice of some of the most cheesy product launches of all time.
The worst was watching the rest of the top team ape some of his gestures.
When live presentations were booted out around the time of the pandemic, the fizzle of apple ran out completely.
It was already going flat.
Still, they make some fantastic products and brilliant operating systems.
Good luck to the new guy, hopefully he can inject a little more excitement and ditch the god damn awful presentation format - get back to basics with live shows.
Yes Apple hasn't introduced any groundbreaking products
But name one such groundbreaking product of the past decade, something with the impact of the iPhone? You can't, because there has been nothing even remotely close to that from anyone, yet that's the standard he's being measured against.
If you could point to other companies introducing the iPhones of the 2020s while Apple sat on their hands doing nothing then this argument would make sense, but you can't.
Now sure Apple could have done a better job with AI which may become such a groundbreaking product, if reality is able to match hype. But so far it hasn't changed the daily lives of consumers at all in the way modern smartphones have, and the changes it does promise for consumers could be more bad (lost jobs) than good. Most of the benefit from AI promises to be for businesses, but Apple has always been a consumer focused company, they were never going to produce a Claude Code and sell it to businesses who hope to eventually be able to fire millions of coders.