Tim Cook has made one big change, and Apple has bet the company on it
Tim Cook has run Apple in his twenty months as CEO pretty much exactly as Steve Jobs would have. The iPad mini and Apple Maps were products which Jobs put into motion before his death. The television project Apple is secretly working on, whatever it is, was something Jobs took credit for in his autobiography. Even the employee matching donation program Cook implemented was signed off on by Steve in his last days. In fact there has only been one move Tim Cook has made which has fundamentally deviated from what Steve would have done – and it’s a move so big that it affects every one of Apple’s major product lines. And it’s a bet the company kind of move.
Tim Cook fired Apple software interface guru Scott Forstall, a personal favorite of Steve Jobs, when it became clear that half of Apple’s executive team would quit if the widely hated Forstall were allowed to stay. Then Cook implemented an idea that had been sitting right under Jobs’ nose for fifteen years: Cook put Apple hardware designer Jony Ive – another Jobs favorite – in charge of software interfaces. The guy who’s always come up with the hardware designs for iPhones and Macs is now coming up with new on-screen interfaces as well. And everything you know about the Apple user experience is about to change.
Part of why Apple has had such a prolonged quiet period is because every one of its products is undergoing major retooling in terms of how you use them. The software interface changes are said to be major, the biggest and deepest since MacOS X itself first arrived at the turn of the century, and users will either love or hate the results. Apple’s fortunes over the next few years are now tied directly to Tim Cook’s decision to give Forstall’s job to Ive. And while shifting control of the products from one Steve Jobs favorite to another may sounds like a subtle move, it’s a move which Jobs wouldn’t have made – it’s one upon which Cook has boldly bet Apple’s future.
Will Stabley is the Founder and Senior Editor of Stabley Times.
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