Listen, I don't really like the direction Apple has taken either, but since Tim Cook became CEO of Apple in August 2011 the company's stock went from like $15 to like $275; it had a value of $400 billion and now it's worth $4 trillion, ten times as much. Any characterization of him as some kind of failure who killed Apple ("once the biggest tech company on the planet", "isn't growing", "only saved"...) is completely out-of-touch.

As a customer and tech enthusiasts I couldn't care less about the stock performance of Apple, truly.

It's a tech company, I'm interested in the tech they produce. On that front, the company hasn't been innovative for ages.

This is one of the least reality-based statements ever.

Just take AirPods Pro at a minimum. Apple is doing thing with AirPods that other brands can’t even dream of, and it’s all technical engineering.

APP and my AW are instant-replace products if I lose/damage them. The M-series chips have made my MBP the same.

It's hard to say Apple hasn't innovated for both regular consumer and tech enthusiasts.

MBP = Macbook Pro AW = Apple Watch? What is APP?

AirPods Pro.

Apple Silicon and everything related to it is deeply innovative, it's just not at all flashy.

in house chips are pretty cool. Shared memory is a really nice architectural advancement.

What is your specific definition of "in house" chips ?

Usually we'd apply that to Samsung's exynos or Sony's image sensors for their DSLRs. Would Google's Tensor for instance fit in that definition ?

It sailed on Jobs‘ monumental accomplishments, and still does. Including AirPods and Vision Pro, much of what fell into Cook‘s era was already well underway when Jobs died. Cook is a fantastic executor, fulfilling Jobs‘ legacy. But the tank is empty now, has been for a while.

Every bit of your second sentence is wrong. None of that was even on the drawing boards when Steve passed away.

Look it up. Both have been prototyped for more than a decade before being released. Like most recent Apple products.

How can we be sure this is specifically due to Cook and not the ecosystem overall?

A lot has changed since 2011. Some was likely Cook continuing execution of things lined up by Jobs. Some could just be tech sector in general, etc.

> likely Cook continuing execution of things

I love how people say 'execution' like it's an insult. Execution on the scale of Apple is an incredible challenge. Apple sells something like 425 iPhones per minute. It could be argued that execution is the biggest Apple innovation ever.

In some ways it doesn't matter. A bad CEO would have fucked up the ecosystem.

10x over 15 years is not really impressive for a tech company

Show me the other tech companies that have done anywhere near as good as

MacBooks outclass any other laptop in the market thanks to those chips.

"…and it's only saved by the positive offset coming from advertisement and app store growth"

That has been part of the plan for a decade now since Eddy Cue was tasked with boosting Apple's income from "services". (It's worked pretty well for Microsoft.)

It’s not the only thing. The scale up of Apple is massive and so is the supply chain. Those are not really things consumers don’t see directly (just indirectly)