Even Macalope has to admit that if you keep writing about how innovation has died at Apple, you’ll be right in the end.
Trip Meckel writes in the New York Times, “How the technocrats won at Apple.”
Please, don’t bother Macalope until the Autobots win at Apple.
This article is excerpted from Michael’s book (Please Swallow Any Liquids In Your Mouth Before Continue Reading) After Steve: How Apple Became a Trillion Dollar Company and Lost Its Soul. This is not to say that there is any particular point of view to be taken here.
Michael describes Joni Ive as one of Apple’s “most creative thinkers” while Tim Cook is painted as the bean counter who is completely indifferent to design and would like nothing more than to drive out all those strangers in the Delta home. The piece underscores the philosophical friction between the two, saying frustration led Eve to quit.
Mikel goes so far as to quote both Cook and Ai exception to the idea that the latter was left on bad terms. In fact, it’s hard to think that it was so bad given that he still works regularly with the company. But a friendly separation does not sell books.
Now, dear reader, it’s time for McCalub’s patented Walk-Into-The-Sea Challenge where you read a passage from the linked article and see if you can stop yourself from walking in the sea. Good luck and God bless you!
Mr. Cook accelerated the shift in strategy that made the company better known for offering TV shows and credit cards rather than offering the kind of revolutionary new hardware it had previously identified.
Where can you stay sweetened, reader?! It wasn’t Macalope.
Yes, when people think of Apple these days, it has absolutely nothing to do with Macs, iPads, or iPhones.
Perhaps this is a good time to link to a Times review of the book, which praises the historical but is less subtle aspect of Meckel’s analysis:
In the end, the sense that the two missed the opportunity to create a worthy successor to the iPhone is palpable.
It is also remarkable, and the best proof of this is the previous four hundred pages. It is true that after the death of Jobs, Apple did not produce another device as important as the iPhone, but Apple did not produce another important device before his death either.
Indeed. In fact, one can rightly argue that no one in the history of the world has produced another such important device as the iPhone. And this is the problem with most of Apple’s “analytics”. Everything is compared to the iPhone, as if the company should ship world-changing devices every three years when no other company exists to the same standard.
IDG
The section of Mikhel’s article detailing Eve’s slow departure appears under “Left Brain Triumph”, where we are left to assume that creativity is now dead at Apple.
In Mr. Eve’s absence, Mr. Cook began to remake the company in his own image.
Would you say that in 2017, six years after Steve Jobs died and Tim Cook took over as CEO of Apple, Cook finally managed to remake the company in his own image?
Well, the guy is notoriously lazy.
Macalope will ask “Who writes these things?” But the answer is clear: Trip Mekhel writes these things. It is up there.
… the products have remained largely the same as when Mr. Yves left. The gods became humans.
Yes, except, in fact, no.
Michael appears to dismiss Apple’s silicon as a hideous frivolity that Apple had the audacity to mention before talking about the design of the 2021 iMac. But what about this design? You could say it’s similar to the old monitor in that it’s a monitor on a stand, but that’s what the iMac has been since 2004. You can’t get it both ways, you can’t sigh at Apple for charging them the same stuff after they were charging it with Eve.
And let’s talk about the changes that have been made to the MacBook Pro since Eve’s departure. The new MacBook Pro isn’t thin at the expense of just about everything else, and so it doesn’t have keyboards that stop working when you look at them wrong, say harsh words about them, or something else. The “gods” may have done some pretty amazing things but let’s not forget all the times Zeus showed up at his hen party as a horned swan.
In the case of the Mac, it’s indisputable that Apple’s offerings have improved dramatically after Ive. And it’s not as if people loved his influence on Apple’s software design.
Jony Ive is an amazing talent and the company has benefited from his contribution for years.
But it’s not Apple’s lathe.