Tim Cook was an innovator, but not the Jobs type

Under Steve Jobs, Apple launched groundbreaking products That defined the company. But the company would not be where it is today without Tim Cook’s reign of ruthless efficiency.

Jobs’ legacy has long been written at this point. It was stubborn, UnpleasantAnd the visionary of generations. He pushed the boundaries of industrial design and brought technologies together in ways that others at the time scoffed at. It is a special period unlike any other in technology. But the radical thinker passed the torch to a very different kind of CEO: Tim Cook, in August 2011.

Tim Cook is a different kind of inventor. The Apple Watch and AirPods both arrived in the Cook years, and under his watch the company made a bold and profitable bet on bringing chip design in-house. There is nothing to sneeze at. But I wouldn’t call any of these generational innovations the equivalent of an iMac or an iPhone. Instead, Cook improved Apple’s production lines and supply chains to turn the company into a revenue-generating machine. As my colleague Sean Hollister noted about… 10th anniversary of Cook’s appointment as CEODuring his reign, Apple’s value surpassed two state-owned Saudi oil companies.

Tim Cook joined Apple in 1998 and quickly gained a reputation as a calm and meticulous supply chain wizard. He recognized a huge opportunity with Foxconn and It expanded its relationship with the companywhich was then only a secondary resource. He brought in like-minded former IBM colleagues, Including Futures Chief Operating Officer Jeff Williams and The famous and ruthless negotiator Tony Blevins. They made huge investments in Foxconn which paid off for both companies. Apple was able to achieve unprecedented profit margins on the iPhone, and Foxconn became a trillion-dollar industry leader.

Cook may not have been a product innovator on the level of Jobs, but he figured out how to sell a very large number of iPhones. Under Cook, Apple began targeting different market segments with different models, experimenting with Plus, Mini, and R versions on its way to the five current models it sells today: the 17, 17E, 17 Pro, 17 Pro Max, and Air. Company Set sales record After the record. And when growth stopped as people stuck to their phones longer, Another cash cow that outgrew the hardware: Services.

Cook knew how to put pressure on the supply chain, and that included software. The company maintained an iron grip on the App Store during his watch, charging an infamous 30 percent fee on transactions made there. App Store fees, along with revenue from its growing portfolio of subscription companies like Apple Music and Apple TV, make up a category the company refers to as services. Sales that Apple attributes to services are second only to the iPhone itself, and are greater than sales of Macs, iPads, and wearables combined. In the fourth quarter of 2025, Apple… $30 billion in sales for this category.

Tim Cook has seen Apple through a decade of unprecedented growth, but sentiment has begun to change in recent years. The company won a lawsuit brought by Epic Games centered around its App Store practices, but a federal judge ordered the company to loosen its tight grip on App Store payments, a huge source of revenue for those services. Four years later the judge Cook took over When she found the company’s weak attempts at reforms to be insufficient, she said the CEO was “choosing poorly” at every turn.

Pernicious compliance was business as usual in the Cook era, but Donald Trump’s second term turned out to be the real turning point for the late CEO’s legacy. I have Take every opportunity to please the bossFrom presenting it to him Statue of gold and glass To attend a VIP presentation of Melaniathe A $75 million no-bribery documentary distributed by Amazon. After public backlash over ICE activity in Minnesota, Cook offered only Obscene statement On the need to “de-escalate”. When it was clear that the Grok app was being used to create deeply sexual, non-consensual content for women, it was Apple He calmly asked the X developers to restrain him – But Elon Musk’s company was never punished. The values ​​of inclusion and empowerment that Cook has publicly espoused have proven to be a weaker force than shareholder value.

Cook’s departure has long been rumored, but it comes at a particularly risky time for the company. No amount of ring-kissing can buy President Trump’s favor forever, though Cook does Stick around the company To keep trying. Elsewhere, Apple continues to fight antitrust battles. The memory crisis has put pressure on the entire supply chain, threatening even Apple’s famously generous profit margins. But those who found Cook’s predictably efficient era a bit dull can take heart: John Ternos is the hardware guy.

The press release announcing Cook’s departure cites several product lines Ternus oversaw as senior vice president of hardware engineering. But the first specific product highlighted in the memo isn’t the iPhone 17; It’s a MacBook Neo. Apple calls it “an all-new laptop that makes the Mac experience accessible to more people around the world,” and that’s not a mistake. The Neo is surprisingly powerful given its low $599 price, a sort of culmination of the strengths that Apple has built up in the Cook era. Cook oversaw Apple’s move to design its own silicon, the way a previous iPhone chip could be successfully reused in a brand new laptop. Brutal efficiency and supply chain mastery are a special kind of innovation. Tim Cook has turned the company into a well-oiled machine. Now we’ll find out what the hardware guy can do with it.