Tim Cook’s legacy: turning Apple’s sleek tech gadgets into status symbols

In the coming days, much will be said about Tim Cook’s legacy at Apple. He expanded the company’s products into new categories such as wearables and headphones, debuted a range of services, developed a strong customer base in China and led the company to a $4 trillion valuation.

From the moment Cook officially took over as CEO in 2011, he has been in the shadow of his predecessor and Apple founder Steve Jobs, whose legacy extends far beyond a successful portfolio of products. Jobs’ legacy was ongoing Apple facethey forcefully push the simplicity of user-oriented design in the background while singing their praises in the public spotlight. His successor had big shoes to fill and developed the company from a more personal perspective, but his legacy is about more than just Apple’s value. It is also possible to measure Cook’s lasting influence in another way: the extent to which Apple products have become status symbols.

I remember my parents buying a blue 1998 iMac in Bondi, the first major product launched by Steve Jobs after returning to lead Apple. “There is no step 3!Jeff Goldblum’s voice in a classic commercial sums up the extravagant CEO’s vision for the company’s products: user-friendly, stylish alternatives to boring beige boxes. This culminated in the white plastic era of iMacs, MacBooks, iPods and iPhones spearheaded by designer Jony Ive.

Apple products were hot and popular when Cook took over as CEO. But he focused on the iPhone as a new center for the company, using it as a bridgehead to its new unified hardware ecosystem. Once the iPhone was in people’s pockets, iOS’s easy-to-use interface and synergy with MacOS (iMessage sharing from 2012 onwards) and WatchOS (with the first Apple Watch in 2015) led them to stick with Apple’s smartphone line. Then their friends did too, and they discovered that their text conversations fell into two camps: in blue with other iPhone owners, or in green with Android owners.

In 2017, the iPhone The additional iMessage features quickly widened the gap between those who paid more money for iPhones and those who often paid less money for Android devices. This has led to social stigma for those sending “green bubble” chats. Apple has been in no rush to close this gap, and at Code 2022, I saw Cook himself telling a fan “Buy your mother an iPhone“.

Apple has yielded somewhat to pressure on the issue, Added some additional messaging functionality between iPhones and Android devices when it integrates the data-driven RCS messaging standard into its mobile devices in 2024. But the stigma remains, and iPhones have continued to enjoy social supremacy in many markets. This has undoubtedly contributed to increased iPhone sales over the years, ensuring that Apple phones will remain the company’s best-selling devices in the long term.

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then Cook’s era saw the emergence of so many overtly Apple-like products that they lost their credibility. from Huawei MateBook For the year 2017 to HP Dragonfly Pro Come 2023, a lot of laptop makers are copying Apple’s sleek silver MacBook aesthetic. And look at all The phones I saw at MWC Looking like a dead ringer for the iPhone 17 Pro Right down to its signature orange color, iPhone envy is alive and well.

Tim Cook episodes in Apple’s celebrity era

Jobs dabbled in using musicians to promote Apple products, like the iPod, but the closest he came to using celebrities was when he brought Actor Noah Wyle on stage At Macworld 1999, where he gave a fake speech about jobs (which Wyle had just portrayed in Pirates of Silicon Valley earlier that year).

The Tim Cook era is when Apple launches started overtly featuring celebrities, and nothing says status like a famous person using your product. To be fair, Apple isn’t alone among tech companies doing this, but other examples certainly seem more complicated, such as when Help Jimmy Fallon make his debut Pixel 10, or when Samsung revealed the Z Fold 6 and Sidney Sweeney was there too.

Cook has overseen the embrace of celebrities as faux brand ambassadors. It all started off in 2014 when Apple… Insert a U2 album into every iPhonea very unpopular move from which the company quickly recovered with its first new product of the new era. Going back before the launch of the Apple Watch in 2015, the company appears to have supplied the device to Beyoncé, Katy Perry, Drake, Pharrell Williams and others. Show off on social mediabuilding pre-release hype and luxurious assembly for a technical gadget.

Then, at the big reveal of Apple TV Plus in March 2019, a laundry list of major Hollywood stars either showed up at the presentation or appeared in the audience to hint at their involvement in upcoming shows and movies, including Steven Spielberg, Ron Howard, Reese Witherspoon, Jennifer Aniston, Steve Carell, Chris Evans, Jason Momoa, M. Night Shyamalan, Octavia Spencer, Hailee Steinfeld, Jane Krakowski, Kumail Nanjiani and more. Cook himself brought opera to the stage To end the event.

Cook smartly adjusted his product launch invitation list to bring in more current celebrities who have made their mark on social media and live streaming. In recent years, he has conducted interviews at Apple events with popular streamers such as Marquis Brownlee (MKBHD) and Justin At WWDC 2025, as well as in secret Grand Central Station, New York City An event marking Apple’s 50th anniversary. Last year, after the launch of the iPhone 17 series, it headed to the demo floor Show the iPhone Air to Mr. Beast.

But to honor Apple’s 50th anniversary, Cook brought in one of music’s greatest living legends, Paul McCartneyOn the occasion of half a century since the founding of the company.

Cook’s tenure at Apple may be coming to an end, but he has shown a keen sense of how owning an iPhone or MacBook can be a measure of his status. By turning launch events into celebrity-studded product parties, he ensured that the company itself was seen as a global icon of high-end products. How else can you get the Beatles to celebrate your birthday?