In 2011, Steve Jobs' health failed for the last time,
and Tim Cook took the reins of Apple Inc.
This was a colossal shakeup. I mean, he wasn't just stepping up to the helm
of a massive company that had revolutionized personal audio, mobile communication,
and personal computing. He was stepping into the shoes of one of the largest personalities
that the tech industry had ever seen. How could he possibly hope to fill them?
In the early days, they didn't look so good. Apple lovers and haters alike
would mourn the Jobs era. Whenever Mr. Cook changed something
or failed to change enough, the comparison was just painful
between Jobs' obsessive passion and his replacement,
the awkward supply chain specialist. Surely then, he would turn out to be a poor steward
of the Soul of Apple, a company that treated their products
like art and fashion as much as like personal electronics.
And yet, here we are 15 years later,
as Tim Cook is in the midst of stepping down as CEO
for a well-earned permanent vacation.
And I can say without a doubt that while his haters were right,
he didn't fill Steve Jobs' shoes. What they failed to predict
was that he would make his own shoes, and that they would be pretty slick.
Okay, not every move was a great success.
And there are folks who fairly have criticized Apple's
less fun design choices over the last decade and a half.
But as someone who's more focused on the technology of computers rather than their style,
I am actually more excited about Apple's future than I have ever been before.
And that is in no small part because of Mr. Cook's crowning achievement, IMO.
His careful stewardship of Steve Jobs' parting gift,
Apple Silicon. Let's talk about that. And let's talk about our sponsor.
It's like I've been working on my Tim Cook impression
for nothing. When Tim Cook took the reins, Apple was on a win streak for the ages.
Ever since the triumphant return of Steve Jobs, Apple had made PCs fun again with the iMac,
turned personal audio completely on its head with the iPod and iTunes,
and did the impossible with the mobile phone that changed the world.
And those are just the highlights. By the time Cook stepped in,
Apple had gone from the brink of death to a cool $300 billion valuation.
And in his first year as CEO, Apple became the top smartphone manufacturer in the world.
And why wouldn't they be? Android devices, sure, were finding some success
after stealing the idea of the iPhone,
but they were still relatively unpolished, both in terms of their hardware and their software.
Meanwhile, Apple's flagship iPhone was the first
to feature an ultra premium double-sided glass sandwich
design that still dominates today. And it was the first to ship
with a humble little processor called the A4. Contrary to what most people think,
the A4 wasn't actually the first custom silicon designed by Apple.
That honor belongs to the Scorpius CPU, a quad core concept chip
that would have enabled true desktop multitasking, literally 20 years before Intel.
But what the A4 was, was the first piece of silicon designed by Apple,
Apple Silicon, you might call it, that ultimately made it into consumers' hands.
And it was a game changer. While everyone else was stuck using off-the-shelf
or at most lightly modified ARM cores, Apple created a chip that was so powerful
that it could accommodate multitasking on the highest resolution display on the market,
make video calls with its front-facing camera, and interface with new onboard IO like the gyroscope,
all with, at the time, downright outstanding battery life.
The iPhone 4, with the A4 chip at its heart, would remain part of Apple's lineup,
first as an entry-level model, and then later as a budget option
for developing markets for almost five years.
But that doesn't mean that Apple rested on their laurels, at least not on the iPhone side of things.
Within just 16 months, the previously groundbreaking A4 chip
had already been replaced by the A5, which according to Apple, was twice as fast
thanks to its more advanced architecture and addition of a second CPU core
alongside vastly superior onboard graphics. And from there, the hits just kept coming.
Now there have been times when the mobile CPU wars have been somewhat close,
as competitors like Qualcomm or Samsung have attempted to leapfrog Apple Silicon.
Even the Apple haters have gotta admit that under Tim Cook's leadership,
Apple has executed nearly flawlessly
on their mobile processor roadmap, delivering consistently industry-leading performance
year after year after year, if only the same could be said of Apple's partners.
The mid-2010s were a tough time for the MacBook.
And thanks to some questionable design choices that limited heat dissipation,
a pretty tough time for the Mac as well. But why?
You guessed it, while Intel had also been enjoying a long streak of wins,
starting from the 2006 introduction of the Core 2 Duo,
by 10 years later, they had completely run out of gas
and begun a troubling pattern of releasing new chips
that were actually built on old manufacturing processes
and just were not moving the bar for performance or for efficiency.
At a time when Sir Johnny Ive was chasing thinner and lighter designs for Apple's products,
this had a profound impact on their ability to innovate.
Not helping matters was Apple's ongoing feud with NVIDIA due to the bump gate scandal
that led to the untimely deaths of many GeForce-powered MacBooks in 2008.
Apple removed all NVIDIA hardware from its product portfolio
and then, even today, has never looked back.
That's all fine and good until you realize that Apple's customers were relying on AMD's GPU team
in order to deliver competitive GPU performance in their MacBooks and Macs.
Hmm, little did we know though, Apple's leadership was cooking up a plan.
Rumors of an ARM-powered Mac prototype have actually been around since as early as 2011,
according to this article from CNET. But it wasn't until 2018
that the first credible rumors began to circulate that Apple had deemed that their chip performance
was actually good enough and a switchover
from their floundering partner Intel was imminent.
But why did it take them so long to make the call? To be honest, even with Intel's struggles
and MacBooks overheating, I don't blame them. I mean, the transition from PowerPC to x86 Intel
back in 2006 was still a pretty vivid memory
in the minds of both the Mac user base, not to mention Apple's own software teams.
During that time, many applications needed to be recompiled and then debugged by developers,
which ended up costing consumers money directly,
sometimes in the form of completely repurchasing their software.
And that completely ignores that Apple themselves was stuck maintaining compatibility tools
and parallel versions of their operating system for years.
Then on top of that, developing your own chips,
even for a company with the resources and talent of Apple is kind of a hassle, you know?
And it's pretty nice if someone else could just do it for you.
While I strongly believe that the Apple Silicon transition was inevitable, the second that the A4 was a success,
I also believe that if Intel hadn't fumbled as hard as they did, it could have come as much as 10 years
later to just avoid rocking the boat and allow Apple to allocate their resources
to new product lines rather than the oft-neglected Mac.
But with all that said, I don't think there's a person alive
who would say now that the effort was wasted. Apple's M-series Silicon launch was a smashing success
that vastly exceeded the expectations of all but Apple's most devoted of glazers.
And this doesn't get enough credit, in my opinion. It wasn't just the hardware.
Apple's execution around software compatibility with Rosetta 2 and their ongoing support
for Intel CPUs and macOS has given their legacy customers
over half a decade to upgrade their devices before they'll lose access to the latest software updates.
That's a pretty decent amount of time in tech terms.
Surprisingly though, it's actually not M-series Silicon
that inspired me to make this video. And it's not even the AirPods. Another candidate for top Tim Cook success stories
that rely on Apple Silicon for their competitive advantage.
It was actually this. Every tech pundit worth their salt
has been watching a couple of convergences taking place at Apple over the last decade plus.
The iPad and the MacBook have been slowly,
painfully slowly sometimes, becoming more and more alike, both in form and function.
And when M-series Silicon showed up in the iPad, it had just about everyone,
including me going, well, it's powerful enough now. macOS on iPad when?
But then Apple went totally the other way. They zigged instead of zagged and they put the A18 Pro,
a relatively inexpensive phone chip in their most affordable MacBook ever.
Now in a vacuum, the MacBook Neo is already an outstanding product that deserves
its millions of units of sales and more.
But looking at the bigger picture, it is so much more than that.
And I think it's gonna prove to be the most important move
that Mr. Cook has made during his entire tenure. I've talked for years about Apple's inexplicable,
near complete abandonment of the education market. When I was a kid, every machine in the school was a Mac.
Love it, hate it, you had to use it. And an entire generation of children was raised believing
that the left side of an app window was the appropriate place to click, to close it.
And then they just stopped being affordable and stopped caring that young people,
especially young students, had been completely priced out of their ecosystem.
That's what just changed. For me, the 599 price for this was as big a mic drop
as when Sony went on stage and said 299.
And it would have been impossible without the vertical integration
and supply chain mastery that Tim Cook oversaw. Also, right along the Neo's launch,
Apple has completely overhauled their tools for education and fleet management,
creating an alternative to Chromebooks and Windows machines that's so powerful that within days of its launch,
it was already changing the industry. Anyway, the Neo has been so successful
that it actually almost punched a hole in that supply chain management aspect
of Mr. Cook's tenure. All that stuff has been so expertly managed
that I feel like we'd almost started to take it for granted. Remember how you used to line up for a new iPhone
and it would be backordered for ages all the time? I mean, any hot item has shortages.
But I don't even remember the last time that we saw something like the Neo,
where it was backordered for like a month. Apple's ability under Tim Cook's leadership
to keep products in stock on time around the globe,
even during disruptions, is nearly unparalleled.
And I guess that's the wisdom of putting an awkward supply chain guy in charge.
Under Tim Cook's leadership, Apple's gone from a valuation of hundreds of billions
to multiple trillions, which isn't to say that everything's gone perfectly.
The Apple Vision Pro almost feels like an intentionally bad product.
I mean, a VR headset that refuses to acknowledge
the two main use cases for VR, high fidelity gaming and high fidelity other things.
But what were they thinking? But hey, maybe I'm looking at the small picture.
Maybe Apple's VR efforts are gonna completely turn around with their rumored smart glasses.
Kind of like we saw with the Apple Watch where it turned from a luxury gold-plated timepiece
to a health-focused smart wearable. If that happens though, it won't be under Tim Cook
who has taken a role as executive chairman. Well earned, sir.
We haven't always agreed, but I respect the hell out of the hustle and I salute you.
Which leaves only one question. What do I meme about on my personal Twitter now?
No, actually there are more questions. Who's taking over?
His name is John Ternis. He's currently Apple's senior vice president
for hardware engineering and he was part of the team that introduced the iPad,
which actually before the iPhone 4 was the first device to use Apple Silicon.
And I gotta say, knowing almost nothing about the guy,
I love this move. I love the idea of hardware geeks learning biz stuff
and then getting an opportunity to bring their deep product knowledge
all the way to the top levels of leadership. I strongly believe that Intel, for example,
is much better off today because of Pat Gelsinger's short tenure as CEO,
even if an imposter is getting a ton of credit for the balls that Pat rolled into motion.
And as if Apple was legit trying to suck up to me specifically, John Ternis' replacement
is gonna be John Suruji, the guy who led Apple Silicon Design
during the A4's development. He's also getting a title bump to Chief Hardware Officer.
So Apple is getting two new C levels from their hardware team.
They can't make it any more clear how much of a priority the hardware is right now.
And I gotta say, that is really exciting for me.
Just like I get excited telling you about our sponsor. If you guys enjoyed this video,
why not check out the recent comparison we did between the MacBook Neo and a bunch of other
similarly priced Windows and Chrome OS machines.
It's kind of a bloodbath, not gonna lie.