Unlike a lot of pundits and analysts, I actually think Tim Cook has done a very good job of running Apple. The company is still insanely profitable and Apple customers’ loyalty has shown no signs of waning. Granted, he’s not Steve Jobs, but that’s not a bad thing because he’s shown that he’s very skilled at getting a bunch of very talented people with very big egos to work together effectively as a team — not an easy feat when you consider how a post-Jobs Apple could have easily turned into one giant turf war.
That said, there is one criticism of Cook that I think rings true — he has not lived up to his promise to get more products out earlier in the year instead of just dumping them on us all at once in the fall.
As 9to5Mac’s Mark Gurman constantly reminds us, Cook said last year that “we are laser-focussed and working hard on some amazing new products that we will introduce in the fall and across 2014.” While Apple did indeed bring us many new products last fall — the iPhone 5s, the iPad Air and the Retina-equipped iPad mini, to name a few — it has done significantly less “across 2014” so far, only releasing some MacBook refreshes while saving its big guns for the fall again.
Think about it — we thought that we were going to get a big
This is not to say that Apple needs to emulate Samsung, which has popped out a ridiculous five different smartwatches in less than a year and may be launching a sixth very soon. But when you tell people that your goal is to release new products “across 2014,” that doesn’t imply that you’re going to flood them all out during a tiny two-month window at the end of the year.
And let’s be honest: Other than the unveiling of iOS 8 earlier this summer, this has been the single most boring year for Apple products I can recall. I’m sure that will change in the fall but I hope that in 2015, we have some more stuff to look forward to throughout all four seasons instead of just one.
