Tim Cook’s Apple tenure assessed as John Ternus takes over
Developed over time first seen 2 months ago
The Verge's retrospective on Tim Cook's 15-year tenure as Apple chief executive, published as hardware chief John Ternus formally succeeds him, weighs Cook's successes against his shortcomings after he took over from co-founder Steve Jobs in 2011. It credits Cook with diversifying Apple well beyond the iPhone, which then accounted for half of company revenue, by building out a services business, transitioning Macs to in-house chips, and pushing into wearables and health technology.
Among the wins highlighted are the growth of Apple's services arm, which brought in $100 billion last year through offerings such as iCloud, Apple Pay, Apple Music and Apple One; the switch from Intel processors to Apple's own silicon, completed in 2023 after the M1 chip's 2020 debut and now in its sixth generation with the 2-nanometre M6; and the 2015 launch of the Apple Watch alongside the 2016 debut of AirPods, both of which evolved into health-focused devices offering ECG readings, sleep apnoea detection and an FDA-authorised hearing aid function. The piece frames these as evidence Cook secured Apple's position as one of the world's most profitable technology companies, even as it also weighs his notable misses over the same period.
- Tim Cook's 15-year Apple tenure ends as John Ternus takes over as CEO
- Services revenue hit $100 billion last year under Cook's diversification push
- Apple Watch and AirPods grew into major health-tracking, hearing aid devices
New here? Start with this
Apple's chief executive Tim Cook has stepped down after 15 years in the role, handing over to John Ternus, who previously led the company's hardware engineering. Cook took charge in 2011 following the death of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, inheriting a firm built almost entirely around the iPhone.
During his tenure, Cook is widely credited with pushing Apple beyond the iPhone into new areas, including wearable devices such as the Apple Watch and AirPods, and a fast-growing services business covering things like subscriptions and the App Store. He also oversaw Apple's shift away from using Intel-made chips to its own in-house processors, a multi-year changeover completed in 2023.
As commentators assess his time in charge, the debate centres on how to weigh these achievements against criticisms of his leadership, set against the scale of what he took on: running one of the world's largest companies through a period of significant technological change.
Both sides, in good faith
The strongest fair case each way — we don't pick a winner.
The case for
Supporters argue that Tim Cook proved himself one of the great corporate stewards of his generation, taking a company built around a single hit product and turning it into a durable, diversified giant. Under his watch, services revenue reached $100 billion a year, Apple completed a technically complex and commercially successful transition to its own silicon, and new categories such as AirPods and the Apple Watch evolved into genuine health tools, including an FDA-authorised hearing aid function and ECG capability. On this view, Cook's caution and operational discipline were exactly what a company of Apple's scale needed after Steve Jobs, delivering steady growth, expanded consumer benefit, and reduced reliance on iPhone sales alone.
The case against
Sceptics contend that Cook's tenure, whatever its financial success, will be remembered for incremental refinement rather than the bold reinvention Apple was once known for, with AirPods and the Apple Watch built on product categories others pioneered rather than ones Apple defined from scratch. They point out that many of the headline achievements, such as services revenue or health features, represent Apple extracting more value from an existing installed base rather than breaking genuinely new ground, and that the long, gradual chip transition, while well executed, was an engineering catch-up rather than a leap forward. On this reading, Cook deserves credit as a manager but the comparison to Jobs-era innovation remains, fairly or not, the yardstick by which his legacy is judged and found wanting by some.
More coverage
- The Verge — John Ternus takes over as Apple’s new CEO
- TechCrunch — Who is John Ternus, the new Apple CEO?
- TechCrunch — John Ternus hypes ‘huge launch next week’ in first memo as Apple CEO
Business Companies Economy Gadgets Technology
Read the full article at the source →
Originally published by The Verge as “Tim Cook’s Apple: his 10 biggest wins and misses”.