The Tim Cook Dilemma

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Every year Steve came out with his brilliant stage presence, jokes and sometimes even anger; and presented what he believed was the newest, best product to awe the technology industry. Ever since his return people would look at his keynote presentations with a back-thought of already believing whatever he was gonna say, because he had proven to be right WAY more times than he had been wrong... The Macintosh, the iPod, iTunes, Apple Retail Stores, and the up and greatest of the awe moments he ever brought to life: the iPhone. 

Time and time again I sat to re-live the ecstasy the audience lived through with every keynote since 2007 live and of course seeing the previous ones of the 1990's when I was either not born or just a baby. And even when i was not part of that generation which applauded a computer that was not all commands and a black background (because it was NOT a wallpaper), I could understand how huge the Macintosh was after my dad narrated the terrifying odyssey of using a computer previously (as he had used one when he was at the university). After the death of Steve Jobs in 2011 it was evident that whoever was going to try and fill the black hole that was left at Apple was going to be a person that was going to start off as he is right now... with an enormous amount of skeptics dissecting his work as CEO and a whole bunch of apple lovers that just prey to Jobs' spirit at Apple to guide this poor soul to hold up one of the biggest companies there is.

And so there I was, watching WWDC2015 (World Wide Developers Conference) and realised that Tim Cook is still FAR AWAY from being saved from skepticism... Craig Federighi, Johnny Ive, Eddie Cue and Phill Schiller are figures that are loved and applauded as being knights of the Jobs nobility era. Tim himself is still a leader in probation, and the test is already happening as you read this blog: The Apple Watch. He can make new iPhones 6 and 6 Plus which are outstanding, he can present the 5K iMac with a breakthrough in graphics, he can even bring to life the Mac Pro with Schillers hilarious "apple cannot innovate any more My Ass" phrase; and yet he will not be able to survive skepticism until a product of his own like the Apple Watch soars in a consubstantial way to any of Steve's ground breaking moments. As an Apple lover myself i hope and am positive about the possibilities in the product he has created and I am most definitely going to buy. However, one can only hope that the future holds brilliance in Cook's leadership... Many, not so positive, minds count on Tim's great team that have been a part of the amazing and historic past of Apple, others think in a matter of time Apple is destined to stagnate in its innovation, follow the others and become small or just disappear...

So finally after thinking to myself for a while and having seen the WWDC2015 keynote, plus talking with a few Apple critic friends of mine I came to a realisation: the hope and bet for Tim Cook and for Apple for the future is the same from the famous 1997 Think Different Commercial. The App Effect came in 2008 to change the world (https://youtu.be/fSiDIaab2nY) and Apple realised that they could change the world in a different way than Steve did when he decided that he and Wozniak would change the world in a garage and a bunch of computers... The way now is to empower people just like Steve Jobs did when he convinced John Sculley to come and work for him 

"do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life, or do you want to come with me and change the world?"

Apple now is betting on its developers... It has the best ecosystem out there for apps from large and small developers, it has the best programming language (Swift) which is now OpenSource, and last but not least, its products and their interconnectivity are the best technological habitat to create innovation. And the app store is a living everyday proof of this fact. Apple is just like Steve put it by using Alan Kay's quote:

"People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware"

It's not about just creating new iPhones to put in people's hands... There are phones out there which are just as great, it's about what people can or cannot do with these phones that will define what Apple is and will be from now on; and I am sure Tim Cook has this very present in his everyday life as new CEO.

Location: Escazú, Costa Rica

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