> The rest of the executives were fully content with this effort, and in the end he wasn't even forced out
Tim Cook, by all accounts, can be very micromanaging and demanding when it comes to logistics underlings, but has been extremely hands-off with all his other underlings, doesn't insert himself into their loops or require his approval, doesn't decide by decree like Jobs which forces underlings to fight the bureaucracy on their own, leaves them to resolve conflicts among themselves on their own. He treats Apple like a machine or system where his role is to keep things running smoothly.
It's not "the rest of the executives", that's how Cook's Apple is run. Reportedly.
Such laissez-faire attitude should lead to teams that feel something’s great but it doesn’t connect. Like a product that’s an amazing feat of engineering but feels convoluted to the end user.
The thing is, when glass was presented the very first to cry in disbelief were designers. It is very much at odds with many industry standards.
So I really have nothing on how this came to pass. At this point, the tinfoil hat view that this design was a resource hogger as a feature for obsolescence sounds reasonable. At least there would be a method to the madness.
Corporations are more boring than that. Reportedly, Jony Ive (who was given oversight of Apple's UIs), in turn put Dye in charge of the iOS 7 redesign. Dye and Ive then presented it internally. Here's how journalist Tripp Mickle reported it back in 2022, long before Liquid Glass came about:
> Ive’s focus on visual styling vexed the software design team. Though they obsessed over colors and shapes, they prioritized how people interacted with the phone and often built demonstrations of the software they planned to introduce so they could experience how intuitive it would be for users and adjust as needed. Many of them believed that design was how the software behaved and thought that Ive was myopically focused on how it looked. [...] At Ive’s direction, they shifted from demonstrating how an app worked to making paper printouts that showed how an app looked. They became more like graphic designers than software savants.
The book then details a big talent drain from the design team.
Fast forward to the Liquid Glass release, reportedly many Apple designers hated the direction. Fast forward to last week, John Gruber says Ive hates Liquid Glass and Dye, and heavily implies that he heard this either from Ive himself or a close associate.
When you leave a moron in charge and a chunk of the talent leaves, Liquid Glass is what you get. It's ultimately Cook's fault. Dye was under Jeff Williams (operations, now gone) who was under Cook. Operations dictates everything under Cook, I doubt anyone else could say no to him.
Cook is just a major idiot. It's actually surprising he didn't completly fuck everything over. But it just shows how strong the fondation and initial strategy was.
I'm always annoyed by random idiots arguing that since Cook made Apple a shit ton of money, he must be good.
By the same standard, cartel head drug dealers are extremely good and an asshole who inerhit a business with a captive market and just manages to make more money by raising price is just as good.
Outside of Apple Silicon, much of what Apple has produced in the last 10 years isn't really good. And even Apple Silicon has major tradeoffs that do not look like they'll improve meaningfully.
Tim Cook, by all accounts, can be very micromanaging and demanding when it comes to logistics underlings, but has been extremely hands-off with all his other underlings, doesn't insert himself into their loops or require his approval, doesn't decide by decree like Jobs which forces underlings to fight the bureaucracy on their own, leaves them to resolve conflicts among themselves on their own. He treats Apple like a machine or system where his role is to keep things running smoothly.
It's not "the rest of the executives", that's how Cook's Apple is run. Reportedly.