Given the breadth and scope of Apple's WWDC 2014 announcements it's not surprising that the man at the helm of it all, Apple's CEO, Tim Cook is getting a lot of attention and analysis thrown his way. Some of it has been excellent, some of it has been dreadful. Right in the middle is a new profile from the New York Times that includes some interesting commentary from Apple SVP of design, Jony Ive:
Jonathan Ive, the head of design at Apple and a name nearly as adored by its followers as Steve Jobs, says Mr. Cook has not neglected the company's central mission: innovation. "Honestly, I don't think anything's changed," he said. And that includes the clamor for some exciting new thing. "People felt exactly the same way when we were working on the iPhone," Mr. Ive added. "It is hard for all of us to be patient," Mr. Ive said. "It was hard for Steve. It is hard for Tim.""Steve established a set of values and he established preoccupations and tones that are completely enduring," Mr. Ive said. Chief among them is a reliance on small creative teams whose membership remains intact to this day. The philosophy that materials and products are intertwined also continues under Mr. Cook. [...] If Mr. Jobs was maniacal about design, Mr. Cook projects "quiet consideration," Mr. Ive said. Mr. Cook digests things carefully, with time, which Mr. Ive said "testifies to the fact he knows it's important."
Like I wrote about back in 2012, Tim Cook's Apple takes the same elegance Jobs applied to products and applies it to the company itself. That mainstream media is only now picking up on how important Cook is to the company is a testament both to his style of operations and their choices in reporting.
The profile also includes comments from Apple board member and Disney CEO, Robert Iger, and covers Cook's focus on human rights and the environment, along with Wall Street's grumblings over the stock and the realities of the law of large numbes. Sadly, it's not without canards of its own:
[...] Apple did not hew to its tradition of pairing hardware and software. Specifically, Apple introduced a program called Health — which helps consumers and doctors monitor health status, like heart rate or glucose levels — but did not also introduce a piece of hardware to measure those results. That is something the new smartwatch is rumored to do."They just released the software," said Mr. Zeluff, sounding surprised."It's something Steve wouldn't have done," Mr. Brown said.
Except for 2011, of course, when Steve Jobs did just that.
