Apple in the Tim Cook Era

When Tim Cook took over the reins of Apple by becoming its CEO, there were doubters about how Tim Cook would lead. He has his work cut out for him from the beginning. Steve Jobs, the charismatic, reality-distorting, sometimes visionary, and sometimes controversial founder and CEO of Apple, has recently passed away. Tim Cook will now take over and realize Jobs’ vision of the future.

And there’s no doubt, 15 years on, Tim Cook not only did that but put Apple as one of the most valuable companies in the world. Talk is now rife that Tim Cook is stepping down as CEO, and who will be the next person. But until that news comes, we just took a look back at what Tim Cook brought us as Apple’s CEO.

Background and Early Years at Apple

As the famous story goes, Tim Cook was brought in by Steve Jobs because of Tim Cook’s logistics skills. Logistics might seem a dry subject, but Steve Jobs knows that behind all the flashy marketing speak, you need a well-oiled delivery system. This might go off tangent, but imagine a fast casual restaurant like Five Guys or Shake Shack. Its products are more expensive than McDonald’s, but it fetches a higher profit margin, and it manages to churn out burgers by the billions. It turns out, the consumer doesn’t mind to pay a premium for “overpriced” tech that is well made and available at your fingertips.

Come to any Apple Store today, you just say what you want to the guy in the blue shirt, and like magic, you get your stuff and pay on the spot. No waiting in line, no hunting for your product, and no friction at all. Those logistic systems, from making the product in China to buying it in Timbuktu, is what made Apple a multi-trillion dollar company, and it is how Tim Cook put Apple on the map, again.

Having laser focus on the company, and management prowess is what give Steve Jobs the confidance to hand over the reins of the company as his health is failing. One of Tim Cook’s character strengths is not making Steve Jobs a martyr to be worshipped. Yes, Steve Jobs is remembered every year at Apple, but it is not being put on a pedestal. No one asks “What would Steve Jobs do?”

Building the team

As the saying goes, “teamwork makes the dream work”. As one of the rules for rulers, you do not rule alone. Someone will have to research the product, make it, market it, send it from the factory to distribution points, and finally convince the customer to put it in their hands. You need a good time to chrun out good products and to bring it to everyone’s hands.

As any CEO would come to a new company, one of the first acts of any CEO or leader is to create its own team. Here are the initial team that Tim Cook created in the early years of being CEO

• Jony Ive: one of Steve Jobs key partner. John and Steve recreated Apple to be what it is today. John left Apple in 2019, after 30 years being there.

• Craig Federighi: Today, we know him as the “hair guy”. But back then, he was the iOS software engineering chief. Today, he’s the SVP of Software Engineering.

• Eddy Cue: One of Eddy biggest achievement is to turn around the disaster that is MobileMe and become iCloud, currently one of Apple’s fastest growing product segment.

• Bob Mansfield: Bob was the head of Technology Group when Tim Cook become CEO. He supervises the development of Apple Watch and Apple TV. Apple Watch is the most valuable watch in the world.

• Johny Srouji: Johny was brought in to help create a custom chip for Apple’s young product. which was known as the iPhone. Johny developed the A4, Apple’s first custom chip, and the rest is history.

Changes that Tim Cook Brought

There’s a saying in racing: “The bullshit stops when the flag drops”. It means that all that talk about how some teams or products are good or not is when you produce the results. Is Tim Cook one of the greatest CEO ever lived? The proof is not in conjecture, but the legacy that Tim Cook left behind. Here are some of the evidance.

Market Cap

For listed companies, such as Apple, market capitalization is an easy way to see the size of the company, albiet an imperfect one, but it is an indicator of investor’s confidence, how much the company is making money, and how well it is doing.

When Tim Cook joined Apple in 1998, the company’s market cap was only around $5 billion. When he become the CEO of Apple in 2011 after Steve Jobs had turned around the company, Apple’s market cap was around $350 billion. Not bad. By the end of 2025, when this article is made, Apple’s market cap is slightly more than $4 trillion. Apple’s revenue is more than $1 billion a day, and it’s profit is $1 billion every 3 days.

If market cap is the report card, you can say Tim Cook scored A in this regard.

iPhone

Cynics might say that Apple doesn’t create anything new since Tim Cook became CEO. The iPhone was Apple’s biggest revenue stream back in 2011 and continues to do so in 2025. But saying that the iPhone 4 is the same as the iPhone 17 is an understatement. Other than the name, nothing is the same between those generations of iPhones.

Today’s iPhone rivals laptops in computing power, taking pictures as good as purpose-built cameras, they basically killed the industry, and have screen nicer than any TV display on the market.

iPad

When the iPad was first introduced, it resembled a large iPhone. People laughed. Today, there’s the iPad and the rest of the tablet market. iPad today is a serious computer, serious enough to be a laptop replacement device.

The Ecosystem

Perhaps Tim Cook’s best contribution to Apple is the invisible one: The Apple Ecosystem. It is not a product that Apple sells directly, but you’ll know it’s there. Your AirPods work instantly with all of your devices. Your iPhone unlocks your Apple Watch. You’re using your iPhone camera as a webcam for your Mac. Behind it all, your app synchornized seemlessly from one device to another like an extension of your mind.

Trend setter

Apple has always been a trendsetter, and, thankfully, Tim Cook keeps this tradition. There’s always this cycle when Apple did something controversial, like removing the headphone jack way back in iPhone 7. Industry and reviewers laughed. And people liked it, and in the end, everyone followed suit.

There are money more examples of this: removal of the charging brick on the iPhones, the “notch”, putting 64-bit support on iPhones, and making your own chips like the A4. Nowadays, companies are making products on the rumour that Apple is releasing those products.

Services

One thing that Steve Jobs struggled to build was the service side of Apple. It wasn’t because he wasn’t trying. There was the .Mac, then MobileMe. It eventually evolved to iCloud. Under Tim Cook, the iCloud expanded. There was streaming music (Music), streaming video (Apple TV+), health services (Fitness+), iCloud storage, news and magazine subscription (News+), and even games (Arcade+)

Today, services is Apple’s fastest-growing and most profitable segment of the company.

Vision Pro

The Vision Pro is one of Apple’s latest product, and there’s not many products in the market that can be Vision Pro. Personally, Vision Pro is one of the most advanced technological products that I’ve ever tried. Unfortunately, the high price, limited availability, and even higher social acceptance mean that this is a commercial flop. Apple is playing the long game on this one, and we hope that spatial computing will be a thing in the future.

What’s after the Tim Cook Era

Now the talk of Tim Cook leaving is getting stronger and stronger. The question remains: Who’s going to succeed him? Steve Jobs remade Apple from the brink of death to a multi billion company. Tim Cook grew Apple to be a technological behemoth and a multi-trillion company. Whoever is going to be the replacement will have a tough time to recreate the magic that Apple had. But, however that person is going to be, we wish the best of luck.

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Other Ecosystem Items

• Apple TV (Amazon) / Apple TV 4K (Amazon)
• AirTags (Amazon)
• HomePod Mini (Amazon)