Apple Without Tim Cook at the Helm: What Comes Next? | One More Thing

0:00 It's a new era for Apple.

0:01 Tim Cook is stepping down as CEO and John Ternus,

0:05 Apple's top hardware guy, is now steering the ship.

0:08 So let's talk about it.

0:09 I wanted to assemble a team to discuss where Apple is going next.

0:14 So joining me are two of my colleagues

0:15 with a long history of covering Apple products.

0:17 First up we have Patrick Holland, CNET Director of Content.

0:21 Hey, Patrick.

0:22 Let's start a new era now.

0:25 And also with us is Scott Stein.

0:27 He's CNET Editor at Large.

0:29 Hey, Scott.

0:29 Hey, let's get into the product future here.

0:31 Well, Tim Cook is still going to be with the company.

0:35 He's CEO for now, until the summer, until September 1st.

0:39 And then he's going to become the executive chairman on the board of directors,

0:44 where Ternus will then step into the CEO role.

0:47 Now Ternus is walking into Apple at a time

0:50 where a lot of factors are changing in the industry.

0:53 But Patrick, you know,

0:55 Tim Cook certainly did leave Apple in a pretty good state.

0:59 Let's talk about where things are right now.

1:01 He left it in a $4 trillion state,

1:03 which I think most people would be pretty happy with.

1:06 And I think if Apple's kind of like this amazing acoustic guitar,

1:09 Tim Cook was the one who plugged it in and amplified it and broadened.

1:13 We have four lines of, I thought, we have the Apple Watch just now, three lines.

1:17 How many different MacBooks and Macs do we have?

1:21 And we have new products like AirTags, Vision Pro, and things like that.

1:26 And that's not even to touch on like services like Apple TV.

1:29 On the whole of it, he brought Apple to more people,

1:32 brought Apple products, more more broadly there.

1:35 And I think for me, one of the things he did is also made Apple for a time,

1:40 a bit more political.

1:41 They weren't as shy to be secretive

1:44 about their thoughts and beliefs in their politics.

1:47 Going back to like 2014,

1:48 I actually worked at Apple and I was on the Apple retail team,

1:53 and we got to film Apple's participation in the San Francisco Gay Pride Parade.

1:58 It was a big deal.

1:58 Tim Cook was there.

1:59 A few months later, he came out publicly and there was this line he had about,

2:04 well, we like to keep our products secret.

2:07 We want our beliefs and values to be public.

2:09 And I think that's something up to a certain point

2:12 they have been able to do during during his tenure, maybe not during the gold,

2:17 statue for Trump moment that didn't feel very like public value-y.

2:21 On that last note, Patrick.

2:23 Yeah.

2:23 Apple said in the press release that, you know,

2:25 Cook will still be assisting certain aspects of the company,

2:28 including, quote, engaging with policy makers around the world.

2:32 You know, Tim entered this era

2:33 of Apple where things are pretty stable geopolitically.

2:36 And clearly, this is another whole new challenge for Ternus kind of going in.

2:42 And so it's clearly, a big benefit to Apple to still have

2:46 Tim Cook kind of hanging around in this respect.

2:49 Scott, kind of looking at where we're sitting right now,

2:54 what's kind of on your mind?

2:56 There's a lot of potential change that's coming.

2:58 The Vision Pro was the thing that, Tim Cook really tried to make happen.

3:03 And did make happen.

3:04 It didn't take off.

3:06 It's unclear whether it was ever really designed to at that price.

3:09 Glasses are the thing that are reported to be next.

3:14 And these are Meta Ray-Ban Displays.

3:16 Right now, There's a big backlash against glasses.

3:19 there's a lot of people getting pissed off about surveillance tech.

3:23 Rightfully so, and especially in this political climate.

3:26 Where does Apple go with that?

3:28 AI is Apple's other unsolved problem at the moment.

3:32 Hardware is a very important part of this picture.

3:35 So Apple making hardware that can run AI is a is a big piece in the puzzle.

3:40 And then the other part too is like how these products keep,

3:43 morphing and evolving now that there's a common chipset.

3:47 To me, the MacBook Neo is just one small part of that picture.

3:52 It's running a phone chip.

3:53 But, you know, I've I've gone for years about the iPad becoming a Mac.

3:56 But let's not just stop there.

3:59 You know, they're supposed to be a folding phone this fall.

4:01 And does that, evolve to become something of an iPad as well?

4:06 Are all of their devices going to kind of morph,

4:08 which they should, because they're running common chips,

4:11 and there's really no stopping any one

4:13 of them from taking on qualities of the other.

4:16 And I think that's a huge road ahead for what Ternus can do

4:19 with this, and redefining products and redefining

4:22 how people are using these products.

4:24 Here comes WWDC in June.

4:26 What everyone is talking aboutl,

4:28 what all the rumors are talking about is how this developers

4:30 conference is going to have a big focus on Siri.

4:32 And it's also kind of poetic because Tim Cook kind of came

4:36 into this role as CEO with Siri on the iPhone 4S.

4:40 And now, 15 years later, here comes, you know, the next level of Siri.

4:46 And I think that even though John Ternus is a hardware guy

4:49 and is very exciting to think about where hardware is going next,

4:51 and I want to keep talking about that.

4:53 The importance here of how well Siri is received and developed in its

5:00 next evolution really is going to impact all those things you talked about,

5:04 Scott, the glasses and and all where we're heading next

5:07 in hardware and how it's going to interact with these phones.

5:10 So this is a very big year with everything that we're touching on.

5:15 We're talking about folding phones.

5:16 Apple has something solved that is the bigger problem on those foldable phones,

5:21 which is not the the screen crease.

5:23 That's not a huge problem.

5:24 It's the software.

5:25 And so they have the most popular tablet people can buy.

5:29 They have software that people love that run on that.

5:33 And if you can imagine your iPhone on the outside

5:37 cover having iOS and then opening to that iPad OS version,

5:41 it just makes complete sense.

5:43 I don't know what you guys think.

5:45 Maybe, a Ternus era looks like,

5:47 but if we're talking about AI and assistance being used in new ways,

5:51 I want to see more on what Apple's doing with robotics.

5:55 I don't know if there's some wish list things

5:56 that you want to see John Ternus hit on first,

5:59 Patrick, but I think there's a lot going on with hardware lately,

6:02 at least in the buzz.

6:03 I think for me, the thing I look forward to is just seeing how Apple evolves,

6:08 because I see a lot of things in the phone

6:12 world outside of the US that aren't here.

6:14 A lot of Chinese brands that are doing very exciting things in terms

6:18 of hardware and, AI with the phones that we don't have here in the US,

6:23 like one of the most wild things I saw was at MWC was this Honor Robot Phone.

6:28 Essentially, it had kind of like a DJI Osmo pivot head

6:32 that would come out of the back of the phone and move around.

6:34 And I look back in the US and there's a reason the iPhone's popular.

6:38 It's a really good phone,

6:40 but there's not a lot of wild technology competing with it in our borders here.

6:45 So I'm excited to see how Apple, you know,

6:48 in that environment is able to add interesting features to existing products,

6:52 but also branch out stuff.

6:54 I mean, are we going to get another AirTag that has

6:56 like a little loop to put something in my wallet?

6:59 Are we going to get other product lines expanding?

7:01 And then there's a whole issue about glasses and stuff,

7:04 which I'm curious about, not excited about, but just curious.

7:08 Scott, what's got you excited, maybe,

7:09 is what you hope Ternus to kind of, put his focus on first.

7:14 There's a lot to focus on, clearly.

7:15 In the current AI environment, it would be Apple's in the driver's seat to try

7:21 to figure out some solutions that could focus on personalization and privacy,

7:25 but also when I think about, you know,

7:28 Apple's always selling us another product for another specific thing.

7:31 The reason I always get upset about the iPad and Mac not fusing is because

7:35 there are a lot of things you could do with the stuff you already have.

7:38 It may seem silly to people.

7:40 I plug in a pair of glasses to make a large monitor for the phone.

7:43 This capability is there if people want to do

7:46 stuff anywhere and make the most out of things.

7:48 There are ways Apple could expand the interconnected capabilities

7:52 wirelessly or via USB plug ins and make that easier.

7:57 And I think those would be very transformative.

8:00 But we also have to get out of the mindset of like,

8:03 selling everyone so many different products and push more

8:05 about what you can do with the one you have.

8:07 There is a new way, maybe, of needing to think about the future,

8:11 but certainly with how they're set up for services and how

8:15 many products that are in the pipeline that are rumored,

8:18 it's going to be some interesting times in the next year,

8:20 but we still get one more Tim Cook,

8:22 and I would hope right for WWDC we get one more “Good Morning”.

8:27 The other thing I think real quick with Tim Cook

8:28 is he's going to be executive chairman of the board.

8:31 And he's replacing Art Levinson,

8:33 who is the founder and CEO of an aging health tech company.

8:37 Right.

8:38 So I think one of the legacies with Tim Cook that has been

8:41 the expansion into kind of not only

8:44 fitness but health and well-being around products,

8:46 and I'm curious to see if that will continue under Ternus.

8:50 I hope so, thank you, Patrick and Scott for joining me.

8:53 Thanks for watching,

8:54 and be sure to read up on tons of coverage as cnet.com as we

8:59 talk about what's changing over the next couple of months with the new CEO.

9:04 I'll catch you next time for One More Thing.