Is Cook undervalued?

Text | Xinyan, author | Liu Sixuan, editor| Sang Mingqiang

After entering the Cook era, Apple played the capital game clearly.

From a market capitalization of $3 billion to more than $300 billion, Jobs spent fifteen years at Apple. As the man chosen by Jobs, Cook did not disappoint him: in 2018, Apple's market value exceeded $1 trillion for the first time; two years later, the market value doubled, turning 1 into 2, compared with the $300 billion market value when Jobs left office in 2011, Apple now has just one more "0" in market value, successfully punching $3 trillion.

But the outside world's doubts about Cook have not stopped: there are many views like Apple is losing its ability to innovate and Cook is enjoying its success.

Continuity is more like a chore full of thorns than to create an era, if Jobs single-handedly created an innovative revolution in mobile phones, then Cook's value lies in the survival of Apple. Jobs's legend is difficult to reproduce, just like there will be no second Musk, the difficulty of operating Apple, on the one hand, comes from the operation and expansion pressure of Apple's inherent system, on the other hand, from the psychological game implicitly exerted by the outside world.

Cook is not a good product manager to be seen, and as the successor to "America's Greatest Innovation Leader," he is more of a professional manager. Since he took over apples, the voices of the apple have been heard, but in terms of results, these have not prevented him from carrying out a drastic reform of Apple: changing "Apple's Cook" into "Cook's Apple".

The "Betrayal" of the King of Shoucheng

In August 2011, Cook, who had worked at Apple for 13 years, took over Jobs.

Two months later, Jobs's death heralded the end of an era. As the new head of Apple, Cook is standing on the shoulders of giants, and this special identity makes him always face two inevitable: to be noticed and to be compared.

The Apple under Jobs can be summed up in "mavericks". Mac, iPod, iPhone, iPad, each product line exudes Jobs's unique understanding of technological life, he once mocked Microsoft as "the biggest problem is no taste", and Apple has a difficult to describe style, or temperament. "The Apple under Cook is still not an Apple", this is the first choice Cook faces after taking over.

He spent 12 years at IBM, moving to computer wholesaler Intelligent Electronics until the company was acquired by Microsoft, and joined Apple at the invitation of Jobs after Compaq became vice president of materials management for 6 months. As soon as he joined, Cook closed warehouses, cut suppliers, drastically reduced Apple inventory and improved turnover efficiency, solving Apple's urgent needs at the time, Greg Joswiak (now Apple's senior vice president of global marketing) once praised him for his high degree of business intuition, which is why people are more accustomed to defining Cook as a businessman.

In Apple, which is accustomed to breaking the convention, Cook's appointment seems a bit bland.

During that time, Cook desperately needed to prove himself to the outside world. As a result, on the product, the iPad mini and iPhone 5c have appeared successively, positioning the low-end and trying to sink; in terms of design, the screen size has increased, and the UI has transitioned from a skeuomorphic style to a flat, mechanical Home button to a virtual one. Externally, in order to calm the accusations and save the image, Apple finally lowered its posture, took the initiative to assume social responsibility, and changed its attitude in terms of foundry working conditions, environmental policies, fund construction, etc.; internally, the management is more tolerant and moderate, the proportion of cash dividends continues to increase, and it intends to use new means to retain talents.

To some extent, Cook made Apple grow different traits from its predecessors, but these changes, consumers do not seem to buy it. Apple's conference is no longer exciting, and the pursuit of new products has also changed from expecting innovation to a consumerism trap: map gate, battery door, frequency reduction door, curved door, a series of quality problems, so that Apple is "group ridicule" almost become the norm.

"If Jobs were there, he wouldn't..." The phrase is still being quoted. People accuse Apple of failing to come up with products that shock the world again, and the existing product lines have lost their luster in iterations. Every improvement is full of compromises, every generation has been abandoned, even the latest release of the iPhone 13, but also fished out a number of "mouth suspect integrity" .

The apple aura created by Jobs is fading.

Internalize experience

Jobs once confessed, "Cook is not a person who makes products. ”

In a product-centric company, you may not know or care about what Cook can do without products. After combing through Cook's past decade, we found that he focused on about three things: supply chain optimization, product segmentation, and ecological creation.

The supply chain is a sharp weapon for Cook, who has turned the low-point Apple into a turnaround. After taking over Apple, Cook's traditional craftsmanship did not fall behind, and continued to shine in his area of expertise. For example, he broke through the data barriers between suppliers, assembly plants and channels to obtain more accurate sales forecasts and inventory statistics; cut the number of suppliers and warehouses, forcing suppliers to improve supply capacity and quality, which can be seen from the fact that Apple is still strong under the global supply chain crisis caused by the epidemic.

Unlike Jobs, who opened the market with his fist products, Cook was more concerned about segmentation.

The root cause of this situation lies in the transformation of the general environment. With the continuous influx of new players, consumer electronics into the stock era, the blue ocean into the red ocean, has always pursued high-end Apple, has to change the perspective, to provide some options for the low-end market, including iPad mini, iPhone 5c attempts, and now distinguished from Air and Pro's basic iPad, 3000+ can be obtained iPhone SE, Apple's low-end solution has taken shape.

Apple's approach is essentially an application of the razor pattern.

Absorb more users through low-cost devices, and then use the powerful Apple ecosystem to trap users and create consumption from the supporting hardware and software. For the user's professional needs, Apple Pencil is the best response, Jobs once expressed disdain for the traditional stylus, "Who would want a stylus?" So, when the first Apple Pencil was released in 2015, many people joked that Cook punched Jobs in the face.

Regarding the Apple Pencil, Apple's original idea was to match the iPad to meet the creative needs of artists. However, no one expected that today, a few years later, Apple Pencil will begin to become an important tool in the paperless revolution. Students, white-collar workers, painters, an iPad, most of them have a Pencil, and the same as the iPhone and iPad of the year, Apple Pencil has changed the concept and changed the life, but in the eyes of geeks, there is no distinct span.

"Innovation doesn't have to be change, it's about making something better." Apple in the post-Jobs era did not come up with a landmark category like the iPhone and iPad, but upgraded the user experience and improved the penetration rate of the product (the iPhone became an arcade), from this point of view, Apple does not seem to deviate from the original direction of action, but has been internalized to make products and services more in line with user needs.

Although this change once made people feel that Apple was experiencing "softening".

Next 10 years

"Artificial intelligence, augmented reality, automation." This is the direction Cook revealed.

Judging by Apple's recent developments, it corresponds to two product lines and a strategy: helmets, cars, and ecology.

Last year, Apple added AR technology to the invitation to the iPhone 13 conference: using the latest version of the iOS device, clicking on the Apple logo floating in the page can automatically activate the ARKit browser and trigger the AR experience. After calibrating the environment, the user will see an Apple portal that houses the Alpine Lake, and the closer you get, the larger the picture inside the Apple and the clearer the date of the launch hidden in it.

This small special effects Easter egg is not complicated, but people can't help but look forward to the launch of Apple's MR helmet.

In the extra-crowded car track, Apple also moves frequently in parts and talent reserves, speculation about Apple Car is overwhelming, and Apple's own "Swan Elegy" driverless car has appeared many times to attract people's reverie. To some extent, Apple's car manufacturing is inevitable: in 2014, Apple launched the "Titan Plan" of sword-pointing car manufacturing, which included engineers from Chrysler, Tesla, And Ford and other car companies; in 2016, it transformed into the development of autonomous driving technology; in 2021, it launched a car-making plan again and cooperated with Japanese and Korean automobile companies.

Only from the recent news, it seems that personnel turmoil and high-level departures may delay the advent of Apple Car again. The current leader of Apple's car-making team is Kevin Lynch (Apple Watch software executive). The division of labor is also clear, Apple will be responsible for the shape of the industrial design, infotainment systems and battery technology, of course, including the self-driving chip that is said to have been basically designed, and the rest of the car manufacturing links will be handed over to third-party manufacturers.

In the eyes of the outside world, Apple's own ecological construction is the key to the prominence of future products.

In addition to several known product lines, medical health and smart home are also the main battlefields of Apple in the next decade. Apple under Cook is no longer single-minded, and its tentacles are increasing, moving towards a wider range of areas. It's starting to look more and more like its old rivals: trying to cover everything and use technology to cover every corner of people's lives. When apple's era will end is a difficult question to answer, but what we can be sure of is that Cook spent 10 years drawing a "0" for Apple.