Episode 981: Why you should care about Apple's big CEO change

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Introduction

0:30Welcome to the Macworld Podcast. My name is Michael Simon and I am joined today by Jason Cross. Good morning. And our producer, Roman Loyola. Ahoy there. This is episode number 981. And if you heard last week's show, we're talking about Tim Cook and John Ternus this week. We're a little bit late because we had a special guest last week and we wanted to give just a big amount of time to this because it's a, you know, it's a big deal.

1:06Apple's only had like seven, you know, I forgot to count, seven CEOs, eight CEOs. I was on my list of things to do and I forgot. There was a, there were a few years there where they went through them pretty quick after jobs left.

Apple Ultra Line

1:21We're also going to talk about Apple's rumored ultra line, the expansion of Apple's rumored ultra line. But we're going to start with that, then get into the CEO stuff. Then we'll have this week in Apple history and close as always with our common corner. Speaking of that, you can contact us through blue sky, Facebook threads, search for Macworld, look for the blue mouse logo, send us an email to podcast at Macworld.com. Send us a personal email, email, comment under a video comment under a post. Just, you know, get us your thoughts and we'll talk about them on a future show. So before we get into Tim Cook, um, if you listened to last week's show, our special guest was, um, Felipe Esposito, who is a contributor of ours.

2:01And he had last week published a story about the iPhone 18 pro colors. So we talked to him all about how he gets scoops and how he vets scoops and rumors and Apple and all that stuff.

iPhone 18 Pro Colors

2:13And then this week he has another one, which we were happy to publish on, um, Apple's upcoming folding iPhone and touchscreen MacBook will reportedly be fall under the ultra brand. So instead of the iPhone folds, which is what we've been calling it for like a year and a half or maybe longer, it's going to be the iPhone ultra and the MacBook, which we didn't really know what to call it is allegedly going to be the, um, MacBook culture. So that joins the chip, which is right now the M3 ultra and soon to be the M5 ultra and the Apple watch.

2:49Apple watch ultra is the biggest. So it's a theme where ultra means biggest, best, most expensive, fastest, whatever you want to.

Pricing Strategy

2:58Yeah.

Pricing Strategy

2:58We more expensive than pro is it's going to be the ultra, right? Yeah. Um, I always thought it was a little weird that they never did that. Like the Apple watch ultra wasn't just Apple watch pro. But I guess what's a pro watch, but like what's a professional watch, but it felt, it even feels like that it's for like kind of pro athletes, pro divers, pro, you know, I don't know. But yeah, I guess I get, this is the start of the ultra era.

3:29There's probably going to be some other ultra things to those, those AirPods. We heard AirPods pro three, but it's, it's not going to be a next generation air, but it's not gonna be AirPods pro four, but there'll be like an AirPods pro three with cameras to, for gesture controls. And so that's probably going to end up being AirPods ultra, you know, right.

AirPods Ultra

3:47Which will probably be two 99 or something or three. Yeah. They'll be more, and they'll be more expensive, but no, and then they'll keep the pros in there at their pro price. Right. Same thing with the MacBook and so on. You'll have your MacBook pro and then this Mac quick ultra will probably start at 29 99 or something. Yeah, I would think. Yeah. So right. The pro line is being pushed down to the, not the mid level. Cause now we have, so like MacBook Neo is like the, the, the base MacBook air is the mid range pro is the high end.

4:18And then this ultra is going to be like ultra high end, but it's, so it's, it's interesting because I don't see a tusk, a touchscreen laptop. As something that a, a pro user would use. So like to call it a, how that'd be part of the pro line. It's not only makes sense to have the ultra. It's like, oh, you're getting the best of everything, everything we have to offer in this thing. Yeah.

Display Quality

4:39Yeah. And, and I think the display will probably be better in ways that isn't just the touchscreen is, but the display so good on the pros already that, you know. Yeah. I mean, the rumors are that it's going to be OLED, which is better than mini led. But as Jason says, like the, the, the MacBook pro is so good. You're going to have to put them right next to each other to really see visually, at least the difference. The, the iPhone is interesting because so, you know, obviously Apple is not the first, second or third manufacturer to make a folding phone.

5:13They're, they're quite late to the game and, you know, to come out with the iPhone fold is like, okay, great. It's another folding phone to come out with the iPhone ultra gives it a completely different connotation in the, both the iPhone lineup and in the industry as a, as a whole. So Motorola, who is not a company that I ever really think of as like a, a big seller. Like I think of Google, I think, well, I know the, although I know Google doesn't really sell phones, but they're a big company.

5:44Samsung is obviously a big, a big phone seller, but Motorola holds like something like 50% of the folding phone market. So it's pretty small, like Apple is going to very quickly take over the mantle as the number one folding phone maker. I mean, Motorola has a lot in, in part because they were the first one to do the vertical flip. They kind of brought back the flip and they're better priced than like Samsung's. And so Samsung kind of made folding like a really high extensive thing.

6:16Like if you go into a carrier store now and look at the folding phones, like the only way to get out of there was spending less than a thousand dollars is, is like on a Motorola flip thing.

6:29But even though it's going to be real expensive, just the fact that it's the iPhone, right? Right. That, that's, it's instantly going to outsell any other folding phone. It's not going to be close. Yeah. And we, and, and that has absolutely nothing to do with whether it's good or good bargain or anything like a good deal. It's just, that's, that's iPhone inertia for you right there. I'm, I'm assuming it starts at 20, uh, 1999. Yeah. That's the best. Maybe in 2299, but I assume 19 just to keep it psychologically under two grand, but it's, it's going to be significantly more expensive than even the pro max.

7:07And, you know, by attaching that ultra name, it kind of sets you up for it's bigger and better, therefore more expensive than, um, the pro font. I think, you know, I, I think it's a good move. It won't be, so according to Felipe, it won't be the iPhone 18 ultra. It'll just be iPhone ultra. Yeah. Like the, with the ultra two, ultra three, ultra four, you know, right. Like what they did with the air and the, and the Apple watch. So, which is frustrating to me because they just fixed this with the OS, just fix this.

7:40And now they're going to be, well, here's a question. Do they get rid of numbers altogether? Like iPads don't have numbers anymore. Right. There was a brief moment there where they start and then they just said, nah, it's just the iPad max, of course, don't get numbers and stuff. So yeah, it's, as far as I'm concerned, it's far long past time to do that. But I think as a marketing thing, it might be useful, like the latest, because you have all these other companies trying to sell that.

8:14You don't really get that as much with the iPad and the Mac and stuff like that. But you have all these carrier companies who are, have a vested interest in selling you the latest iPhone and having a number, the latest iPhone 18 or something is easier than just a new, a new iPhone. But yeah, it is interesting what Apple chooses number and what it doesn't. So it's AirPods three and four, AirPods pro three and AirPods four. But like other things don't get numbers that seemingly should, like, will there be a Neo 2?

8:47I doubt it, but maybe. Right. I don't know. Yeah. No. I mean, other, no other MacBook does, but what? Maybe that one's different. Yeah. But this one's different, right? It's really kind of frustrating because you just have no idea when you are talking about something or when you ask somebody what they have, or somebody is trying to tell you because they want help with something to have any idea when they got something. You have no clue.

9:18The iPads are the hardest. Like iPad mini, I always have to go to like Wikipedia and be like, all right, first generation, second generation, third generation, because they're updated very haphazardly. And it's really hard to keep track of what even generation we're on now, let alone what the previous one was. Yeah. I'm in favor of everybody, of them going back, just like they did with the OSs, and just tying it to the years. Roman, I'm going to give you an assignment. If Apple numbered MacBooks, what would it be about?

9:48Like MacBook 75 or 83?

9:53I wonder which one we'd be on. All right. So, yeah. Look for the Ultra coming out, iPhone September. Felipe notes, as others have, that it's possible the folding phone gets released a week or three later because of manufacturing issues. And it's almost certain to be constrained. Like if you want one, you're going to have to really go quick. There'll probably be lines outside the Apple store like they've had in the past because there's not going to be many of them out there.

10:25These things are hard to make, even amongst the people who have been making them already. It's probably going to break through enough, like sort of Vision Pro did and stuff like that, where it gets onto the morning shows and local news and kind of stuff like that. You know, the new iPhone doesn't usually, but something like this probably would. For sure. Yeah, it's a brand new product. Study and play. Come together on a Windows 11 PC. And for a limited time, college students get the best of both worlds.

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CEO Transition

11:52And what's interesting about the whole CEO thing, like he was on stage when I went to New York. He did the Neo. It was very quick. But he did come out on stage and introduce the Neo. I don't know if he's ever been. Roman, maybe you know more than I do. Has he done an AI phone? He, I know he, he did the iPad. Okay. What was it? I forget what year. I was, that's, so just inside, behind the scenes,

12:23I created for our CMS, a GIF of John Ternus winking. And that was from a presentation. He was presenting the iPad. It was the iPad and the iPad Pro. Okay. Now I can't, it was really recent. I can't, I want to say 2023. Yeah, there was a, there was an event in 2023. Yeah. Just, just the last year's, what the event, it was, it was the one where they introduced the AirPods Pro 3 and all that stuff was at the awe dropping event or something.

12:54He had one of the sections in that where he was the guy to talk about one of the products. Like, you know, he wasn't the host, but he was, you know, and now we'll turn it over to John to tell you all about whatever. And I'm trying to remember what, what the product was. I did so much preparation for this and I did not prepare that.

13:13Roman, do you know, I'm going to look, I'm going to try to look real quick. Actually, Roman here, here, what you can do is go through the list of Apple CEOs and I will try to find what John Ternus did at the iPhone 17 event.

13:33Right.

13:38Isn't that the guy, the office name guy? Yes. It is, right?

13:48I never watched that show, but I do, I do remember seeing the name all over the place.

14:03Those weren't good years for Apple. Yeah, sure. Gil Emilio became CEO.

14:33You know, Gil Emilio was CEO when Apple acquired Next and he probably knew then that he wasn't going to be CEO anymore when he acquired Next, which was probably, you know, a relief to him. That's when Steve Jobs came back and some people would even argue that maybe Steve Jobs was really the CEO back in, you know, the Michael Scott, Mark, Mike, Mark all the days. Yeah. Cause I mean, he was too young and right. The story was that, yeah, there are different variations of the story, whether like he was

15:06too young to be CEO or he didn't want to be CEO, but he still wanted to pretty much control the company. Right. You know, uh, so then Steve Jobs and then Tim Cook and then John Ternus. Yeah. I always think of it as really kind of having three, uh, CEOs. Cause like you said, before John Scully and, uh, before Steve Jobs got kicked out, like he was, he was really the CEO. He was the co-founder. He was the chairman. He was the face of everything, you know, uh, he like nobody interviewed Mike Scully.

15:40They did Steve Jobs. Right. Right. Um, and then, but back in those days, CEOs weren't like personalities, you know? Right. But, but Steve Jobs was right. That's what I'm saying. He was the one. Yeah. That's what, yeah. Well, and some, they were just getting into that era at Microsoft. We, you know, we had, um, why is my brain blinking on Bill Gates, like Bill Gates and everything like, yeah. Um, I, I was thinking of the guy who came after, uh, you know, people like Gates and

16:12Jobs and stuff were like the celebrity CEOs, but he wasn't technically CEO, but everybody thought of him that way. He was the guy in charge of Apple. I think that's one of the reasons he kind of got kicked out is because he wasn't the person in charge of the whole company and, but he wouldn't let anyone tell him what to do. Yeah. Uh, so to me, there's like kind of three, there's John Scully who was around when, uh, Steve Jobs left and then he became the face of the company and then kind of nobody cared

16:42about the company anymore through like Michael Spindler and, you know, Armelio's time or anything like nobody even knows who those guys are. Yeah. I bet most Apple fans have no idea who those, like, you know, that whole era is just a void. Yeah. Yeah. And then, and then Jobs came back and this time he's like, no, but this time I'm going to be CEO. Nobody can tell me what to do. Right. So, so yeah, there's been, kind of hasn't been that many. Scully was hired by Jobs.

17:14We won't, this will not be a, uh, Apple CEO history show if you're bored. And so, so am I, but Scully was famously from Pepsi and Steve Jobs actually hired him. And the famous quote is, do you want to sell sugar water your whole life or do you want to change the world? And so he came on and Scully was important during those years. Like he, he was influential and, and you know, the, the Mac obviously came out in those years and you know, he, he has his place in history, but Apple didn't become Apple until Steve Jobs. Like that was when, when he came back as CEO, it became the company that did all these breakthrough

17:50things and you know, when he got sick and very quickly within like two years, he was, he was dead. Um, Apple could have gone completely off the rails and a lot of companies would have because, you know, Steve Jobs was a brilliant guy who had a hand in everything Apple did. And to pick someone that emulated him would have been a disaster. It would never have worked. Tim Cook was the absolute perfect CEO. I don't know if we said that it's at the time, but he was a, a perfect pick.

18:24There's a, there's a funny onion. I actually pulled it up. There's a, there's a funny onion story from, um, from those times. It says a weeping Tim Cook spotted screaming for help at, at Steve Jobs is tombstone because people doubted his ability. He wasn't a product guy. He wasn't that's just it. He was the operations guy. He was an operation guy. He was logistics. He was all about the, he was the guy who like worked with all of these suppliers to get everything manufactured in large scale.

18:56Yeah. And people said like, well, how is he going to create all these great things that Apple is known for? And quite frankly, he hasn't. There's really only three main things that has been introduced under Tim Cook's watch. Apple watch air tag. I'm sorry. Apple watch air pods and either air tag or vision pro, whichever you want to choose from those two. Like I'll put them together. Cause neither have been huge. That's it. Everything else has been, has been iterative. Uh, yeah, I would say, uh, like vision pro definitely hasn't gone huge, but air tags

19:30are huge. Yeah. Air tags are everywhere. Everyone knows what they, you mean when you say air tag, they know exactly what you're talking about. Sure. Sure. Sure. So yeah, they pay. It's funny. Cause those are any one of those things, maybe not air tags cause they're cheap, but like Apple watch or air pods on their own by themselves is a fortune 100 company. Like that's how huge these things are. Absolutely.

19:57And you know, they, they're, they're all successful. Apple watch is the best spelling. I think it's the best like watch forget smart. It is. Yeah. It's not even close.

20:06AirPods went from a joke. If you remember when they came out and there was the picture of the guy with the little buds in his ear and everyone was like, what on earth is this? And now they're the most popular earbuds and everybody copies them. Air tag Jason just said, you know, synonymous with Bluetooth tracking about a decade after tile came out. Oh yeah. And yeah. And vision pro, I know it's not a big seller. I stand by my original thought in that it wasn't supposed to be like, they know it's

20:37not going to be a big seller. They just needed to get it out there so people can, can, can use it. So developers can learn it. And that platform maybe under Ternus will become like a major groundbreaking, you know, whether it's glasses or goggles or whatever comes next, a major groundbreaking category for Apple in this space. We were wondering what, what Ternus said. He was most of the introduction of the iPhone air. Yes. Oh, I, you know, I found it and then I forgot again.

21:08But yeah, it started, it started with someone else, but then they quickly, Ternus became the one like talking about all the features and the battery life and the N1 and the, you know, the plateau and all that other kind of stuff. Right. Which was a huge product release. And they're really setting it up kind of deliberately. We were wondering why it kind of happened so fast. Right. Doesn't Tim Cook want to go out with all these great new products? And it's like, no, they want to set it up so that Ternus gets the credit for all these

21:41big new products. Right. That are, that are totally new. But we're not going to see what we could really consider the first John Ternus like products at Apple till at least like 2020. A couple of years. Because yeah, yeah, the whole rest of this year, all 2027, those products are well in development. They're way far along in the pipeline. It takes a long time to develop these things. Right. So things that are sort of his, he greenlit it from the beginning and shepherded it through

22:14everything. Like that's, those are at least a few years out. The first things that we're going to get to see that you can say, this is a John Ternus thing, or the things that can move quickly, changes in marketing, changes in services, pricing, stuff like that. Like those, those are all just kind of policy decisions and stuff that could change at a moment's notice, you know? Right. And that's what Tim Cook was so good at. Like you look at the MacBook Neo, like there's nothing new about the MacBook Neo other than

22:45it's, it's a, it's an inexpensive MacBook, which is where Tim Cook just excels. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like, like the entire thing is new. Like the teardowns have made it clear like, oh, this is soup to nuts, like a completely new thing. Completely. Made to look just like all the other ones so that they can make it cheap. And that's a big deal. But there's no, yeah, there's not going to be a product where we can say, this is a John Ternus's first real Apple product, you know, for a while.

23:16Yeah. By all accounts, Ternus has had a major part in the development of the iPhone Ultra. I mean, he's a, he's a hardware guy. I mean, he's, he's in charge of the product, the hardware products. Yeah. This is. But yeah. There's a difference between Johnny Ive and Steve Jobs. Like Johnny Ive wasn't greenlighting things. Steve Jobs said, Hey, no, we're making this. You do it. That's. So what Jason means is that like the first Ternus thing, like, like Apple watch wasn't even really a Tim Cook thing.

23:47Like there's reports that Steve Jobs had started it and the project, the project was underway. AirPods was 100% Tim Cook. Like he saw the, saw the, the prototype or it was a meeting or maybe he came up with this on him, whatever. He directed the project and, and, and, and it came to light and that was about six years after, um, he came on as CEO. So. Yeah. Now of course, it takes a while. It takes a while. Apple's much bigger with a lot more breadth and doing a lot more things now.

24:20So, you know, you could be, it's not necessarily going to take six years, but yeah. Anything, anything released this year or next year, even though they're going to pitch it as like, you're going to see people say it's Scully's first, whatever. I mean, not Scully. Scully. Ternus. Sorry. I'm looking at the, I have the page up. John Ternus' first product. It's like, no, no, no. These have been, this is a five year. He's at the end of a five year journey on this product. And things like pricing and marketing and stuff, those are the things that, that he'll

24:53have an immediate impact on if he wants. Like if they want to change how things are going, he can, those are the things he can change.

25:02Yeah. There was an article in, um, variety last week that talked about Apple TV and how he could have an impact on that and how shows are, are, are producing green lid and which ones come and which ones go and expansion of it and maybe buying a studio and increasing a library, like there are, there are ways. Right. He can have an impact on that stuff. Yeah, absolutely. That's a good example of the kind of stuff that could happen fairly quickly. Like it takes, it can take a long time to produce a new show, but like you said, buying a library, buying a distributor or anything like that, like those are all things that he

25:39could do more quickly if they wanted to do something. Right. But for better or worse, he's going to be tagged with iPhone ultra. Um, and the success of like, that's going to be on him and MacBook ultra and let's not forget the glasses are supposed to be introduced sometime this year, maybe early next year, but, but still shipped six months later or whatever, you know, but, um, so like some sort of smart glasses, like, uh, and all the new home products that come along with

26:10the new series. So yeah, they're really, his first six months are going to be packed with products that are different than all the stuff Apple made before, not just the latest model of something just it's faster now, like new products. So that's kind of exciting. Yeah, it is. And then selling it is what makes each Apple CEO unique. Like Steve jobs had his style, Tim cook at his style and turn us, you know, he's a lot younger than Tim cook, completely different personality.

26:40I looked it up. He's the same age. He's going to be one year apart from when Tim cook came on as CEO. Oh yeah. His age, his age now, 15 years ago. Yeah. Yeah. Is, is, I think he's one year older than Tim cook was when he was, or it's the other way around, but they're almost the exact same. Yep. Um, I, I said before, turn us was at the New York event. I went down to New York for them, for the Mac book Neo, not really an introduction, but like,

27:10kind of like, like they showed it off for the first time. Right. Right. And he did like a very, very short, like I'm talking like 45 seconds, maybe, uh, he entered the video that they showed on a screen and then they, we all went to look at it, but he's definitely got a quality. Like he's, he's affable. He's likable. You, you want to listen to him. Like you've, you've all seen him on some keynote. He's been a pretty big presenter for years now. And he's just, you know, he has a quality whether or not as CEO.

27:43That translates is, is another, like, it's another step. It's one thing to be a nice presenter. Like Johnny, I was a good presenter. I don't think Johnny, I would have been a good CEO. So we'll see. We'll see how that translates. But, uh, he's been with the company for a while. He's a hardware guy. He's very different than Tim cook. Uh, uh, uh, David price ran a story yesterday that, you know, he has like some of that Steve jobs stuff that made, you know, still like, like, like, you know, the perfectionist in him, you can see in, you know, his, the, the, the work he's done on, on max and on, um, on

28:18Apple stuff over the last, he's been with the company for a while. Is it, I think longer than maybe not longer than cook, but longer than cook's been CEO at least. So he's not, he's not a newcomer by any stretch. Uh, yeah, they, there's that, that sort of idea that Steve jobs was all about like the, no product was ever good enough. Like it really had to be perfect. And even when it went to market, he wasn't happy with like how perfect, you know, definitely go out there and tell you it's the best thing ever. But, you know, behind the scenes in private, he was like mad that they couldn't get it the

28:51littlest bit smaller or lighter or whatever. Right. There's that famous story about how when they were developing the iPod, um, he kept, they kept coming at him with designs and prototypes that were a little bit bigger than what the current iPod is. The first gen iPod was something closer to the size of a fancy Walkman. And he kept saying like, no, it needs to be smaller.

29:23You need to redesign that. Like the internals, it needs to combine stuff, make, take out more space. And he's like, there's no, they were like, there's no space in it. And he allegedly threw it in a fish tank. And then the bubbles came up, he said, all those bubbles, that's the space. Like that's the, I want you to get rid of all that. So supposedly John Ternus has a little bit of that same sort of quality, probably not as mean as Steve Jobs was, but like famously hard to work with, but that same sort of, it

29:59can always be better. We can get it just that little bit thinner, lighter, better, faster, whatever. Um, and back in the jobs era, it was like, they knew they were this small little underdog. The only chance they had of huge success was to be, to make a product that was just so much better than the competitors really stress over the quality of the product. Uh, and it got them a ton of press back then, Apple compared to the amount of stuff they

30:32sold, got way more press than everybody else. It was crazy. Um, so we might get back to that kind of era a little bit, whereas Tim Cook was just kind of the opposite thing. By, by the time he took over, Apple had a slate of good products and a good set of things in the works and he was all like, he was the logistics guy, the, the, how do we build things better guy. And he was responsible for a whole lot of advancement in like how precise the manufacturing

31:09of everything could be, the, like the margin of error of everything and how the fit and finish of everything. God, it's, it's hard to make 200 million phones with like sub millimeter accuracy and they're all like perfect. Like it's, it's kind of incredible in a way, but that was his contribution and it blew up the company. Yeah. Yeah. John Ternus is inheriting like a luxury yacht compared to what Tim Cook got. Yeah, exactly.

31:40So there's the, just real quick to go back to the Steve Jobs, um, parallel. Well, the story that, um, David wrote about was, um, Ternus describes that he was in a supplier facility and using a magnifying glass to count the number of grooves on the head of a, of, of, uh, of, um, uh, a screw on the back of the studio display. The, so he was not, not this studio display. We're going back 20 years, that studio display. Oh, the cinema display or something. Yeah. Yeah.

32:10In cinema studio, whatever it was. Um, so he counted them. He counted 35 grooves on the screw and he wanted them to have 25 groups. So we're talking about like microscopic things and that's the level of attention that Steve Jobs, like, like Jason just says that story, like that he had, if you look at like going back to the inside of the Mac, like the motherboard and the way the, uh, uh, Wozniak tells the story that he used to fight over and like, what, why are you worrying about the circuits?

32:41And Steve Jobs, like, no, everything has to be perfect on this thing. So when people take it apart, it's as beautiful on the inside as it is on the outside and, and turn his head, not that Steve and Steve, not that Tim cook didn't have that, but Tim cook, uh, uh, John turn is absolutely does. So it'll be exciting to see, you know, I, I started this off by saying Tim cook only introduced three or four products. There's a bunch that are going to come out that he's not going to get credit for, which is, which is pretty magnanimous of him.

33:12I think, because, you know, if I was Tim cook, I would want credit for the iPhone fold. I wouldn't give some other guy credit for it two weeks before it's going to come out, but you know, that's Apple, that's the Apple culture. It's like, it's, it's, it's, it's a weed thing, not a, not a meat. Yeah. The company is more important. Right. Right. Right. And, you know, even just handing over the company now, like Tim cook could stay on for 10 more years. He, he, he, he understands that the timing is, is good. He's going to obviously stay on in some capacity and help behind the scenes, but, um, it's

33:48a, it's a pretty exciting time. It's the first transition. Like I understand Tim cook with the transition, but Steve jobs dying was a different thing. Yeah. Tim cook handing over the company to John Ternus. Generally speaking, you get it in sort of big famous companies, you get a CEO transition only when, um, something bad happens. I was going to say scandal. Yeah.

34:14Either scandal or the board ousts them just because their business is not doing well or something like that. Or it's, you know, there's a crime committed or somebody dies like, you know, it's like, but you rarely get the opportunity these days for some CEO to be, to go like, no, I put in 15 years, uh, grew the company huge. We're on top of the world right now. Thank you. Good night. You've been a great audience.

34:44Like that's, that just doesn't happen very often. Yeah, it's true. Particularly when the company is worth $4 trillion. Right. Yeah. You know, um, it'll be, uh, we talked about this briefly last week. I'm curious to see if, does John Ternus lead WWDC? Do they do it together? Because at the beginning, you know, the, the Tim Cook has come out at the beginning of all the keynotes and then he hands it off, of course, but he's the face of the keynote. Like he's good morning. No, his, his thing. Yeah.

35:14And, you know, I'm curious to see if, does Tim Cook give that up? Does he do one last one and talk about the transition? Do they mention it at all? Do they ignore it? Yeah. There's a lot of questions. My guess is it's still going to be just Tim Cook, like hosting and handing it off to everybody to do their own things. Um, you wouldn't normally see John Ternus at a WWDC because they're so software focused and they don't really release much in the way of new product, but I think they're going

35:48to make sure he's got a prominent section for himself. I would think. Yeah. And, and I don't think they'll introduce him as your, your next CEO or something. They never really introduce. I CEO, if you will. Yeah. They never really introduce people by, by their job title anyway. They're just like, they go first named. Here's John. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So yeah, they'll, they'll, they'll probably just say, and here's John to tell you more.

36:20And then he'll have a cool transition. Over to him telling you about some, the next thing. And that could be a product because, uh, wouldn't surprise me if we got our, our M5 Ultras, our Mac studios. Those are very developer focused type kind of things. We could see those at WWDC. Yeah. That's another thing that, uh, Turner's is getting thrown into like a, a major supply crunch. Oh, like you can't, you can't get an M4 Mac mini right now. Like they're so hard because of all the RAND issues and the AI stuff that people bought

36:54them up. He's inheriting a really, really good short-term roadmap and a real massive, like logistical problem with suppliers and, and supply shortages and pricing problems and all that other kind of stuff. So yeah, it's going to be interesting to see him navigate that. Yeah. And of course, Tim Cook is, he didn't go anywhere. I'm sure Ternus has his number. He can give him a ring. I wonder if we'll just stop by, by WWDC.

37:30I would not be surprised if at WWDC, Tim Cook takes a minute in the presentation, maybe near the end to thank everybody for his time and that he'll, you know, that he's still going to be a part of Apple, but you won't be seeing him anymore and yada yada. I don't think they're going to do a formal sort of passing of the baton where he's like, this is a new CEO, yada yada. But yeah, just before he just stops being a part of these things at all, I don't think

38:01he'll be part of the September event. I don't think so either. Yeah. And WWDC will be his last, well, most likely his last televised or videoized event as CEO. So, yeah, I think, I, I think they, they have to mention it in some, I imagine they didn't do the press release and he just came out on stage and said, this is like, I'm leaving until the first. Yeah. But yeah, I think they have to, he has to say something at the end.

38:32I wouldn't be surprised if they appear together or something like that. Right. Like a, you know, a visual passing of the torch. I remember the iPhone, I think it was the iPhone four S event, which was right before Steve jobs died, like literally days before he died. And, um, they had a little, like the, they kept zooming in on a chair that said reserved as the event. Yeah. So like they knew, like that was kind of the passing of, you know, Steve jobs, like, unfortunately

39:04he died, but that was like the, the passing of the torch at an event. Like everyone kind of like took note of that. They did it three or four times back then they had live events. It was different. Right. It was different. Yeah. I do think they'll make some kind of some message, some, like it won't be a major thing, but I think they will talk about, you know, Tim Cook will thank everyone. Like you just said. Exactly. And, uh, he'll thank, he'll thank the Apple's fans and the developers and all the people, you know, I wonder how stressful of a job it is.

39:36Like, I mean, I like, I mean, that, that's a, that's a silly thought, but I wonder if he's happy to leave it or. Oh, I would imagine not because even at, even before he was CEO, he was a C-suite executive who like lived and breathed the company. Right. So you just kind of don't know what to do with your life. So I, and I, and I think he'll, he'll be involved every day. Like I think he'll, he's not going to make any product decisions or any of that kind of

40:08stuff, but I think he's going to, he has built a lot of international relationships. Apple is in a lot of precarious positions around the world with like antitrust lawsuits and all these things. And he will probably spend a lot of time talking to regulators and heads of state and all those sorts of things. Yeah. Trying to nudge things in Apple's direction.

40:34Yeah. It's an exciting time. And, you know, the, the new Siri stuff's going to come out soon and these new products. I feel like we've said that a bunch of times though. I feel like I have to, are we jinxing it? Yeah, I know. Like I would be really surprised if we didn't get the new Siri in September. It would kind of be a scandal if, if the 27 updates came out and didn't have like a really new, like a really improved Siri, Apple intelligence thing, you know?

41:05Yeah. All right. Well, September 1st, Ternus takes over September. Let me think. Hold on. I got to go to, I got to the calendar. September. What are we? Oh, for when the likely event is? Eighth, maybe September 8th for the iPhone event.

41:26Usually they're on a, they're usually on a Tuesday or Wednesday. Yeah. The second, second Tuesday or Wednesday of the month. So whatever that is. I'm going to guess eight or nine. Okay. And, um, the ultra line will get going most likely. And, uh, you know, away we go. Um, I think he's going to be judged on his first, um, like flop. Tomorrow morning is knocking. Stock your fridge now. How about a creamy mocha frappuccino drink? Or a sweet vanilla? Smooth caramel, maybe.

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42:27Six all new drinks are here. Try them all now at McDonald's. Refreshers contain caffeine. More so than his first success. This is a transition to, uh, to, uh, this week in Apple history. Um, because like, like, like Tim Cook had to deal with maps and like, you know, the way you handle those scandals, so to speak, are, you know, kind of end up defining you as much as like your, your, your big successes.

42:57And, um, well, this wasn't really a scandal, but it was, it was, it was, uh, it was like Steve Jobs had a, uh, uh, uh, what was it? 15, how many years ago? 15? No. Roman, how many years ago was the flash thing? So should I just officially segue to it? Yeah. Yeah. So I screwed the whole thing up anyway. So I just take it.

Comment Corner

43:19So this week in Apple history on April 29th, 2010. So 16 years ago. Oh, 2010. I thought it was in 2007. So it wasn't the iPhone or it wasn't the, the, it was the, well, it was because of the iPhone. So essentially, so the iPhone came out 2007. So, uh, Steve Jobs, he posted an essay that was titled thoughts on flash. And it was basically an essay that explained why Adobe flash sought Apple and why Apple wasn't going to support it on the iPhone.

43:53Now for people who don't know, maybe you're too young or people who don't remember the web basically ran on, on flash a lot. All these, all these silly games and stuff. Yeah. Yeah. So the flash or the flash, not, not the superhero technology flash was a technology. It'll be flash. Yeah. Yeah. It was a technology. It was a plugin technology that, you know, you put it in your browser and then your browser was able to run, uh, like animations or interact, mostly interactive stuff like games and things like that.

44:27Yeah. Yeah. Sort of vector animations and, and, uh, there were a lot of, like you said, a lot of games, but it also let people do sort of, it had really easy tools for making interactivity and linking things together. So you could do things like your dropdown menus and all that other kind of stuff for your, for your web apps. Um, the, the back then the sort of HTML five tools for making that stuff work in HTML were really, really clunky and slow and bad by comparison. So there was a ton guy.

44:58You guys remember new grounds. There was a ton of like great flash animation and cartoons and music videos and all this. If I remember it was relatively easy to use. Yes. It was very easy to use. To animate something and get it up on the web. Yeah. That was the main reason why it, why it proliferated. Yeah. Uh, but Steve jobs, he just didn't want to support it on the iPhone. Um, it was kind of, uh, resource hungry with a lot of browser stuff is, is recess.

45:32Even today, a lot of browser stuff is even browsers themselves are resource hungry. A lot of it because they have the support built in now. Yeah. It killed your battery life. I mean, there, it was supported in some other smartphones in their browsers. And if you went to a site that used flash, it was going to trash your battery life. The performance was bad. Like it was, but it was also necessary for some sites. Like a lot of, this was the beginning of people sort of building web applications and web sites that were applications.

46:03So they were like, how come I can't go to this website on my iPhone? So the iPhone and iPad were not the first, but among the first mobile devices that allowed you to access the so-called full web where they had like the, like other, like blackberries and stuff had like these, like really ugly mobile sites, which is links. So as Jason said, like you would go to a site that you liked with some cartoon or some game and it just was like a big box with a question mark. Like you weren't, you couldn't look at it. Yeah. It had that little Lego plugin looking icon, right?

46:36And it was just like, what is that like missing plugin thing? And yeah, you didn't know why it was bad. So, so yeah, Steve wrote that fairly long letter. Fairly long. I couldn't believe how long it was. Yeah. I don't remember it being, it's like, it's like 5,000 words. It's what, like today it would be, uh, I ain't reading all that. I'm sorry. Yeah, I know. Congratulations. Whatever it means. It's like, I'm not reading all that. I'm really sorry that happened to you or I'm happy for you. Yeah.

47:07But, um, you know, he was 100% right. And that decision helped usher in H, which is H.264, like the new, the advanced video codec that, that they all use now. Um, had he not done that, had flash existed on the iPad, you can argue that the web would not be as good of a place as it is today. Yeah. You really don't. Cause it forced flash out. Yeah. Part of the thing was that, uh, you only made flash stuff with Adobe's tools. It was very, it cemented sort of Adobe's PDFs were like, but PDFs were like that at the

47:43time and really aren't anymore either. So one wonders, but you really wonder if. The rise of smartphones, if, if they all supported flash would have also forced Adobe to really sort of optimize flash mobile and make their tools better for people to make mobile and test mobile stuff and everything. So you, I really don't know where it would have ended up, but it definitely killed flash to have like the rising star of the smartphone world say, no, we don't support flash. We're not going to support flash ever.

48:15Stop asking. And then a lot of stuff built HTML, uh, HTML five sort of dynamic and dynamic CSS like apps and stuff like that. A whole other tool set for building sort of interactive web pages. I don't know who Adobe CEO was, uh, then or now, quite frankly, but imagine waking up, uh, on April, what date was it, uh, Roman April, uh, 29th, whatever it was.

48:47And 20, yeah. And reading this thing, I'm like, Oh, like not only is it, is it scathing? It's very well thought out and it, it presents a very reason, very sober argument for why flashes is garbage. It also kind of glosses over the idea that they had just launched their app store. I think was the year before or about a year and a half before. So about that. Yeah. More importantly, they had just launched the iPad that was 499. I was on the verge of obviously taking over the entire world of tablets.

49:21So the idea that if somebody can make good web applications with good tools and good interactivity that Apple didn't have any control over, that was a problem for them. They're like, no, we want to control the tools that people make and we want to force them to make apps for the app store, not to, cause so many of the things that were app store apps could have just been flash apps. Well, like very easily. Yeah, absolutely. Probably be much easier to develop and they would run everywhere and stuff.

49:51So they weren't going to have none of that. So it was kind of very self-serving in another way, just besides looking out for consumers with battery life and all those other things. I think the letter kind of doesn't go, oh, and also we want to totally control app development for our platforms. Right. You know. Ironically, the iPhone, as Jason just said, the episode didn't come out until a year later. If you don't know the iPhone history, web apps were the thing, which were flash apps and the iPhone didn't support that.

50:21So they had a, that's why they didn't, they didn't really take off because developers didn't really embrace non-flash web apps. So Apple created the app store and, you know, there was this kind of history. What, what year, when did, when did the thoughts on a flash, when was that published? 2010. Roman. 2010. Right. Yeah. So like April, April 29th, 2010. Yeah. Right. And the app store had come out in the summer of 2008. Yeah. But, you know, it was, it was just, the iPad had either just come out or it was just going

50:56to come out for sale. Like I know it was introduced in January, but that's what this was in a response to, less the iPhone and more of the iPad because the iPad had that big screen and people wanted to play their games and watch their videos and stuff. And there was a ton of sites that didn't work. I mean, YouTube obviously worked and that, you know, was a big part of the iPhone. It was a, there was a, it was one of the few apps, the only third party app. Uh, no, they had Google maps too. Um, one of two third party apps on the original iPhone. So, you know, that also helped YouTube flourish, but it's funny to think of how different a

51:31world could be if Steve jobs would have, wouldn't have been so, so pigheaded about, about flesh and why he wasn't going to support it. And, you know, it, it ties into what we were just talking about. Like, you know, you're, you're judged by your mistakes. Had that not been the right move, and I don't know how that wouldn't have been, but let's say, let's say flesh ended up being the thing and the iPhone and iPad didn't support it. I mean that the whole entire trajectory of Apple changes.

52:03So how John Ternus handles that first, it's, it's not really a scandal, but the first, you know, issue, you know, like, like, like, like antenna gate, the way Steve jobs handle that, the way Tim Cook handle maps, like they're like these things that you have to react to as CEO, um, that'll be John Ternus's first test. Like, let's say the iPhone fold starts breaking or creasing or something, you know, like he's iPhone, iPhone ultra, sorry, starts breaking or creasing. Like he's going to have to respond to that.

52:33There's a new bend gate situation, right? Right. Right. Yeah. How he, how he deals with that. I kind of miss the days when it was before everything was a polished, um, video from the marketing team where the CEO could just like write 2000 words and, you know, like jobs had done that before there was that he thoughts on music was before that where he was all talking about DRM and the iTunes store and how, you know, they need to make music downloads interoperable

53:10between devices and everything. And it was as much, uh, just like the thoughts on flash, it was, you read it and think it's very much about sort of protecting doing what's right by customers and protecting customers and their experience and everything. But it also was a little self-serving as the iTunes store was blowing up and becoming the top place to get stuff. And yeah, the story, I couldn't find the obvious, obviously Apple removed it from their website, but, um, I couldn't find the full thing.

53:43Uh, you sent me a web archive link that I couldn't open for some reason, but PC world has the full letter published, but Mac world didn't. I think it's funny. You know what? We probably did. And it probably got trashed. Yeah. In the multiple times, the website's been completely overhauled since then. That's, that's, that's highly possible. Yeah. But, uh, we, uh, we have the whole letter is published on PC world though. We'll, we'll, we'll put it down there if you want to read it. It's, it's, it's very long, but, um, I'd love to know, like, did Steve jobs just write

54:15this stream of consciousness and say, publish this or did it go through like a whole board of directors and everyone? Right. Yeah. I wonder. I'd like to know that process. Uh, I did find, uh, Adobe CEOs, uh, response. So he was interviewed by the wall street journal. Uh, was he drinking?

54:36What's his name? Since we, none of us know, uh, Shantanu Narayan. Okay. I, I, I, yeah, it does not ring a bell at all. No. But, you know, he, he got onto the, you know, he went on the attack essentially. And, uh, the funny thing is, uh, when asked what kind of devices he used, he says he, he, he uses a Google Nexus one phone. Um, shocking. He, he said the, uh, the iPad was a good first generation device, which I think back

55:07then it was like, you know, had just come out, but it didn't, it doesn't make it sound like he's really used it. Um, right. No, Ryan, he basically said that the essay was a whole, it was like a smoke screen for Apple's inability to like optimize, you know, like it's always in certain ways. Yeah. They couldn't, they can't, they're saying nobody should have flash because they can't make flash run good. Right. Yeah. Right. Things like that. Yeah. Like, you know, cause like in the essay, Steve jobs talks about how, uh, flash is a big cause

55:41of crashes on the Mac. And here it says that, uh, actually that Narayan said that it all has to do with the Apple operating system. Sure. And he is actually still CEO of, um, Adobe. Good for him. Yeah. And, uh, he just, just announced just like last month announced that he's intends to transition away from CEO, just, just like, uh, Tim cook, just, you know, I'll be on the board or whatever, but they haven't announced a successor yet. So once there's a search for a successor and when there is, he's going to step away for

56:14it. So, but yeah, it's like 18 years or something. He's still a guy.

56:19Yeah. So I'll put a link to this. It's, it's, it's, it's behind a paywall on the wall street journal. So, uh, okay. If you have Apple news plus, you can read it generally. I don't know if that article is, is on there, but yeah, it's a pretty old article. You know, it's from 16 years ago. So, uh, uh, flash was deprecated in July, 2017. So it didn't last much longer after that letter. Yeah. No. Yeah. That's just funny. And it killed a bunch of fun websites. I miss sites like new grounds.

56:50You could just get lost for hours. Just looking at everybody's silly little experiments and dumb stuff and funny cartoons and whatever. Right. Actually, as this says in November, 2011, which is about a year and a half after the letter, Adobe announced it would no longer be developing flash. That didn't take long at all. No. But the guys, the guy made it through. He's still CEO. Well, yeah. I mean, there's their, their house was built on PDF and Photoshop and, you know, and now it's

57:22premier and everything. So yeah, they're, they're doing fine. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, that does it for Apple history. Now it's time for a comment corner. We got an email from David C who says, I'm hearing again about the possible future discontinuation of the iMac. I've had iMacs from great color to M series chips, six of them, and they have been family workhorses. If, and when that day dread day happens, what would be a reasonable replacement for about the same cost of Mac mini or a Mac book with a monitor and Apple one with a TV.

58:02Um, you know, back in March, people kind of forgot that like less about, you know, more than a month ago, six weeks ago, uh, Mark German said that Apple had an update plan for the iMac, but it's, but it's basically just going to be new colors. Uh, probably just a chip and chip upgrade. Yeah. Probably regular M five. Yeah. So, um, it, it, it is going to be upgraded.

58:34It sounds like who knows when it's updated, updated, updated, updated, updated, so yeah, it'll get an M five and some new colors. Um, and then, um, wasn't there a rumor that there's going to be a larger pro model maybe, or there's, there's two in the works. There's two, that's been a rumor for a while that there's going to be like an iMac pro. So, and I actually recently wrote something that will probably be showing up on the website by the time you read this.

59:05Wait, stop, stop, because let's, let's, let's table this whole discussion. David C next week, we're going to have an iMac show because, because we were just talking about what to talk about. And this is perfect. Okay. Okay. Roman story will be live. Okay.