back
8 comments
John Siracusa is an icon in the Apple community. It is significant that he's calling for new leadership.

I also would like to see a new CEO. Even so, I don't see it as necessarily leading to better treatment of customers or developers. Arrogance seems to have become part of the culture at Apple, and if a new CEO is an insider, they may continue to think that Apple is solely responsible for the iPhone's success (ignoring the work of other devs and apps), and deserves 30% or more of the revenue from the App Store.

I think arrogance has always been part of their culture – partners have _always_ hated working with Apple. Personally I believe it's the shifting dynamics of no longer being the underdog that slowly has eaten away at their core values.
Steve Jobs was able to get Microsoft to keep writing Office for the Mac, MS and Adobe to support OS X, the music labels to come to iTunes, Disney to iTunes, app developers to come to iPhone, and Netflix to come to the iPad.

Apple now can’t get anyone to support new platforms

> Steve Jobs was able to get Microsoft to keep writing Office for the Mac.

That was a contractual arrangement. Apple agreed to make Internet Explorer its default browser on macOS for 5 years, and Microsoft agreed to continue to offer the Mac version of Microsoft Office. Also, Microsoft was allowed to purchase $150 million in non-voting Apple stock.

I was in the audience when Steve announced this deal at MacWorld Boston in 1998. This was the famous "Microsoft doesn't have to lose in order for Apple to win" speech, after the audience booed when Bill Gates’ face was displayed on a large screen.

And let's be clear: Microsoft had run afoul of antitrust laws, so having Apple being seen as a viable company was in Microsoft's best interest.

After the 5 years were up, Apple introduced Safari.

They went from the company that everyone loves to hate, to the company that everyone just hates.
I think Tim Cook will retire once the Trump era is over.

For better or worse, he seems to have a decent relationship with Trump—as good as can be expected given the situation. Whoever Cook's successor is, it's going to be someone Trump has never heard of, which would be bad for Apple.

Yet they are the only ones with the balls to give us private messaging out if the box.
I'm kind of sad this wasn't about the pastry :(.