You can encapsulate Apple’s approach to innovation in four words, according to a new profile of CEO Tim Cook: ‘Not first, but best.” It’s not a new sentiment, but Cook doubles down on it in a long magazine article that came out over the weekend, complete with interesting tidbits about his life and journey with Apple, past and present.
As in a colorful side note: The man apparently loves Diet Mountain Dew. And yet Apple Park doesn’t stock it, so he doesn’t get to drink it as much as he used to. Theory: Tim himself banned it in an act of self discipline.
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With Apple seen as behind competitors on rolling out artificial intelligence features, Cook elaborated on the “not first, but best” philosophy he now applies to Apple Intelligence in the long piece Sunday in WSJ.Magazine:
“We’re perfectly fine with not being first. As it turns out, it takes a while to get it really great. It takes a lot of iteration. It takes worrying about every detail. Sometimes, it takes a little longer to do that. We would rather come out with that kind of product and that kind of contribution to people versus running to get something out first.”
Not that there’s anything necessarily wrong with being first, mind you.
“If we can do both, that’s fantastic, Cook added. But if we can only do one, there’s no doubt around here. If you talk to 100 people, 100 of them would tell you: It’s about being the best.”
The keys of focus and saying ‘no’
Photo: Apple
As for Cook himself, he often is first, if you go by how he gets up ridiculously early in the morning. He’s up and busy with email and sales reports via iPhone before 5 a.m. Then he exercises to a classic rock soundtrack, tracking activity on Apple Watch. Then he’s off to Apple Park with MacBook Air, MacBook Pro and iMac, or on the road with iPad Pro. So he embodies the company’s ethos of “every day, every product.” No big surprise there.
Cook emphasized the importance of focus in Apple’s strategy. And that includes the sometimes-difficult task of saying “no” to what might be quite good ideas.
“The key for us is focus, saying no to really, really good ideas so you can make room for the great ones,” he said. This approach has led to successful products that were initially met with skepticism, such as the iPhone, iPod and AirPods. So back in the day, people hated that the then-new iPhone lacked a physical keyboard, iPod cost a lot compared to a portable CD player and AirPods fell out of people’s ears. The contempt seems silly now, but it was real, and iterative improvement in those products later left it in the dust, all but forgotten.
How this fits with Apple Intelligence
The piece discusses Apple’s recent ventures into spatial computing with Vision Pro and artificial intelligence with Apple Intelligence. Cook believes these innovations will profoundly change how people use technology.
“We weren’t the first to do intelligence,” he said. “But we’ve done it in a way that we think is the best for the customer.”
He says of Apple Intelligence, “I think we’ll look back and it will be one of these air pockets that happened to get you on a different technology curve,” likening the tech’s impact to that of an iPhone touch interface or an iPod click wheel. He often describes Apple Intelligence as “AI for the rest of us” (as in more humanized and routinely productive, less scary).
And prior to the first batch of AI features coming in iOS 18.1 for most people, Cook has come to rely on some. For example, he used to read long emails routinely. Now he uses the Summary feature. “If I can save time here and there,” he said. “It adds up to something significant across a day, a week, a month.” And he added, “It’s changed my life. It really has.”
Understanding Tim Cook and Apple’s take on innovation
Photo: Leander Kahney/Cult of Mac
Cook’s leadership style and background get some focus in the profile. Growing up in Alabama, he was the first in his family to attend college (after playing trombone in his high school band, by the way). He joined Apple in 1998, attracted by Steve Jobs’ vision despite the company’s financial struggles. When he became CEO in 2011, Cook sought out Jobs at home and got some advice, on the day before Jobs died of pancreatic cancer: “Don’t ask what he would do — and just do what was right.”
Under Cook’s leadership, Apple has become more predictable, less mercurial — and way more valuable. He maintains a low profile and prefers to keep the focus on Apple’s products and their impact on customers’ lives.
And for Apple, the path to that impact comes in the innovation that, rather than being the great idea, follows the great idea. The article touches on Apple’s design process and the challenges of bringing products to market. Richard Howarth, VP of industrial design, spoke about the Vision Pro, which lacks a killer use case but is still a miraculously cool product with huge potential: “That really is why we did this product. It’s got the ability to do things that the other products can’t do.”
‘Everything gets better’
Cook acknowledges the high price point of the Vision Pro but remains optimistic about its future.
“Over time, everything gets better, and it too will have its course of getting better and better,” he said. “I think it’s just arguably a success today from an ecosystem-being-built-out point of view.”
Throughout the article, Cook’s belief in progress and optimism shines through.
“I love the emerging world. I love the idea for a bunch of people to feel like tomorrow is better than today — the dream, the belief that you’re going to stand on your parents’ shoulders,” he said. This philosophy seems to drive both his personal approach and, to some extent at least, Apple’s corporate strategy.