Tim Cook could step down as Apple CEO 'as soon as next year

https://9to5mac.com/2025/11/14/tim-cook-step-down-as-apple-ceo-as-soon-as-next-year-report/

42•achow•1h ago

Comments

bnchrch•45m ago

If you check my comments Im a routine critic of Apple. Specifically its mis-management of Siri.

But, in my mind, Tim Cook is also responsible for the only exceptional qualities of Apple. Namely its production of the M series chips and the Vision Pro (yes really).

They better have someone outstanding in mind as a replacement.

Otherwise I could easily see the successor mildly improve Siri/AI functions, while continuing Apples new disastrous design language and drop the ball on the supply chain and vertical integration that makes their hardware products second to none.

dude250711•38m ago

With the right visionary, $2k phones and $500 textile cases will not be impossible...

epolanski•38m ago

Changing chip is way too little of an accomplishment in 10+ years of leadership of what was once the biggest tech company on the planet.

The company isn't growing from years, and it's only saved by the positive offset coming from advertisement and app store growth.

pshc•34m ago

MacBooks outclass any other laptop in the market thanks to those chips.

wk_end•17m ago

Listen, I don't really like the direction Apple has taken either, but since Tim Cook became CEO of Apple in August 2011 the company's stock went from like $15 to like $275; it had a value of $400 billion and now it's worth $4 trillion, ten times as much. Any characterization of him as some kind of failure who killed Apple ("once the biggest tech company on the planet", "isn't growing", "only saved"...) is completely out-of-touch.

sharts•8m ago

How can we be sure this is specifically due to Cook and not the ecosystem overall?

A lot has changed since 2011. Some was likely Cook continuing execution of things lined up by Jobs. Some could just be tech sector in general, etc.

manmal•7m ago

It sailed on Jobs‘ monumental accomplishments, and still does. Including AirPods and Vision Pro, much of what fell into Cook‘s era was already well underway when Jobs died. Cook is a fantastic executor, fulfilling Jobs‘ legacy. But the tank is empty now, has been for a while.

victorbjorklund•12m ago

It’s not the only thing. The scale up of Apple is massive and so is the supply chain. Those are not really things consumers don’t see directly (just indirectly)

827a•35m ago

Ternus is the leading candidate; VP of Hardware Engineering. He was very likely more directly responsible than Cook for all the things you liked about Cook's Apple.

My fear for Apple right now is how most decisions they make appear to incentivize them toward becoming a perpetual middle-man in all aspects of your interactions with their products. They don't manufacture much of anything anymore; its on-contract. They design the M-Series chips, but don't make them. Their software sucks; they'd rather just take 30% of your interaction with actually-good software. Their AI and search sucks; they just pay Google $30B a year for theirs. Etc and etc.

nadermx•24m ago

What incentive do they have otherwise?

rhubarbtree•10m ago

Wait, Apple Pay Google for search?

alberth•6m ago

Ternus team didn’t create M-series.

Johny Srouji team did instead.

https://www.apple.com/leadership/johny-srouji/

https://www.apple.com/leadership/john-ternus/

comrade1234•40m ago

Word is the next CEO is going to be picked ala Charlie and the chocolate factory. I hope that when you bought your Miyake iPhone sock you kept the bone-white ticket naming you the next CEO.

PedroBatista•37m ago

The type of guy Cook is, was the “best” and safe choice for a company like Apple on the trajectory it was. Now everyone is a multimillionaire on the bank but the culture inside is quite hollowed out. Good luck for the next guy, he’ll need all of it.

vlark•26m ago

Bring back Woz.

usui•24m ago

How serious is this comment? As a thought experiment, this intrigues me. Imagine Steve Wozniak suddenly pops in as CEO. What might happen to the company in the following years?

amlib•15m ago

I would like to think it turns into VALVe

unpopularopp•12m ago

So more lootboxes and illegal underage gambling everywhere? Cool bring it on!

Also I'd imagine a Valve like Apple would only release a new phone or laptop every 5 years or so lol

usui•6m ago

Valve is privately-owned with its BFDL potentially owning half of it. We also haven't seen a leadership transition yet. It could relatively quickly go entirely bad after Gabe Newell is gone.

PaulCarrack•13m ago

I don't know if OP is serious, but more than once, his name has come up on this topic in discussions in the past that I've had with people in my social circle who work at Apple. He obviously gets much respect and is considered an engineer's engineer.

I don't think anyone would be against Woz stepping into to revitalize Apple. The real question is whether Woz would do it.

hackerbeat•19m ago

Only Craig Federighi can turn the ship around.

ryandrake•19m ago

Cook's been great for massively scaling Apple (and its stock price) up, but the art, vision, and soul of the company is gone. It's just a stock price maximizing lawnmower now, just like every other corporate stock price maximizing lawnmower. If that's what shareholders want, fine, I guess. But I'd be bored just manufacturing the same boring rectangles every year. I think Steve would have been, too.

gyomu•12m ago

Steve wanted to become chairman of the board and teach at Stanford. Given how much he trusted Tim, I’m not so sure the company would have taken a dramatically different path had he been around longer.

skywhopper•10m ago

They’re still not quite as bad as most alternatives but yeah, most of the principles that made them stand out are falling away.

tptacek•3m ago

I couldn't disagree more. Some of the worst Apple computers I've owned date to the Jobs era. All of the best have been from the Cook era. Apple Silicon has been an enormous success.

(My first Apple was a TiBook, for what it's worth.)

cryptoboy2283•14m ago

He's cooked

grumblingdev•10m ago

Yes!!! Such great news.

Apple has really gone to shit. I am confronted by Apple performance and bug pain every hour of my life. I always think: how can someone think this is acceptable? Steve Jobs wouldn’t.

Everything is such trash I could go on for hours.

I realized a long time ago that if the person at the top doesn’t care then no one will. It seems hard to believe but it makes sense when you consider individual incentives, politics, and the complexity of software. Everyone wants a safe promotion and doesn’t want to take the risk to push things forwards.

Apple Silicon seems great but the Intel MacBook was the worst piece of shit ever so they kind of had to. I have a 2019 that was the top of the line but can’t do anything without overheating. It’s barely usable for any second laptop tasks.

loloquwowndueo•9m ago

Wow such anger.

> I am confronted by Apple performance and bug pain every hour of my life.

Why do you keep buying Apple then?

UnreachableCode•5m ago

Is it at all possible he has an Intel Mac from 2018 that he hasn't been able to upgrade yet, likely due to insane cost?

Bedside that's my thing

rilindo•4m ago

Person probably issued Apple laptops from work, which, funny enough is probably why they get performance issues, as work is going to drop in the usual CPU killing anti-virus and other corporate tooling.

chihuahua•3m ago

Even without buying Apple, many jobs issue mandatory MacBooks. I can understand the frustration of having to deal with these. In my case, it's mostly the window management aspect of MacOS that infuriates me. I even spent $30 of my own money to buy uBar to make it a bit more usable. But uBar itself is buggy so it's not a perfect solution.

risho•4m ago

their software is not great but they literally make the best hardware on the planet right now. you don't get to being a 4 trillion dollar market cap by being trash. they must be doing something right.

gyomu•8m ago

I worked with John in the 2010s, brilliant guy, very human too. Couldn’t think of a single better person at the company.

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