The much predicted succession of Apple’s top management is underway. In a community letter from Tim Cook, Cook announced that he is transitioning to Apple’s executive chairman and as long expected, John Ternus, the current Senior Vice President of Engineering, will succeed him as CEO.
Although I am a long term, happy resident of Apple’s walled garden, I’m not really one of the Fan Boyz so I can look at Apple relatively dispassionately. I do think their hardware is better than the competition’s but the thing that keeps me in the Apple ecosphere is their privacy story and a perceived concern for their users. I’m not completely naive about that concern but at the very least it’s better than what you get from Google and the Android vendors.
There’s plenty not to like though. The worst of those things is Apple’s embracing of advertising. Much of their privacy success and user-friendliness comes from their not being an advertising-based company. For companies like Apple, ads are a corrupting influence that is antithetical to privacy and that ultimately replaces the user with the advertiser as the customer. When you think about, many of Apple’s perception problems are rooted in advertising.
By all accounts, Ternus is concerned about Apple’s customers and cares about Apple’s “insanely great” reputation. Perhaps he’ll nudge Apple away from advertising and back to the customer.