Dear @tim_cook: Is It Time To Retire?

The entire Apple community is disappointed in the company's retreat from its promises for Apple Intelligence. This could have been avoided and might lead Apple customers to stop trusting the company.

I’ve wanted to write something about how Apple has handled Apple Intelligence since I experienced so much disappointment in using what they delivered. Image Playground? Flashing lights on my iPhone 16 Pro? But I’ve struggled because the news has been evolving so fast since the company admitted it couldn’t deliver what it promised for at least another year. So first I want to acknowledge two observers who have said what I would have said if I had been as fast as they were. Ben Thompson contributed a history of Apple that sets the table for what may happen going forward with the company; listen to it. John Gruber provided an emotional mea culpa in Daring Fireball that acknowledged that he was mislead by the remarkable track record the company has had of delivering what it promises; read it. These two helped me get to where I am now, to wit:

Dear Mr. Cook: I’m thinking that you need to set your succession plan in motion. What you’ve accomplished in the last 15 years as CEO is remarkable, really unprecedented in terms of value creation. Apple was the first $1T company ever. It is now kissing $4T and worth more than 10 times what it was when you became CEO. That’s a heck of a track record to go out on.

The alternative is signaled by what has happened since Apple “announced” Apple Intelligence at your Worldwide Developers Conference last year. In the intervening 9 months, it has become clear that you did not understand what you announced and certainly didn’t understand what was needed to deliver that promise. Your recent admission that you can’t deliver the core promise of Apple Intelligence on schedule has resulted in a re-organization of your executive staff. But is that enough?

Apple has built trust with its customers over the past 25 years into a competitive advantage that few if any companies can match. You design your own silicon, you design your own hardware products, you design your operating systems, you built and manage your own services, and you sell your products to your customers directly online and through your stores. You have lead Apple through each of these accomplishments almost flawlessly.

But announcing vaporware last year and then admitting that you don’t know if or when you can deliver it is the very essence of an existential threat to the trust that the company has earned. You actually announced Apple’s approach to artificial intelligence and hung the company’s brand on it. With that single decision, which had to have been made by you, is a bell tolling for Apple in a world that will be defined by artificial intelligence. After being such a steady hand on the tiller of the Apple ship, you decided to spin the wheel and see where it landed, publicly.

No one knows what artificial intelligence will bring to us. No one, not Sam Altman, not Elon Musk, not any of the people who are predicting the future that will either enhance humanity or end it. But Apple users and customers really wanted exactly what you promised. Will we get it? Apple Maps was a royal mess, but no one doubted that Apple could survive that mistake and fix it.

How long will Apple take to master AI and give its customers confidence that it can participate in an AI driven world and deliver the benefits to them. When you announced Apple Intelligence, I was thrilled that someone understood exactly what I wanted and knew how to deliver it. Apple demonstrated that it knew how to use my personal data, stored both on device and in iCloud, to make it much easier to deal with my life. I couldn’t wait to ask, “Siri, when is my daughter arriving at the airport?” or “Siri, who was that guy I had coffee with two weeks ago.” The very idea blew my mind. And the minds of those Apple customers who paid attention. All I’ve ever wanted since the iPhone showed up is for my phone to know what to do with my data.

You appear to have gone backward, not forward. It is time to turn the ship over to a captain who can steer it through this next technology shift. I don’t think that that person is on the team of executives that you have so carefully curated over the past 15 years, precisely because you built that team to extract maximum value out of the last technology revolution.

Indeed, I think you might want to consider asking your board to nominate your successor, much as the Microsoft board did when it named Satya Nadella as CEO of Microsoft. That nomination was based on the success he had in building the Microsoft enterprise cloud business. In retrospect the board clearly recognized that the future of the company was a technical leader who understood the basis for the next revolution. He has delivered an incredible performance navigating the arrival of artificial intelligence since OpenAI introduced ChatGPT 3.5.

Apple needs that kind of technical leadership for the future.