The victory of "beating" Cook and the mediocre people are complacent about

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Five years have passed. Jobs' tombstone has become old, and the iPhone has been updated four generations. What remains unchanged is the tide of badmouthing, ridicule and even abuse after Apple's new product launch. The new issue of "Logical Thinking" uses Turing as an example to illustrate the destruction of the mediocre masses. Now, the "beating" of Cook in public opinion is also a victory for the mediocre masses to be complacent about.

Many people think that Apple has fallen into a desperate situation after Jobs. We dictate Apple's development and criticize its product innovations. We worry that Cook will not be able to get out of Jobs' shadow, and scold him for forgetting Jobs' legacy after Apple truly enters the Cook era. We want this technology giant that changed the world to develop according to the public's thinking, and we also want it to "shock" the world again and again.

Among all the "disappointments" with Cook, there are only two points of view:

First, Apple lacks innovation. Whether it is the "foreign media" in the eyes of domestic media or the active KOLs in China, those who criticize Apple always mention its lack of innovation. Even before the release of iPhone 6S, many people wrote articles to mourn its sales. But all those who criticize Apple have the same idea: the new iPhone must have unprecedented innovation, otherwise it is a sign of decline.

In my opinion, there are mainly the following points about the outside world's complaints about Apple's new products.

1. iPhone 6S failed to impress people. The upgrades in memory, pixels and 3D Touch did not distance Apple from other brands. It even showed signs of imitating Samsung. Apple is now living off its past success.

2. iPad Pro is flashy but impractical, Apple TV will repeat the mistakes of Xbox One and Playstation, and it will be difficult for Apple Watch to redeem itself through system updates.

3. Some people even tried to dig deep into Apple’s “internal injuries”, and brought to the table issues such as out-of-control supply chain, weakened channel control, weakened R&D capabilities, and shrinking brand value.

I don't disagree with other people's views on Apple's decline, nor do I agree or deny it. If you use the standards of the 22nd century to judge a 21st century company, some of its innovations are worthless, as its peers in distant places are still lingering at the level of the late 20th century. Some people even attribute the innovation of a company to personal reasons, which is biased and hard to convince people, especially when the entire innovation environment is ignored.

The most direct criterion for measuring whether Apple is innovative or not is whether users are willing to pay for it. The sales figures released a few months later will be the key to judging whether Apple will continue to prosper or decline. This may be the most fair judgment.

Second, there are doubts about Cook's leadership. Jobs' religious culture has infected Apple fans and employees, so much so that many of his apprentices have appeared in China. But when Jobs was alive, for many people, Jobs was a mythical figure, and this worship affected Apple's culture and product sales. But our true understanding of Jobs is a series of biographies and film and television works after his death, which have restored the real Jobs.

Jobs is a "god", but Cook is a lively ordinary person. He has an easy-going personality and can have a cordial conversation with the female assembly workers in the Foxconn workshop. He announced that he was gay, making his character image more real and full. At the same time, Apple has gradually faded the label of God and gradually turned into a "secular" company. Cook is well versed in corporate management and is better at figuring out the preferences of the capital market than Jobs. While Jobs was hospitalized for treatment, Cook created the iPhone 4S and made Apple's stock rise by 70%. After Jobs' death, when almost everyone was worried about Apple's future, Cook miraculously doubled Apple's market value. In addition, Cook is also a genius who understands consumer psychology. The hot sales of iPhone 6 and its extraordinary achievements in the Chinese market are enough to prove that Cook understands what kind of products consumers need better. Without the strong Jobs, Cook has set a correct direction for Apple, at least in terms of profitability.

Moreover, Cook seems to understand business operations better than Jobs. Apple computers, which were personally designed by Jobs many times, are still just a niche brand after decades of development, leaving a large part of the market to Microsoft and Intel. In the mobile phone market, the equally closed iPhone shares half of the market with Android, and even grabbed nearly 90% of the profits in the global smartphone market with a 15% market share. We are grateful to Jobs for paving the way for Apple in smartphones, but Cook still deserves credit.

For technology companies, the biggest challenge is that the founders account for a large part of the brand image. Once the leader changes, it will lead to various crises. Although Ben Horowitz insisted in his book "The Hard Thing About Hard Things" that the company should be led by the founder, the performance of companies such as Microsoft and Lenovo after the power iteration can only be said to be unsatisfactory, which is also the outstanding feature of Cook. In the future, Silicon Valley giants such as Amazon, Google, Oracle, and domestic Internet companies such as BAT and Xiaomi, should choose a Cook-like figure to take over?

Tribute to Cook: Never compromise with mediocrity

In his book "The Victory of the Masses", Xu Zhiyuan used Han Han as an example to mock: "When Han Han says some clever words, the nerves of the times tremble. This is the victory of the masses or the failure of the nation." The fact that Han Han is so popular shows how powerful the masses are. In the technology world, Cook seems to have never compromised with the masses.

When the outside world unanimously believed that Apple should release a large-screen mobile phone, the iPhone 5S still insisted on a 4-inch screen. The rumored reason was that Apple was immature in optimizing for large screens. When everyone complained about Apple's protruding camera, Apple did not take it for granted. Instead, it continued the body design of the protruding camera on the iPhone 6S. Similarly, although foreign media have repeatedly suggested that Apple should be more focused on its product line, Cook has made Apple's product line more diverse. We can see Jobs's persistence from Apple, and we can also see Cook's catering to user psychology, but in general, he will not compromise with the views of the mediocre.

The benefits of compromising with the public are obvious. Meizu's transformation and Luo Yonghao's back-and-forth can both be seen as examples of compromising with the masses. Meizu, which follows the "Internet model", has been favored by capital and has achieved unprecedented sales. Luo Yonghao, who entered the competition for thousand-yuan phones, opened up the thousand-yuan phone market with the brand of Nut. In addition, many domestic startups have obvious signs of premature maturity in product research and development, especially in the hardware field. Many companies took engineering machines or even semi-finished products to the press conference. The reason is very simple: the "trend" has come. Cook's brilliance lies in that Apple will not deliberately please the masses, but has frequently changed the masses' previous impression of Apple.

Finally, I want to say that Jobs is your idol, but Cook is still worthy of respect. It is time to look at Apple from Cook's perspective, not just according to Jobs' way of doing things. "Beat" Cook is just a small victory for us mediocre people to be complacent about.