Bob Lefsetz Calls for Apple Board to Fire Tim Cook

Bob Lefsetz:

And what does society want?

Something new and different that not only titillates its fancy, but demonstrates extreme utility.

Unlike the Apple Watch, which was good in theory yet dead on arrival, or after twenty four hours, when it ran out of juice. You had to recharge it, was it worth the effort, or were you better off just putting it in a drawer? And like a cult band from the eighties which hits a wall and goes no further, there was no word of mouth on the Apple Watch, some owners testified, but the rest of the populace just ignored it.

Tim Cook needs to be replaced. Apple doesn’t need a traffic cop, it needs a visionary. Execution is important, but it’s secondary to inspiration. The idea is king, never forget it.

Lefsetz has been banging the “Apple is doomed without Steve Jobs” drum ever since he died. Either he was right all along, or he’s fitting the facts to his narrative. Time will tell. But he’s a pretty high profile columnist (in the music and entertainment industry, specifically) to go so far as to call for Cook’s ouster.

This reads like reactionary crazy talk to me. He speaks of the Apple Watch as though it’s been pulled from the market, and equates current iPad sales (10 million units and $4.4 billion in revenue in the just-completed “bad” quarter) to those of the iPod:

Kind of like the iPad, replaced by the phablet, the large phone.

The iPad was killed by the phablet the same way the iPod was killed by the iPhone. What did Cook and company do? They doubled-down on the iPad, creating a Pro version with a stylus that was a marvel of technology but is something most people just don’t need. Meanwhile, there was this canard that the device was a desktop replacement when the truth is it’s nothing of the sort.

Here’s an interesting fact: the iPod never generated more than $4 billion in revenue in a quarter, including holiday quarters. The iPad generated more revenue for Apple last quarter than the iPod ever did, even in its heyday. Lefsetz has a point — one contributing factor to decreased iPad sales is the rise of large phones. But to go all the way to “killed” is a hell of a stretch.

★ Monday, 2 May 2016