>undersold the fact that Tim Cook is doing basically the same job at Apple that he did during most of 2004-2011 when a number of hit products were developed and launched.
Oh, no question Tim Cook is doing the same job: operations, supply chain. And being good at that is nothing to sneeze at.
But it doesn't look like that job was "visionary," R&D, or product development. The question is: who's doing that at Apple now?
I think the answer is more complicated than "Jony does what Steve used to do". I think the answer Apple wants to be true is that "what Steve did" was always way more than "just Steve doing stuff" and a lot of it was and is baked into the culture and institution (of Apple) itself. How accurate that is I can't say but there are a lot of companies I would bet against before Apple.
Jony Ive is not at Apple day-to-day anymore. I've heard from people who work there that they don't see his car in the lot anymore. There are other rumors that Jony now spends most of his time in London.
He's still listed on Apple's exec page but I have no idea what he does anymore.
Oh, no question Tim Cook is doing the same job: operations, supply chain. And being good at that is nothing to sneeze at.
But it doesn't look like that job was "visionary," R&D, or product development. The question is: who's doing that at Apple now?