As the Tim Cook era as Apple’s CEO begins to wind down, the company is beginning to look back on his time as CEO. Cook first took over as CEO in August 2011, marking a 15-year stint as the chief executive of Apple. Meaning, he had his hands in a lot of products that we all use today.
In a town hall meeting that Apple held on Tuesday, which Bloomberg was there to cover, Cook recently said that the 2012 launch of Apple Maps was his “first really big mistake”. Though, I’d say he’s more than made up for it, with how good Apple Maps is today.
Those of you who remember when Apple Maps burst onto the scene in 2012 might remember that it had mislabeled landmarks, faulty directions, and a user experience that was just plain bad. Hell, the app’s icon showed the user driving off a bridge. It was all kinds of bad, but forced Cook and the rest of Apple to really focus on making it better.
“We apologized for it, and we said ‘Go use these other apps. They’re better than ours.’ And that was some humble pie. But it was the right thing for our users. And so it’s an example of keeping the user at the center of the decisions that we made. Now we’ve got the best map app on the planet. We learned about persistence, and we did exactly the right thing having made this mistake.”
This led to the first major shakeup at Tim Cook’s Apple
Following the launch of Apple Maps, there was a bit of a management shakeup in Cupertino. With software chief Scott Forstall being pushed out. Forstall was a close collaborator with Steve Jobs. But there doesn’t seem to be any tough feelings here, as Forstall was recently invited to Apple Park to celebrate Apple’s 50th anniversary.
Cook also singled out the Apple Watch and its expanding health features as something he’s most proud of.
Basically, Tim Cook wasn’t perfect, but he did lead Apple to new heights and help it become a nearly $4 trillion company. And he’ll hand over the reins of one of the most valuable companies in the world to John Ternus on September 1, while Cook will remain at Apple as the executive chairman.
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