This piece was first published in August 2025.<\/p>\n
If you and a friend are being chased by a bear, you don\u2019t need to outrun the bear \u2014 you just need to outrun your friend.<\/p>\n
Back in 2017, Apple\u2019s former head of software, Avie Tevanian, used the metaphor to defend Tim Cook\u2019s leadership. While innovation wasn\u2019t happening at the same pace as it did under Steve Jobs, \u201cthey are staying ahead of the competition\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n
But eight years on, the metaphor no longer defends Cook; it indicts him. The bear now has a name \u2014 artificial intelligence \u2014 and it is defining the next computing era. Microsoft, mocked in Apple\u2019s \u201cGet a Mac\u201d ads, now leads in valuation, profitability, and product vision. Alphabet has pulled ahead in earnings. Meta shares just hit an all-time high as the company talks up \u201cSuperintelligence\u201d. And Nvidia, the chipmaker powering the AI boom, is sprinting so fast it\u2019s now worth $1.2 trillion more than Apple.<\/p>\n
Supporters of Cook, when challenged, used to be able to point to Apple\u2019s unmatched supply chain, the success of the Apple Watch and AirPods, and the enduring dominance of the iPhone. They could also highlight Cook\u2019s statesmanship. Donald Trump, campaigning in 2016, said he\u2019d force Apple to build products in America and once urged his supporters to \u201cboycott Apple\u201d. But Cook gained his ear, achieved important tariff exemptions, and avoided backlash from Beijing even after Washington attacked Huawei. The idea that Cook, who was appointed CEO in 2011, might step down was anathema in January 2022, when Apple first reached a $3 trillion market valuation. Profits during his tenure had soared 3.7 times and shareholder returns had increased twentyfold.<\/p>\n
But Apple has since stagnated. Annual revenue growth in the past three fiscal years averaged just 2.3%, compared with between 11% and 14% for Alphabet, Amazon, Meta and Microsoft, 24% at Tesla, and 80% at Nvidia. Apple\u2019s market valuation is still enormous, at $3.1 trillion, but it has inched up less than 5% in three-and-a-half years.<\/p>\n
As a result, fringe murmurings that Cook might no longer be the right CEO have moved from internet forums to investment bank notes and news segments on CNBC and Bloomberg TV. Their main criticism \u2014 that Cook isn\u2019t a product visionary \u2014 has always rung hollow; his mandate was to scale.<\/p>\n
While he has achieved growth, innovation has tanked. The iPhone\u2019s design has barely changed since 2019, when Jony Ive departed as design chief (a position that remains vacant). Last year, Apple killed its decade-long electric car project just as Chinese rivals Huawei and Xiaomi expanded their own. Apple\u2019s only meaningful new product this decade is the Vision Pro, a $3,500 \u201cmixed reality\u201d headset released to underwhelming demand in early 2024. The device\u2019s technological capabilities are a marvel, but the fact that barely any content exists for it reflects a lack of leadership and strategic vision.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile he has achieved growth, innovation has tanked.\u201d<\/p>\n
Today, then, marks a symbolic milestone: Cook has now matched Steve Jobs for his time as CEO \u2014 5,090 days. But whereas nobody was clamouring for change at this point in Jobs\u2019s reign (absent his health concerns), they are coming for Cook on several fronts.<\/p>\n
Apple\u2019s AI missteps are the most glaring. Siri, once a pioneer among voice assistants, now feels \u201cas dumb as a rock\u201d, to quote Microsoft\u2019s Satya Nadella. When Cook finally unveiled \u201cApple Intelligence\u201d in June 2024, the promise was an assistant that could mine texts and emails to deliver personalized answers, not by taking data from the cloud, but mining for data \u201con device\u201d. That\u2019s something ChatGPT can\u2019t do on the iPhone, because apps are sandboxed. Apple, though, which controls the Operating System, chips and hardware, can grant Siri access.<\/p>\n
If Apple can make it work, it could offer 1.5 billion iPhone users a compelling reason to upgrade their device every 24 months, as on-device chipsets improve to keep up with data processing on cloud servers. More upgrades mean more revenue, justifying Apple\u2019s high valuation. But, says Craig Moffett, partner at MoffettNathanson, \u201cthat whole logic disappears if Apple ends up capitulating to a cloud-based model\u201d.<\/p>\n
So it\u2019s disconcerting that 15 months after the announcement, a personalized Siri still doesn\u2019t exist, the ads promoting it have been pulled, and Apple has been forced to acknowledge it doesn\u2019t know when the features might be ready.<\/p>\n
But AI missteps and product innovation aren\u2019t the only problems.<\/p>\n
Cook\u2019s heavy bet on China is also looking like a liability. He has long been heralded as the operative who \u201cfixed\u201d Apple\u2019s supply chain. But in the process, the company invested hundreds of billions of dollars into Chinese manufacturing, helping elevate the same local firms that now threaten its dominance. In the June quarter, Apple\u2019s market share in China was fifth, after Huawei, Vivo, Oppo and Xiaomi, according to Canalys.<\/p>\n
Efforts to shift production to India have been slow and superficial, centered on final assembly rather than replicating the depth and breadth of China\u2019s industrial clusters. And Beijing has used its leverage, too, blocking the export of sophisticated machinery for India\u2019s production lines, and restricting visas for Chinese engineers who could help get them up-and-running.<\/p>\n
Even Cook\u2019s once-vaunted diplomacy appears diminished. Cook was known as the Trump Whisperer in the President\u2019s first term, but whatever he was whispering never resulted in much. \u201cTim Cook has continually asked for more time in order to move his factories out of China,\u201d Trump trade advisor Peter Navarro said this month. \u201cIt\u2019s the longest-running soap opera in Silicon Valley.\u201d<\/p>\n
Compare that with Jensen Huang, Nvidia\u2019s CEO. Huang publicly and substantively lobbied against an export ban on AI chips to China, and persuaded Trump to reverse course on a signature policy. He also joined the President on a diplomatic trip to the Middle East. \u201cTim Cook isn\u2019t here,\u201d Trump quipped in Riyadh, eyeing Huang at an investment forum, \u201cbut you are.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked what Apple might do to counter the threat from AI-first companies, many analysts point out that the iPod, iPhone, and iPad were all \u201clate\u201d in their respective categories. True, but each of those examples are from the Jobs era. It\u2019s tough to believe that Cook has a secret plan to dominate the AI Wars as his top minds defect to better-paying jobs at Meta.<\/p>\n
Is it too early to call for Tim Cook\u2019s resignation? Apple remains immensely profitable and has a fortress balance sheet. But too early is less risky than too late. And what good is a war chest if you don\u2019t use it? As AI transforms tech, Apple looks like a complacent observer. Even in its greatest moat, hardware, Chinese groups are out-innovating with better designed and even more expensive smartphones.<\/p>\n
The future doesn\u2019t slow down for anyone. And a few months before Apple turns 50, the bear is catching up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This piece was first published in August 2025. If you and a friend are being chased by a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39152,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[554,304,733,4308,641,90,86,56,54,55,741],"class_list":{"0":"post-542890","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-apple","10":"tag-artificial-intelligence","11":"tag-artificialintelligence","12":"tag-iphone","13":"tag-science","14":"tag-technology","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom","17":"tag-unitedkingdom","18":"tag-us"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=542890"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542890\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=542890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=542890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=542890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}