Tim Cook - page 53

The budget for Apple’s “spaceship” campus has ballooned from $3 billion to “nearly $5 billion” since 2011, according to a new report from Bloomberg Businessweek. Five people close to the project say its cost will now eclipse the $3.9 billion being spent on the new World Trade Center complex in New York City.

iPhone theft has become a huge problem in places like New York City and San Francisco.  District Attorney George Gascón is on a mission to curb smartphone theft by having manufacturers implement a kill switch once a phone has been reported stolen, but that’s proven more difficult than Gascón imagined.

During his crusade to get answers from manufacturers, Gascón talked with Apple’s government liaison about getting a kill switch added to the iPhone, but was told that might not be possible because the next two iPhones were developed while Steve Jobs was still CEO at Apple.

Apple has been getting pounded by the Chinese press lately for its warranty policies service and not talking to the press whenever they want a statement (welcome to Apple news my friends). Hoping to end the onslaught from the government-supported press, Apple issued an apology letter to Chinese customers signed by Tim Cook.

The letter, which was written in Chinese and posted to Apple’s website, said that Tim Cook and the rest of the company have been reflecting on the feedback regarding its warranty policies and apologizes the poor communication that has made customers so angry.

Tim Cook may be leading one of the most influential and valuable companies on earth now, but he used to be in high school just like the rest of us. Some yearbook photos of Cook’s early years at Robertsdale High School in Robertsdale, Alabama have surfaced. How adorable!

Cook was unsurprisingly voted “most studious” freshman year, and it was an obvious mistake to exclude him from the “most likely to succeed” list.

Apple’s stock hasn’t been doing too well lately. While many analysts think the problem is that Apple hasn’t released any new products in months, Microsoft’s former COO thinks it’s more of a leadership problem.

In a recent article, former Microsoft COO, Bob Herbold claimed the problem with Apple is that it doesn’t have a visionary leader who is paranoid with details, so Apple’s totally going to start sucking like Microsoft pretty soon.

Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch is leaving the company to become Vice President of Technology at Apple, but Tim Cook may have to keep a close eye on him around the iPhones. Back in 2009, Lynch smashed up a whole bunch of them in a bid to get them to run Flash Player. See his destructive side for yourself in the video below.

John Browett, who spent nine months as Apple’s senior vice president of retail before being ousted alongside Scott Forstall last October, has admitted that he “just didn’t fit” in with the way Apple ran its business. Browett still feels Apple is a fantastic company and says he loved working there, but he told The Independent that he was “rejected for fit rather than competency.”

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has replaced Tim Cook as the highest-rated CEO in tech, according to employee approval ratings on Glassdoor. Cook’s 97% approval rating from 2012 has dropped down to 93%, which takes him from first position all the way down to 18th. Zuckerberg now has an impressive 99% approval rating.

Last year, Apple was hit with an antitrust case from the U.S. Department of Justice over the pricing scheme of e-books in Apple’s iBookstore. Since that time, 11 executives at Apple have already been deposed over the issue, but the Department of Justice is demanding Tim Cook be involved, and they just got their way.

U.S. District Judge Denise Cote granted the Justice Department’s request to get Cook to testify on the ebook antitrust case for four hours.

When Apple launched its new Maps app with iOS 6 last September, one of its headline features, Flyover, only supported a handful of big cities. But the Cupertino company has been hard at work in the background to extend its reach, adding support for additional locations all over the world.

In the past few months, Apple has brought Flyover to an additional 16 cities, plus extended its coverage in 14 of the cities already supported.

Last month we heard that even though Apple just posted a record breaking quarter,  sales of the iPad were lower than internal expectations.

Backing up claims that Apple is having a down month, Topeka Capital says that they’ve been monitoring Apple’s suppliers and February was a very bad month for companies that help make Apple products.

This week on The CultCast—finally—it’s time to talk iPhone 5S and iPad 5! We’ll tell you why April and August might be bringing you the tasty new iDevices, and if they’ll be drastically different than the models we’ve already got.

Then, is Apple is a innovation lull? Ex-Apple CEO John Scully thinks so. We’ll tell you what we think is really going on.

Subscribe to The CultCast now on iTunes to download our newest episode, or easily stream new and previous episodes via Apple’s free Podcasts App.

Show notes up next!

Over the last couple of weeks a ‘silly sideshow’ has been playing out between Greenlight Capital and Apple Inc. Greenlight Capital’s CEO, David Einhorn, has been trying to force Apple to offer preferred stock plans by suing Apple in court, while Tim Cook and Apple disagree with his proposals.

Even though Einhorn has won at least one small victory over Apple in court, it’s been reported that Greenlight Capital just dropped their lawsuit against Apple.

At today’s Apple Shareholders Meeting, CEO Tim Cook admitted that Apple was “looking at new product categories” but that the company had no interest in just “pressing a button or two” to have Apple make the most products.

Steve Jobs pitched the idea of an Apple spaceship-like campus in the summer of 2011. He said that the project would be completed by 2015, but there have been a couple delays that have pushed the project back a little farther.

During today’s annual shareholders meeting, Tim Cook addressed the reports that the new campus won’t be ready in 2015, and said that they should break ground soon and be ready to move in by 2016.

Apple hosted its annual shareholder meeting today at Apple HQ in Cupertino. There were some big rumors yesterday that Tim Cook would announce a stock split during the meeting, but that never actually happened.

At this years shareholder’s meeting, all the board members were re-elected, and Tim Cook got 99.1% of investor approval. There were two proposals put to vote that Apple did not support, but both of those were struck down too.

If you’ve been up on your Apple news the past few months, then you’ve probably heard about a “silly sideshow” that been going on about Apple’s stock. Basically, Greenlight Capital isn’t happy with the amount of cash their getting back on their investment in Apple, while Apple has been hoarding all their cash.

Hoping to convince Apple to give shareholders some of their cash, Greenlight Capitals found, David Einhorn, has a concocted a plan that would have Apple selling “iPref” stock to investors who want to eat Apple’s cake.

It’s been over 16 months since Steve Jobs passed away, leaving Apple without its inspirational leader. Even though the company has released a number of new products and reported record-breaking sales, some of Steve’s closest friends at the company still miss him.

Apple’s chairman, Art Levinson, was a close friend and colleague of Steve Jobs, and he’s been on Apple’s Board of Directors since 2000. So when he was recently asked what it’s like running the company’s Board now that Steve’s gone, Levinson only had one word to describe it: “weird.”

Along with the recent job listing with hints that Apple might bring USB 3.0 support to iOS devices, there’s a second notable job listing that Apple posted today that relates to the future of Apple TV.

We’ve heard a lot of rumors lately that Apple wants to beef up the Apple TV and possibly add more apps and a developer SDK. The creator of the Xbox even thinks Apple can squash Microsoft’s console if it wants to. Pointing to Apple’s big plans for Apple TV, the new job listing is looking for a new engineering manager to help oversee the next-generation Apple TV.

Even though Tim Cook and Apple say that the Apple TV is really just a hobby right now, people are scared of it. Intel’s launching a competing product later this year. Samsung’s rushing to get more content on their SmartTVs, and Microsoft and Sony are probably going to announce new consoles this year that will appeal to casual users.

Apple TV really doesn’t do a lot right now other than streaming movies and music to your TV, but it has the potential to become a killer product. Xbox’s founder, Nat Brown recognizes the power of Apple TV and says that if Apple wanted to, it could easily destroy the Xbox, Playstation, and Wii U.

Tim Cook said that Apple couldn’t even make enough iPhone 5s to keep up with demand last year. Shoot, Apple sold 5 million iPhone 5 units in the first weekend, so we’re keen to believe Tim.

However, a report from Jefferies analyst Peter Misek this morning is claiming the iPhone 5 is loosing its juice, and sales are starting to drop a lot faster than anyone expected.

Ever feeling down and need an immediate injection of happiness? According to Tim Cook you should just head over to the Apple Store because it’s just like taking a Prozac.

During his presentation at the Goldman Sachs Technology Conference, Cook explained why the Apple Store has been so successful because it’s become more than just a store, it’s a place where people can gather and learn about Apple. Kind of like a fantasyland for tech.

During today’s annual Goldman Sachs conference, Tim Cook spoke about the culture of innovation at Apple. While Wall Street has started losing faith in the company’s ability to grow, Cook has “never been more bullish on Apple.”

Cook still sees Apple as the leading innovator in the tech sector, and he believes there are two key aspects that fuel the company’s success.

At the end of his presentation this morning at the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference, Tim Cook was asked what he’s most proud of at Apple now that he’s had a full year under his belt as CEO.

Cook was emotional during his response and fought back some tears as he described the things that he’s been the most proud of during his past year at Apple. Above all, Cook said that he’s proud of his employees, but then he gushed for a few minutes on all the great things Apple’s doing, like taking a stand for workers in China.

Tim Cook is speaking at the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference this morning. He was just asked about whether or not Apple will make an iPhone with a bigger screen. Of course Timmy wouldn’t just spill the details on Apple’s future plans, but he didn’t say Apple wouldn’t make a 5-inch iPhone either.

“The only thing Apple will not do is make a crappy product,” Cook explained. Maybe he hasn’t heard of Apple Maps and Siri, but we digress. Cook explained that the only thing that matters to Apple is the customer experience, regardless of how big the screen is.