Within the coming days, so much shall be mentioned about Tim Prepare dinner’s legacy at Apple. He expanded the corporate’s merchandise into new classes like wearables and headphones, debuted a collection of providers, developed a robust buyer base in China and led the corporate to a $4 trillion valuation.
From the second Prepare dinner formally took the CEO place in 2011, he was within the shadow of his predecessor and Apple founder Steve Jobs, whose legacy prolonged far past a lineup of profitable merchandise. Jobs’ legacy was being the face of Apple, aggressively pushing for user-oriented design simplicity within the background whereas singing their praises within the public highlight. His successor had huge footwear to fill and grew the corporate from a extra non-public vantage, however his legacy is extra than simply how a lot Apple is price. Prepare dinner’s lasting impression will also be measured in one other method: how a lot Apple’s merchandise have grow to be standing symbols.
I bear in mind my dad and mom shopping for the 1998 iMac in Bondi Blue, the primary main product Steve Jobs launched after returning to guide Apple. “There’s no step 3!” got here Jeff Goldblum’s voice in a traditional business summarizing the prodigal CEO’s imaginative and prescient of the corporate’s merchandise: easy-to-use and stylish alternate options to boring beige packing containers. This culminated within the white-plastic period of lamp iMacs, MacBooks, iPods and iPhones spearheaded by designer Jony Ive.
Apple merchandise have been cool and massive sellers when Prepare dinner took over as CEO. However he targeted on the iPhone as a brand new heart of the corporate, utilizing it as a beachhead for its new unified machine ecosystem. As soon as the iPhone was in folks’s pockets, iOS’s easy-to-use interface and synergy with MacOS (sharing iMessage from 2012 onward) and WatchOS (with the primary Apple Watch in 2015) led them to stay with Apple’s smartphone line. Then their buddies did, too, and found that their textual content conversations fell into two camps: blue with different iPhone house owners, or inexperienced with Android house owners.
At Code 2022, Recode’s Kara Swisher led a roundtable memorial for Steve Jobs that includes Jony Ive, Laurene Powell Jobs and Tim Prepare dinner.
In 2017, the iPhone X rang in a brand new period of home-buttonless, all-screen-front handset design and, subsequently, greater costs — the primary time it neared 4 figures (although cleverly priced at $999). Quickly, extra iMessage options expanded the divide between these paying extra money for iPhones and people typically paying much less for Android gadgets. This has led to social stigma for these sending “inexperienced bubble” chats. Apple was in no rush to bridge this hole, and at Code 2022, I watched as Prepare dinner himself informed a fan to “buy your mom an iPhone.”
Apple has considerably bowed to strain on this concern, adding some extra messaging functionality between iPhones and Android gadgets when it included the data-based RCS messaging normal into its handsets again in 2024. However the stigma persists, and iPhones have continued to take pleasure in social superiority in lots of markets. That is undoubtedly contributed to iPhone gross sales through the years, guaranteeing Apple’s telephones stay the corporate’s highest-selling gadgets by a protracted shot.
If imitation is the sincerest type of flattery, Prepare dinner’s period has seen many merchandise come out that brazenly resemble Apple merchandise to coast on their credibility. From the Huawei Matebook X of 2017 to the HP Dragonfly Pro of 2023, loads of laptop computer makers ape Apple’s smooth silver MacBook aesthetics. And contemplating all of the phones I saw at MWC wanting like lifeless ringers for the iPhone 17 Professional right down to its signature orange hue, iPhone envy is alive and nicely.
CEO Tim Prepare dinner and Bono of the band U2.
Tim Prepare dinner rings within the celeb period of Apple
Jobs dabbled in utilizing musicians to advertise Apple merchandise, just like the iPod, however the closest he obtained to utilizing celebrities was when he introduced the actor Noah Wyle on stage at Macworld 1999, giving a faux-Jobs speech (Wyle had simply portrayed him within the movie Pirates of Silicon Valley earlier that yr).
The Tim Prepare dinner period is when Apple launches started brazenly that includes celebrities, and nothing says standing like a well-known particular person utilizing your product. To be honest, Apple is not alone amongst tech corporations in doing this, however different examples definitely really feel extra stilted, like when Jimmy Fallon helped debut the Pixel 10, or when Samsung unveiled the Z Fold 6 and Sydney Sweeney was also there.
Prepare dinner oversaw an embrace of celebrities as pseudo-brand ambassadors. It began with a stumble in 2014 when Apple shoved a U2 album into every iPhone, a wildly unpopular transfer the corporate rapidly recovered from with its first new product within the new period. Again earlier than the Apple Watch launched in 2015, the corporate seemingly seeded the machine out to Beyonce, Katy Perry, Drake, Pharrell Williams and others to flaunt on social media, cultivating prerelease hype and a luxurious affiliation for a tech gadget.
Apple TV Plus expertise be part of CEO Tim Prepare dinner within the foyer of the Steve Jobs Theater.
Then on the grand unveiling of Apple TV Plus in March 2019, a laundry checklist of Hollywood’s high stars have been both featured within the presentation or appeared within the viewers to sign their involvement in reveals and movies to come back, together with Steven Speilberg, Ron Howard, Reese Witherspoon, Jennifer Aniston, Steve Carell, Chris Evans, Jason Momoa, M. Night time Shyamalan, Octavia Spencer, Hailee Steinfeld, Jane Krakowski, Kumail Nanjiani and extra. Cook himself brought Oprah on stage to cap off the occasion.
Prepare dinner has savvily tailored his product launch invite checklist to carry on extra present celebrities who made their mark on social media and streaming. Lately, he is arrange interviews at Apple occasions with widespread streamers like Marques Brownlee (MKBHD) and iJustine at WWDC 2025, in addition to at a secret Grand Central Terminal, NYC occasion for Apple’s fiftieth anniversary. Final yr, after the iPhone 17 collection was launched, he walked to the demo ground to show off the iPhone Air to Mr. Beast.
However to correctly honor 50 years of Apple, Prepare dinner introduced in one of many best dwelling musical legends, Paul McCartney, to mark the corporate’s half-century.
Prepare dinner’s tenure at Apple could also be coming to a detailed, however he is proven a eager sense for how one can make proudly owning an iPhone or MacBook a measure of standing. And by turning launch occasions into celebrity-studded product galas, he is ensured the corporate itself is seen as a world image of high-end merchandise. How else do you get a Beatle to have fun your birthday?
