When Tim Cook dinner took over Apple in 2011, the large query was whether or not anybody may observe within the footsteps of Steve Jobs. For a lot of, Jobs was Apple.
A large fifteen-year stint later, it’s clear that Cook dinner has delivered – after which some. Not with a single breakthrough product just like the Jobs-era iPhone or iPod, however a protracted checklist of hits, experiments and the occasional misstep that reshaped what Apple is at present.
Listed here are 15 of our favorite Apple merchandise that outlined Cook dinner’s decade-and-a-half legacy, each for higher and for worse.
Apple Watch
Picture Credit score (Trusted Critiques)
The Apple Watch was the primary large “post-Jobs” class – and it didn’t obtain a very hot welcome initially. Early variations leaned awkwardly into style, full with gold editions and luxurious advertising, regardless of early Apple Watches solely being supported for a comparatively quick time frame.
Commercial
However, slowly however certainly, Apple’s wearable discovered its footing. In the present day, the Watch is much less about fashion and extra about well being with options like coronary heart charge monitoring, ECG and fall detection, and has turn into one of many firm’s most necessary merchandise because of this.
It additionally helps that it performs so properly with related iPhones, providing a degree of interoperability that almost all Android-based wearables nonetheless can’t fairly match.
AirPods
Picture Credit score (Trusted Critiques)
Contemplating how common AirPods are in 2026, it’s humorous to look again on the reactions on social media once they have been first revealed in 2016. Folks usually disregarded the buds, evaluating them to electrical toothbrush heads, however inside a yr of launch, they have been in every single place.
As with the Apple Watch, Cook dinner’s sprinkling of magic meant the buds labored very nicely with iPhones, iPads and Macs. They provide nice sound and options like seamless handoff between gadgets, they usually’ve vastly improved within the years since, not solely in options but in addition within the total design with the Professional and Max variants.
Commercial
iPhone X
Picture Credit score (Trusted Critiques)
Whereas the unique iPhone was a Jobs-era innovation, the iPhone X was the second that the fashionable iPhone was born.
It ditched the staples of the long-lasting iPhone design – the Dwelling button and bezels – for an all-screen design with the now immediately recognisable Face ID notch. It was a controversial change on the time, nevertheless it’s a design that Apple nonetheless makes use of on its iPhone lineup at present.
Apple Silicon
If there’s one product that looks like a real Cook dinner-era mic drop, it needs to be Apple Silicon.
Commercial
Ditching the dominant pressure that was Intel to construct its personal chips was an enormous threat – particularly contemplating Mac apps would primarily have to be rebuilt for the platform to totally benefit from the ability on provide. However that threat paid off, nearly instantly.
The M1 MacBook Air was absurdly quick, silent and environment friendly in comparison with virtually the rest round, and it has solely improved with newer variations within the years since.
iPad Professional
Picture Credit score (Trusted Critiques)
The iPad Professional is Apple’s long-running try and reply a easy query: Can a pill substitute your laptop computer?
Even in any case these years, the reply remains to be… it relies upon. However with the Pencil, keyboard and more and more highly effective M-series desktop chips, it has turn into the go-to device for creatives and professionals who favour touchscreen over conventional mouse enter.
Commercial
Apple Music
Picture Credit score (Trusted Critiques)
Cook dinner didn’t simply drive {hardware} – he additionally pushed Apple into the more and more profitable providers enterprise.
With its sights set on the dominant Spotify, Apple Music was the corporate’s first foray into providers, and it was a large success. It has an enormous assortment of songs out there in Hello-Res format and Dolby Atmos for an immersive listening expertise, and it, after all, performs exceptionally nicely with iOS, macOS and iPadOS.
Apple Pay
The launch of Apple Pay modified the best way that we pay for services and products, each on-line and in the true world. It’s a characteristic that we don’t even take into consideration as of late – we simply pull out our telephones and pay with a faucet – however Apple was one of many first to make that doable again in 2014.
Commercial
Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional
The Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional is Cook dinner’s “what’s subsequent?” product, a £/$3499 headset that Apple insists isn’t VR however ‘spatial computing’. It’s early tech, costly and a bit awkward – but in addition undeniably spectacular in comparison with cheaper headsets from the likes of Meta with its M-series energy and high-end graphics.
However whether or not it turns into the subsequent iPhone or subsequent HomePod stays to be seen – given the waning curiosity in VR headsets, it’s fairly doable it might be the latter.
iPhone SE
Picture Credit score (Trusted Critiques)
Not each Apple product must be cutting-edge, and the iPhone SE is a good instance of that.
Cook dinner’s provide chain mastery was on full show right here, reusing older elements with newer internals to supply the iPhone expertise at a way more reasonably priced value. It wasn’t good, after all, nevertheless it had a particular place for many who missed the ‘old-fashioned’ iPhone look.
Commercial
Apple Pencil
Picture Credit score (Trusted Critiques)
Steve Jobs famously mentioned no person wished a stylus – nevertheless it seems that individuals did when it got here to the large screens of iPads. They only didn’t need unhealthy ones.
The Apple Pencil helped remodel the iPad right into a respectable artistic device, particularly for artists, designers and good ol’ note-takers, with an expertise that also isn’t fairly matched by Android stylus options.
MagSafe
Picture Credit score (Trusted Critiques)
MagSafe – the iPhone variant, not that utilized in Macs – was a game-changer when it was launched with the iPhone 12, a lot in order that the framework has since been baked into the Qi2 customary for all telephones to observe.
Commercial
It simply makes a lot sense: utilizing a hoop of magnets, not solely does the telephone snap into place completely on wi-fi chargers, nevertheless it additionally allows you to add a bunch of equipment like battery packs, wallets, and even digital camera grips with out messing round with totally different circumstances. Simply snap it on and pull it off once you’re carried out.
MacBook Professional
Picture Credit score (Trusted Critiques)
The MacBook Professional had a couple of bumps within the highway underneath Cook dinner’s management. Folks liked the outdated fashion of MacBook Professional, however Cook dinner’s Apple reinvented it in 2016, eradicating fan-favourite options like MagSafe charging and SD card slots and introducing an OLED contact bar that rapidly grew to become the butt of the joke.
It took till 2021 for the MacBook Professional to reverse course, ditching the gimmicky contact bar and its reliance on USB-C and bringing again MagSafe charging and a plethora of ports, which, mixed with Apple’s M-series silicon, now make it the most effective laptops round.
MacBook Neo
Picture Credit score (Trusted Critiques)
Commercial
We couldn’t speak concerning the MacBook Professional with out at the least mentioning the MacBook Neo, which might be thought-about Cook dinner’s Magnum Opus forward of stepping down.
For years, the MacBook Air was Apple’s entry level into the macOS ecosystem, nevertheless it nonetheless value near a grand, if no more. The issue is that there are lots of cheaper Home windows-based laptops, and people are inclined to win out for budget-focused consumers.
However then got here alongside the MacBook Neo, and regardless of sporting an iPhone-level A18 Professional chipset, it excels within the finances market in each basic efficiency and battery longevity, all for simply £/$599, which makes just about each low cost Home windows laptop computer look underpowered and costly. A defining second certainly.
Magic Mouse 2
Picture Credit score (Trusted Critiques)
The Magic Mouse 2 was a fantastically designed mouse with one tiny downside: you must cost it from the underside. Which implies you may’t use it whereas it’s charging. Sure, the memes have been nice for this one.
Commercial
It’s such a small choice, nevertheless it completely captures the “design over practicality” criticism that adopted Apple for years, and for higher or worse, will probably be remembered as a defining Cook dinner-era product.
Sprucing fabric
Sure, actually.
A £/$19 Apple-branded fabric to scrub your display. It grew to become an on the spot meme – not as a result of it’s unhealthy, however as a result of it so completely represents Apple’s confidence in its model.
Solely Apple may promote that… and have it exit of inventory.
Commercial
Jokes apart, Beneath Cook dinner, Apple stopped being simply a pc firm and have become part of mainly all the things we do, from how we pay for espresso to what we put on on our wrists. It wasn’t all the time an ideal run, however he turned the post-Jobs period into a large, unstoppable ecosystem that almost all of us now couldn’t think about dwelling with out.
It’s secure to say that John Ternus is now the one with large footwear to fill.
