I have always been very passionate about technology and thus I like to watch the tech world and everything that happens in it like a hawk. I have been doing it for quite a bit now and I must say, it is very exciting, partly because it helps you get a clearer picture of the future.

Apart from following the work of many independent researchers around the world, I also like to keep an eye out for the major tech companies of the world like Apple, Microsoft, Google and the likes.

Out of these companies, Apple has been one of my favourite ones. Ever since Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997, he turned around the fate of the company and today, it is the richest in terms of market capitalisation.

After Jobs passed away however, there have been a lot of changes in the way Apple operates and now it seems like a different company than it was under Jobs. Some of these changes are good and some bad.

1. A Gentler PR Image

If you have read about Steve Jobs or watched him in one of the movies, you will know that he was a difficult personality. He was ruthless and often acted as a bully. This has been said often by people who were close to him.

Since Jobs made Apple in his own image, Apple had a similar image. After Jobs passed away, Tim Cook, made sure that a more gentle image was constructed and shown to the world and since then they have toned down on a lot of things.

Now, Apple can be seen taking a stand for various causes like political issues (the FBI case), environmental issues (reducing carbon footprint), social causes (supporting the LGBTQ community).

All this has established more of a friendlier image of the company for sure.

2. Complicated Product Line

This is something that many people have noticed and are frustrated with. Simplicity was Jobs’ most treasured value, so much so that he hard coded it into the DNA of Apple itself.

In fact, he is known for axing almost all the products that Apple was selling as soon as he made his comeback in 1977. Therefore it may or may not come as a surprise that now they are doing too much in terms of product lines.

Now there are 3 iPhones, 3 iPads (with options in each), 3 Macbooks (with many options in each), iMacs and god known how many Apple watches. Also, there are several products like Mac mini and Mac pro which haven’t been updated for years!

The simplicity has been waning at Apple ever since Jobs passed away and it is evident from the product lines. The product themselves are still easy to use for the most part but they are simply doing too much.

3. Collaboration Over Competition

Jobs was infamous for creating a stressful atmosphere on purpose inside the company. He used to make teams and pit them against each other. He used to do the same with many company executives.

He believed that this led to the best ideas to come forward and bad ones to get filtered out. He used to push people to their breaking point and demanded more than 100% effort all the time.

Under Cook, the atmosphere is calmer as he prefers collaboration over competition. He even got the different teams within Apple to work together so that they could benefit from the synergy.

4. Slower Innovation

This one is also quite noticeable. Be it hardware releases or software, it seems like Apple is running a year late on everything. You can’t help but feel that if Steve Jobs was still alive, we would be getting products and services much faster than we are today. Not a lot of “One more thing” these days.

This was bound to happen of course because Tim Cook probably doesn’t push people to their breaking point which would mean slower developments but a more humane environment.

Also, Apple is buying far more companies than ever. Steve Jobs was not a big fan of buying technology in contrast to developing them in house as he believed it downplayed their ability to innovate. Tim Cook on the other hand, though a master at operations, is no visionary.

In the last 6 years, we have seen Apple buy more technology companies then ever. It even made the biggest deal ever in it’s history when it bought Beats at a whopping $3 billion.

5. Design

You can’t talk about Apple and not talk about design. From the get go, this company has all been about design, sometimes even design at the expense of functionality.

Apple’s attention to detail is still there and its products (hardware, software and services) are all still well designed and intuitive to use. This was one area that many were afraid Apple would lose their edge but Jony Ive (Chief Design Officer) and his team have held their own.

There is however some noticeable change in the form of an evolution in their design philosophy. The software has lost most of its skeuomorphism which Jobs was a fan of, and is now more ‘clean’.

Also, its retail stores are being redesigned for the modern era and they are getting a stunning looking new headquarters in the form of Apple Campus.

6. No Reality Distortion

Steve Jobs was famous for his reality distortion field, which basically means that he could even make the mundane sound like revolutionary. I am not saying that the products he unveiled weren’t revolutionary, but you get the point.

Steve Jobs was a master seller and when he was on stage introducing something new to the world, you couldn’t help but listen and watch in awe and immediately feel hyped about the products.

Now, their launch events are sort of lacklustre and they don’t have that “special energy” that they had before. I think the most recent example of this was when they launched the Apple Airpods.

I have heard a lot of people say that they didn’t feel like buying the products when they first saw it but when they got to experience it in person, they definitely went for it. This tells you that the products are still good but the way they sell them is just not magical anymore. Consumers don’t get that “want it now” feeling anymore.

7. Product Quality

Product quality is something that Apple has always been very serious about and even after 6 years of Steve’s departure, they have managed to keep the product quality very good, especially on the hardware side of the things.

On the software side of the things however, people have noticed that there are far more bugs and glitches than there were before and it raises some questions of their quality checks.

One big example is of the Maps debacle that we witnessed a few years back over which Scott Forstall, an Apple veteran and Job’s close ally, was fired.

At the time of Jobs, people were confident in the saying “it just works”. That was not always the case even then but still they were more confident about it. Today, “it just works” doesn’t work all the time.


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