Connect with us

Technologies

Tim Cook was named Apple’s CEO 10 years ago. Here are three things he changed

The company we know as Apple looks and acts a lot like the one we all remember from the Steve Jobs-era. But it’s also very different.

In 2012, less than a year after being named CEO of Apple, Tim Cook sat down for an interview with NBC News. He discussed the basics you’d expect about iPhones and Apple stores and even made a surprise announcement that the tech giant would begin assembling some Mac computers in Texas rather than China. Cook also made clear during the interview that, while he understood the responsibility he had to lead one of the world’s most closely watched companies, he wasn’t going to try to emulate its iconic co-founder, Steve Jobs.

«One of the things he did for me — that removed a gigantic burden that would have existed — is that he told me, on a couple occasions before he passed away, to never question what he would have done,» Cook said. «Never ask the question ‘what Steve would do’ — just do what’s right.»

Over the past decade, Cook has waded into culture and politics far more than Jobs ever seemed to do. He came out as gay in 2014 and started giving speeches decrying discrimination across the country. He even walked the tight rope as a social critic of Donald Trump’s policies as president between 2017 and 2021, while attempting to protect Apple’s business from harsh import tariffs.

All the while, Cook kept up Apple’s slow and steady drumbeat of incremental innovation, leading teams that introduced seemingly small improvements over iPhones year after year. Now, Apple in the Cook-era sells some of the most well-respected phone cameras in the industry. And it’s one of the few device makers that builds the computer processing brains that power its phones and computers, too. Those chips, dubbed the A14 and M1 Apple Silicon chips, are considered among the best, as well.

All this has helped to turn Apple into one of the most highly valued companies in the world. Wall Street puts the company at just under $2.5 trillion. And Apple’s $57 billion in profits from $274.5 billion in revenues last year dwarf the $26 billion in earnings the company posted a decade ago, from $108.2 billion in revenue.

Here are three ways Cook changed Apple.

More political

A decade ago, it was very unusual to see a high-profile tech industry leader exchange anything but pleasant words with a world leader. But soon after Cook came out as gay in 2014, he started speaking out on a range of human rights issues. Not a year later, he penned a nearly 600-word piece that ran in The Washington Post addressing discrimination against the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered communities.

«There’s something very dangerous happening in states across the country,» he wrote at the time.

Cook also joined 100 other tech executives from Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and Yelp who criticized laws in Indiana and Arkansas written to support «religious freedom» but that critics fear will encourage discrimination against the LGBTQ community.

During Trump’s time in office, Cook became a regular voice speaking out against the president’s immigration moves. He criticized Trump’s statements defending white supremacists and other extremists at a deadly rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. And Cook said Trump’s plans to ban transgender people from serving in the military were wrong.

«We are indebted to all who serve,» Cook wrote at the time. «Discrimination against anyone holds everyone back.»

But Cook was also shrewd with Trump, attending summits with the president and even inviting him to the company’s Mac Pro manufacturing plant in Austin, Texas.

«He’s a great executive,» Trump said once, according to a profile in the Wall Street Journal. «Others go out and hire very expensive consultants. Tim Cook calls Donald Trump directly.»

It hasn’t all gone smoothly. Most recently, Apple’s faced backlash from employees frustrated by how executives are handling return-to-work policies amid the coronavirus pandemic. Though Apple’s pushed back its target date to return to the office to January next year at the earliest, executives have pushed employees to regularly come into the office.

Some employees have also accused the company’s employee resources team of mishandling harassment, sexism, racism and other troubling issues among the company’s roughly 147,000 employees. They’ve banded together on Twitter under the hashtag #AppleToo, and created a website to draw attention to their concerns.

Other companies, including Google, Facebook and Uber, have also struggled to meaningfully respond to similar criticism.

More products

Apple’s long been known for its comparably small product lineup. Under Jobs, Apple served up consumer laptops and desktops, with its MacBooks and iMacs, and offered professional laptops and desktops, with the MacBook Pros and Mac Pros. It sold several different types of iPods as well, but only one version of the iPhone each year.

Under Cook, Apple’s expanded its product lineup to include two standard models of its iPhones, the $699 iPhone 12 Mini and $799 iPhone 12, which CNET’s Patrick Holland said was one of the best phone we’ve ever reviewed. There are also two «pro» models, the $999 iPhone 12 Pro and $1099 iPhone 12 Pro Max. And there’s the lower-cost $399 iPhone SE, which CNET called the best value for the dollar of any iPhone when it came out last year.

Apple also sells at least two different variants of its Apple Watch, not including partnerships with Nike and Hermes, three different AirPods headphones and four different iPads. And it was Cook who pushed Apple into the smartwatch market in the first place.

It’s hard to debate Apple’s success with these products, and it appears the company won’t be changing its approach much with its rumored upcoming iPhone 13 and iPads. And even though Apple’s often criticized for seemingly minimal updates each year, experts say the differences become dramatic when comparing devices further back in time.

«This is what most people don’t understand: Incremental is revolutionary for Apple,» Chris Deaver, who spent four years in human resources working with Apple research teams, told the Wall Street Journal in a story published last year. «Once they enter a category with a simply elegant solution, they can start charting the course and owning that space. No need to break speed records, just do it organically.»

More ambition

Perhaps the most dramatic changes Cook’s made are to what Apple sells us.

Jobs reveled in selling products people could touch and feel, focusing primarily on software as a means to make them work better. He even referenced the computer scientist Alan Kay when introducing the first iPhone in 2007. «‘People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware,» Jobs said, quoting Kay. «Alan said this 30 years ago, and this is how we feel about it.»

Under Cook, Apple’s approach hasn’t changed so much as it’s expanded. To help Apple’s products stand out, Cook in 2019 pushed his company to start offering monthly services ranging from a $10 per month magazine and newspaper aggregation service called Apple News Plus to a $5 monthly gaming service called Apple Arcade, and most recently, $10 per month Apple Fitness Plus workout classes.

Cook promised his company’s $5 per month Apple TV Plus video subscription service would be «unlike anything that’s been done before» when it launched in 2019.

Apple hasn’t said how many people pay for Apple TV Plus subscriptions but has increasingly drawn attention to its overall services business, which in the three months ended June 26 this year pulled in nearly $17.5 billion in revenue. That’s more than Apple’s Mac and iPad businesses combined. It’s also up nearly 33% from the same time a year earlier despite the COVID-19 pandemic, which has has upended billions of people’s lives around the world.

«We’re continuing to stay focused on supporting the global response to the pandemic and delivering the best products and services for people,» Cook said on a July conference call with analysts. «Our greatest source of inspiration, isn’t technology itself, but help people use it in their own lives in ways, great and small, to write a novel or to read one to care for an ailing patient or see a doctor virtually to track their heart rate on a jog or to train for the Olympics.»

Related Topics:

Technologies

Today’s NYT Mini Crossword Answers for Saturday, July 12

Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for July 12.

Looking for the most recent Mini Crossword answer? Click here for today’s Mini Crossword hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Wordle, Strands, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Need some help with today’s Mini Crossword? It’s one of those long Saturday puzzles, and a few clues are tricky.  Read on for the answers. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.

The Mini Crossword is just one of many games in the Times’ games collection. If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: Tips and Tricks for Solving The New York Times Mini Crossword

Let’s get to those Mini Crossword clues and answers.

Mini across clues and answers

1A clue:  Havana’s home
Answer: CUBA

5A clue: Last word in many bowling alley names
Answer: LANES

6A clue: Lots and lots
Answer: SOMUCH

7A clue: Left-leaning social media site
Answer: BLUESKY

8A clue: Hepburn of «Breakfast at Tiffany’s»
Answer: AUDREY

9A clue: Word after «break» or «banana»
Answer: BREAD

10A clue: Car loan figs.
Answer: APRS

Mini down clues and answers

1D clue: They always shoot their shot
Answer: CAMERAS

2D clue: Brand-new
Answer: UNUSED

3D clue: Woman with «the good hair,» in a famous Beyoncé lyric
Answer: BECKY

4D clue: In need of moisturizer
Answer: ASHY

5D clue: «We can’t hear you back here!»
Answer: LOUDER

6D clue: Drink noisily
Answer: SLURP

7D clue: ___ ghanouj
Answer: BABA

Continue Reading

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints and Answers for July 12, #292

Here are hints and the answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle for July 12, No. 292

Looking for the most recent regular Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle and Strands puzzles.

Today’s Connections: Sports Edition has one of those classic purple categories, where you probably won’t figure it out before you’ve answered all the others. Need help? Read on for hints and the answers.

Connections: Sports Edition is out of beta now, making its debut on Super Bowl Sunday, Feb. 9. That’s a sign that the game has earned enough loyal players that The Athletic, the subscription-based sports journalism site owned by the Times, will continue to publish it. It doesn’t show up in the NYT Games app but now appears in The Athletic’s own app. Or you can continue to play it free online.  

Read more: NYT Connections: Sports Edition Puzzle Comes Out of Beta

Hints for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Show Me State.

Green group hint: Old Line State.

Blue group hint: Gridiron greats.

Purple group hint: Names begins with a certain creature.

Answers for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Yellow group: Missouri teams.

Green group: Maryland teams.

Blue group: Hall of Fame football coaches.

Purple group: Sports people or terms starting with an animal.

Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words

What are today’s Connections: Sports Edition answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is Missouri teams. The four answers are Blues, Cardinals, Chiefs and Royals.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is Maryland teams.  The four answers are Maryland, Navy, Orioles and Ravens.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is Hall of Fame football coaches. The four answers are Levy, Madden, Noll, and Shula.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is sports people or terms starting with an animal. The four answers are batter, Catchings, Cowherd and dogleg.

Continue Reading

Technologies

CNET Daily Tariff Price Tracker: I’m Watching 11 Key Products for Changes, Here’s What’s Happened

The deadline for the start of Trump’s heaviest tariffs has been delayed until next month, leaving consumers stuck with more uncertainty over prices.

For the last three months, tariffs have been a hot topic, leaving consumers and businesses alike worried: Will they hike prices and by how much? It’s a question more relevant than ever this week, as President Trump punts another major deadline down the road and price-slashing Amazon’s Prime Day sales wind down as the week ends.

Amid those worries, I’ve been tracking prices every day for 11 key products likely to be hit by tariff-induced price increases, and the answer I’ve come to so far is this: Not so much, at least not yet. The winding road of tariff inflation still stretches before us into an uncertain future, so the threat of price hikes continues to cloud the horizon.

To date, I’ve seen two noteworthy price increases, one for the Xbox Series X and the other for a popular budget-friendly 4K TV. Some other products — including Apple’s popular AirPods and printer ink — have gone on sale for brief periods. 

CNET Tariff Tracker Index

Above, you can check out a chart with the average price of the 11 products included in this piece over the course of 2025. This will help give you a sense of the overall price changes and fluctuations going on. Further down, you’ll be able to check out charts for each individual product being tracked. 

We’ll be updating this article regularly as prices change. It’s all in the name of helping you make sense of things, so be sure to check back every so often. For more, check out CNET’s guide to whether you should wait to make big purchases or buy them now and get expert tips about how to prepare for a recession.

Methodology

We’re checking prices daily and will update the article and the relevant charts right away to reflect any changes. The following charts show a single bullet point for each month, with the most recent one labeled «Now» and showing the current price. For the past months, we’ve gone with what was the most common price for each item in the given month. 

In most cases, the price stats used in these graphs were pulled from Amazon using the historical price-tracker tool Keepa. For the iPhones, the prices come from Apple’s official materials and are based on the 128-gigabyte base model of the latest offering of the iPhone 16. For the Xbox Series X, the prices were sourced from Best Buy using the tool PriceTracker. If any of these products happen to be on sale at a given time, we’ll be sure to let you know and explain how those price drops differ from longer-term pricing trends that tariffs can cause.

The 11 products we’re tracking

Mostly what we’re tracking in this article are electronic devices and digital items that CNET covers in depth, like iPhones and affordable 4K TVs — along with a typical bag of coffee, a more humble product that isn’t produced in the US to any significant degree. 

The products featured were chosen for a few reasons: Some of them are popular and/or affordable representatives for major consumer tech categories, like smartphones, TVs and game consoles. Others are meant to represent things that consumers might buy more frequently, like printer ink or coffee beans. Some products were chosen over others because they are likely more susceptible to tariffs. Some of these products have been reviewed by CNET or have been featured in some of our best lists.

Below, we’ll get into more about each individual product, and stick around till the end for a rundown of some other products worth noting.

iPhone 16

The iPhone is the most popular smartphone brand in the US, so this was a clear priority for price tracking. The iPhone has also emerged as a major focal point for conversations about tariffs, given its popularity and its susceptibility to import taxes because of its overseas production, largely in China. Trump has reportedly been fixated on the idea that the iPhone can and should be manufactured in the US, an idea that experts have dismissed as a fantasy. Estimates have also suggested that a US-made iPhone would cost as much as $3,500.

Something to note about this graph: The price listed is the one you’ll see if you buy your phone through a major carrier. If you, say, buy direct from Apple or Best Buy without a carrier involved, you’ll be charged an extra $30, so in some places, you might see the list price of the standard iPhone 16 listed as $830.

Apple’s been taking a few steps to protect its prices in the face of these tariffs, flying in bulk shipments of product before they took effect and planning to move production for the US market from China to India. A new Reuters report found that a staggering 97% of iPhones imported from the latter country, March through May, were bound for the US. This latter move drew the anger of Trump again, threatening the company with a 25% tariff if they didn’t move production to the US, an idea CEO Tim Cook has repeatedly shot down in the past. This came after Trump gave a tariff exemption to electronic devices including smartphones, so the future of that move seems in doubt now.

Duracell AA batteries

A lot of the tech products in your home might boast a rechargeable energy source but individual batteries are still an everyday essential and I can tell you from experience that as soon as you forget about them, you’ll be needing to restock. The Duracell AAs we’re tracking are some of the bestselling batteries on Amazon.

Samsung DU7200 TV

Alongside smartphones, televisions are some of the most popular tech products out there, even if they’re an infrequent purchase. This particular product is a popular entry-level 4K TV and was CNET’s pick for best overall budget TV for 2025. Unlike a lot of tech products that have key supply lines in China, Samsung is a South Korean company, so it might have some measure of tariff resistance. 

After spending most of 2025 hovering around $400, this item has now seen some notable upticks on Amazon, most recently sitting around $450. This could potentially be in reaction to Trump’s announcement of 25% tariffs against South Korea this week.

Xbox Series X

Video game software and hardware are a market segment expected to be hit hard by the Trump tariffs. Microsoft’s Xbox is the first console brand to see price hikes — the company cited «market conditions» along with the rising cost of development. Most notably, this included an increase in the price of the flagship Xbox Series X, up from $500 to $600. Numerous Xbox accessories also were affected and the company also said that «certain» games will eventually see a price hike from $70 to $80.

Initially, we were tracking the price of the much more popular Nintendo Switch as a representative of the gaming market. Nintendo has not yet hiked the price of its handheld-console hybrid and stressed that the $450 price tag of the upcoming Switch 2 has not yet been inflated because of tariffs. Sony, meanwhile, has so far only increased prices on its PlayStation hardware in markets outside the US.

AirPods Pro 2

The latest iteration of Apple’s wildly popular true-wireless earbuds are here to represent the headphone market. Much to the chagrin of the audiophiles out there, a quick look at sales charts on Amazon shows you just how much the brand dominates all headphone sales. For most of the year, they’ve hovered around $199, but ahead of Prime Day sales this week they are currently on sale for $149.

HP 962 CMY printer ink

This HP printer ink includes cyan, magenta and yellow all in one product and recently saw its price jump from around $72 — where it stayed for most of 2025 — to $80, which is around its highest price over the last five years. We will be keeping tabs to see if this is a long-term change or a brief uptick. 

This product replaced Overture PLA Filament for 3D printers in this piece, but we’re still tracking that item.

Anker 10,000-mAh, 30-watt power bank

Anker’s accessories are perennially popular in the tech space and the company has already announced that some of its products will get more expensive as a direct result of tariffs. This specific product has also been featured in some of CNET’s lists of the best portable chargers. 

Bose TV speaker

Soundbars have become important purchases, given the often iffy quality of the speakers built into TVs. While not the biggest or the best offering in the space, the Bose TV Speaker is one of the more affordable soundbar options out there, especially hailing from a brand as popular as Bose. You can currently get this model at a healthy discount for Prime Day, down to $200 from $280.

Oral-B Pro 1000 electric toothbrush

They might be a lot more expensive than their traditional counterparts but electric toothbrushes remain a popular choice for consumers because of how well they get the job done. I know my dentist won’t let up on how much I need one. This particular Oral-B offering was CNET’s overall choice for the best electric toothbrush for 2025.

While this product hasn’t seen its price budge one way or another most of the year, there is a $10 coupon listed on Amazon right now.

Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i Chromebook

Lenovo is notable among the big laptop manufacturers for being a Chinese company making its products especially susceptible to Trump’s tariffs.

Starbucks Ground Coffee (28-ounce bag)

Coffee is included in this tracker because of its ubiquity —I’m certainly drinking too much of it these days —and because it’s uniquely susceptible to Trump’s tariff agenda. Famously, coffee beans can only be grown within a certain distance from Earth’s equator, a tropical span largely outside the US and known as the «Coffee Belt.» 

Hawaii is the only part of the US that can produce coffee beans, with data from USAFacts showing that 11.5 million pounds were harvested there in the 2022-23 season — little more than a drop in the mug, as the US consumed 282 times that amount of coffee during that period. Making matters worse, Hawaiian coffee production has declined in the past few years.

All that to say: Americans get almost all of their coffee from overseas, making it one of the most likely products to see price hikes from tariffs.

Other products

As mentioned, we occasionally swap out products with different ones that undergo notable price shifts. Here are some things no longer featured above, but that we’re still keeping an eye on:

  • Nintendo Switch: The baseline handheld-console hybrid has held steady around $299 most places — including Amazon — since it released in 2017. Whether that price will be affected by tariffs or the release of the Switch 2 remains to be seen. This product was replaced above with the Xbox Series X.
  • Overture PLA 3D printer filament: This is a popular choice on Amazon for the material needed to run 3D printers. It has held steady around $15 on Amazon all year. This product was replaced above by the HP 962 printer ink.

Here are some products we also wanted to single out that haven’t been featured with a graph yet:

  • Razer Blade 18 (2025), 5070 Ti edition: The latest revision of Razer’s largest gaming laptop saw a $300 price bump recently, with the base model featured an RTX 5070 Ti graphics card now priced at $3,500 ahead of launch, compared to the $3,200 price announced in February. While Razer has stayed mum about the reasoning, it did previously suspend direct sales to the US as Trump’s tariff plans were ramping up in April.
  • Asus ROG Ally X: The premium version of Asus’s Steam Deck competitor handheld gaming PC recently saw a price hike from $799 to $899, coinciding with the announcement of the company’s upcoming Xbox-branded Ally handhelds.
Continue Reading

Trending

Copyright © Verum World Media