I used to like him. I worked for the company when he took over. On the first day in the driver’s seat, he sent an email to all employees stating that the policy on company-matched donations to charities was being expanded. I can’t remember the details, but it was something about adding charities that SJ considered too political or something (SJ liked to keep the brand away from controversy, which is why you’ve never been able to get a porn app in the App Store).
I thought it was a classy way of signaling to everyone, “I’m in charge now.” I really had a lot of respect for Tim Apple as a result.
The way he’s fucked things around for third party developers with the App Store tax and locking down what developers can build has been so tone-deaf in the last however many years that Apple released a breakthrough hardware device (Vision Pro) and it’s basically useless because no one wants to build for it. I know that he’s sucking up to ensure that the admin favors his company’s needs wrt manufacturing in China, but it’s still a feckless move. Fuck Tim Apple. He’s part of the problem now. Not like Ol’ Lonnie or Zuck, but still a problem.
I remember when I liked him better when I liked him better.
https://www.theverge.com/2022/9/7/23342243/tim-cook-apple-rcs-imessage-android-iphone-compatibility
This was before the EU forced them to implement RCS.
The EU actually didn’t force them to implement RCS. Apple did it themselves to try and avoid an regulatory/antitrust scrutiny.
At the moment I think having RCS on iPhone is worse than if Apple was forced to open up iMessage to other platforms. RCS on Android is basically controlled by Google and you can’t use it on custom roms. Google also runs the RCS backend that most carriers rely on (rather than implementing their own). So if you are trying to avoid Google’s spyware, you can’t use RCS to message iPhone users.