The Tim Cook Era Officially Ends & Why MapQuest Soars to No. 1 App

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**Neal Freyman** (0:28)
Good Morning Brew Daily Show. I'm Neal Freyman.

**Toby Howell** (0:31)
And I'm Toby Howell.

**Neal Freyman** (0:32)
Today, Tim Cook signs off at Apple for the last time.

**Toby Howell** (0:35)
Then MapQuest has made an unexpected surge to the top of the App Store. It's Tuesday, September 1st. Let's ride.

**Neal Freyman** (0:51)
It is the first of September, the time of year you typically start swapping out your iced coffee for pumpkin spice lattes. But maybe not this season. There are indications that the King of Fall might be losing its crown to fast charging competitors. Google Trends data shows that the PSL had searches in only three states last week, falling behind Chai and Matcha. At this point last year, it led in 32 states, and in 2024, 48 states. Food trend experts say it's not that we haven't fallen out of love with pumpkin spice, just that so many more options are available that give you that same cozy autumn feeling. Miso caramel, brown butter, honey, smoked butterscotch, banana, coffee, syrup. Toby, is this the end of a spice dynasty?

**Toby Howell** (1:37)
No.
And I'll tell you why. It is just moved into the classic pantheon. You don't need to search for pumpkin spice latte anymore. That being said, miso caramel has my attention. That sounds quite savory and delicious. The fact that banana coffee syrup, though, has surpassed pumpkin spice coffee syrup in most Google Trends rating, that is where I draw the line. Disgusting. How are we back on bananas? I thought banana bread was a pandemic era thing. No, pumpkin spice is here to stay.
It's like LeBron. It just has a little longevity at this point. It's not getting passed by yet, even though I will be indulging in some miso caramel this fall season. Now, a word from our sponsor, American Express. Neal, I am all go.

**Neal Freyman** (2:25)
You're what?

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At Apple, Tim Cook's watch has ended. The John Ternus era is about to begin. Yesterday marked the final day for Cook as Apple CEO. The role he's held since 2011 when he replaced visionary co-founder Steve Jobs at the helm of tech's most innovative hardware company. Many thought those shoes were too big to fill for a soft-spoken supply chain geek like Cook to succeed Jobs. It's like asking someone to perform on stage after Zara Larsen. But now that his tenure is over, it's clear to everyone that Tim absolutely Cooked. In his 15 years in charge, Apple stock soared more than 2000% to become the second most valuable company in the world, boasting a market cap of nearly $5 trillion.
Revenue and profits quadrupled. The year Cook became CEO, Apple sold 72 million iPhones. This year, estimates suggest it'll sell 255 million. Warren Buffett, a major Apple shareholder, famously said he was somewhat embarrassed to admit that Tim Cook made him more money than he himself ever did. There were missteps. Apple's Vision Pro, the company's splashy foray into virtual reality, so far a massive flop. Others didn't cook for lack in the long-term vision of the creative juice that animated Jobs. And now, in the thick of the AI revolution, Apple has been slower than peers to roll out features, with Siri becoming an afterthought compared to ChatGPT and Claude. That's a problem for John Ternus, Apple's hardware boss and Cook's handpicked successor. Once again, there will be big shoes to fill.

**Toby Howell** (4:37)
Let's step back into the kitchen one last time to give Cook his flowers. The big question was, are you going to become Steve Jobs 2.0? That's an impossible question. You could not fill those shoes. But what Tim Cook really did, his big innovation was making the iPhone incredibly useful everywhere in your daily life. We take for granted the fact that your iPhone can now do things like buy stuff. Like payments was a big thing that Cook pushed into music and entertainment, fitness, wearables and accessories. All of this were big innovations, not necessarily in the way that Steve Jobs innovated, but in the way that Cook innovated. He created this idea of a connected ecosystem. A wall garden that makes Apple so valuable. The more products you add into your ecosystem, the more valuable it becomes, which is why an Apple Watch is fine, but an Apple Watch plus an iPhone is even better. And then an Apple Watch plus an iPhone, plus the subscription to all of Apple services, that is the coup de grace. So again, he wasn't this visionary product leader, but if you look down into what he did, he made that connected ecosystem that's made Apple so valuable.