After 15 years at the helm, Tim Cook is stepping down as CEO of Apple and handing over the reins to the company’s senior vice president of hardware engineering, John Ternus. Cook, who joined Apple in 1998, succeeded Steve Jobs in 2011 and went on to transform Apple into a powerhouse worth $4 trillion. 

With his time as CEO coming to an end on September 1, let’s take a look at some of the highlights of Cook’s 15 years as the leader of one of the most influential companies in the world. 

Financial growth

Apple was already an influential company when Cook took the reins, but under his leadership, the company’s market capitalization increased tenfold. When Cook took over in August 2011, Apple was valued at just under $350 billion. The company passed $1 trillion in 2018, $2 trillion in 2020, $3 trillion in 2022, and $4 trillion in 2025. Now, the tech giant currently sits at $4.01 trillion. 

The tech giant reported $112 billion in net income for the fiscal year ending in September 2025, which was eight times what Apple saw in September 2010. The company was able to achieve that 699% increase despite many issues, including the COVID-19 pandemic and geopolitical tensions between the U.S. and China. Cook, who was formerly chief operations officer and credited as the brains behind Apple’s global supply chain under Steve Jobs, expanded Apple’s reach in China and added roughly 200 stores to the company’s global network during his tenure as CEO.

New product categories

Cook expanded Apple’s iPhone and computers ecosystem into a broader network of complementary devices that includes wearables and gadgets. 

Apple launched the Apple Watch in 2015 and has since turned it into a full-fledged health and fitness companion complete with blood oxygen tracking and ECG monitoring. Apple then disrupted the earphones market in 2016 with the launch of the first AirPods, changing the wireless headphones category. It then launched its first over-the-ear headphones in 2020. It’s also worth noting that Apple purchased Beats in 2014. 

The tech giant also released the Apple Vision Pro in 2024, positioning it not just as a VR headset, but as a spatial computing platform. The launch, however, failed to resonate with consumers who didn’t want to spend several thousand dollars to purchase the gadget.

Under Cook, the company also released iPads at various sizes and multiple price points, and essentially turned the devices into full-on computers that can handle a variety of different tasks for personal, work, and school use.

Of course, Cook also oversaw key changes to the iPhone, including the introduction of the more affordable iPhone SE, as well as advancements like Face ID and edge-to-edge displays.

Although Apple moved away from the “i” branding in new product releases under Cook, he oversaw the major expansion of the company’s product lineup.

Services expansion 

Under Cook, Apple built a powerful services business. The tech giant launched Apple Pay in 2014, which is now used by an estimated 818 million people globally. In 2019, the tech giant launched its Apple TV+ (now Apple TV) streaming service, whose content has since earned hundreds of awards, including the Academy Award for Best Picture.

Apple launched its Apple Music streaming service in 2015 to take on Spotify, and the service now has over 112 million subscribers. In 2019, Apple launched Apple Arcade and has since built it out with a portfolio of premium games. 

Although Jobs first announced iCloud in 2011, the storage service has since grown vastly under Cook, including the launch of iCloud+ in 2021. Additionally, Cook oversaw the evolution of the App Store and repeatedly defended its 30% commission structure. 

Apple’s services business generated $109.16 billion in revenue during the fiscal year ending in September 2025. The segment accounted for a significant portion of the company’s total $416.16 billion revenue for the year.

Shift to in-house processors

Under Cook’s leadership, Apple began transitioning from Intel processors to its own Apple Silicon chips in 2020 and completed the shift across its Mac lineup by 2023. The result was longer battery life, higher performance, greater power efficiency, and more. 

AI era

Apple entered its AI era in 2024 with the launch of Apple Intelligence. Since then, however, the company hasn’t had any major breakthroughs, and has faced significant delays in launching its anticipated revamped AI-powered Siri (it’s expected to roll out sometime this year).

The tech giant remained largely absent from the broader tech industry’s generative AI race that kicked off when OpenAI’s ChatGPT launched in 2022. Earlier this year, Apple and Google announced that Google’s Gemini would power its next-generation AI tools.

$600 billion U.S. spending commitment 

Cook joined President Donald Trump last year to announce a $600 billion U.S. spending commitment, marking the tech giant’s biggest investment plan ever. The four-year plan includes expanding hiring and manufacturing activity in the country, with a focus on building a stronger domestic semiconductor and advanced technology supply chain.

Apple Park

Jobs’ vision for Apple Park came to life under Cook’s leadership in 2017. The 175-acre headquarters, which replaced Apple Campus, houses more than 12,000 employees. It features thousands of native and drought-resistant trees and is powered by 100% renewable energy. 

Today, Apple Park is the backdrop of the company’s new product launches.

The PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series S are easily two of the most popular game consoles around – but what actually is the difference between them?

Whether you’re torn between the consoles and aren’t sure which one to go for, or if you’re just curious to know how the internals of the PS5 compare to the Xbox Series S then you’re in luck.

We should note that the PlayStation 5 comes as a few different iterations. Not including the premium PlayStation 5 Pro or the handheld PlayStation Portal, there’s the original PS5, the PS5 Slim and the PS5 Digital Edition. With this in mind, we’ve compared the latter three to the Xbox Series S below.

Keep reading to see how the PlayStation 5 compares to the Xbox Series S, and decide which console will suit your needs best.

We’ve also compared the PlayStation 5 vs Xbox Series X, if you want to compare the PS5 to the Xbox that’s equipped with a disc drive. Or we’ve rounded up the most up-to-date PlayStation 6 rumours, if you’re debating holding out for Sony’s hotly anticipated model.

This latest investment is in addition to the $8bn Amazon has already invested in the AI company.

In line with a strategy to expand AI infrastructure, Amazon has announced plans to invest up to $25bn into Anthropic – $5bn now and as much as $20bn in the future. To date, Amazon has invested $8bn in Anthropic and the AI start-up has also committed to ‌spending more than $100bn over the next 10 years on Amazon’s cloud technologies.

This will include current and future generations of Trainium, which is Amazon’s custom AI chips, and tens of millions of Graviton cores, Amazon’s CPU chip. Additionally, Anthropic will secure up to 5GW of capacity to train and power their AI models, including significant Trainium3 capacity which is expected to come online this year. 

Commenting on the announcement, Andy Jassy, the CEO of Amazon, said: “Anthropic’s commitment to run its large language models on AWS Trainium for the next decade reflects the progress we’ve made together on custom silicon, as we continue delivering the technology and infrastructure our customers need to build with generative AI.”

The news is hot on the heels of Anthropic’s plans to release Mythos, the platform’s latest model, to UK financial institutions. The model was launched as part of a limited release earlier this month, with access granted to big businesses and financial organisations to bolster their security. Reportedly, Mythos vastly outperforms other AI models in vulnerability detection and exploitation.

Amazon has been investing heavily in AI infrastructure as of late, with a $50bn contribution to a recent OpenAI funding round that closed at $110bn. As part of the round, Nvidia invested $30bn and SoftBank invested $30bn. The investment brought OpenAI from a $500bn valuation to a $730bn pre-money valuation.

OpenAI also has an additional deal with Amazon in which the organisation will utilise 2GW of computing capacity powered by Amazon’s in-house Trainium chips.

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According to the data, Ireland’s jobs market is holding up, but confidence is staggered as employers become more cautious.

The Employment and Recruitment Federation, supported by Icon Accounting, has published the Irish Labour Market Annual Survey. This report explores Ireland’s jobs market and the impact that temporary and contract roles are having on the wider landscape. 

The Federation’s research found that while Ireland’s jobs market is holding steady, “employer confidence is becoming more measured, with temporary and contract roles now overtaking permanent recruitment in a clear sign of growing caution across the market”.

The report suggests that this is indicative of a landscape in which organisations are still actively recruiting, but with a far more defensive mindset as they navigate the pressures of rising costs, uncertainty and talent constraints. 

In 2025, permanent recruiting accounted for 44pc of net fee income, while temporary and contracting roles together represented 48pc. The Employment and Recruitment Federation said this is reflective of a move by employers towards achieving greater flexibility and that employers are becoming more selective and more controlled in how they build teams, particularly where longer-term commitments are required.

“That matters because it tells us something important about the broader economy,” said Siobhán Kinsella, the president of the Employment and Recruitment Federation. “Demand is still there, but businesses are making more guarded decisions around cost, growth and commitment.”

Uncertain future

The report comes at a time when the Irish jobs market is experiencing relatively low unemployment, where employment itself is growing steadily, but it is happening in a space where the sentiment is, according to the research, “becoming more mixed”. More than half of the companies who contributed to the report said that they have concerns about the shape of the economy and demand over the next 12 months. 

Issues with attracting and retaining key talent are also weighing on organisations, as seven out of 10 agencies said that skills availability remains the biggest challenge in the market, with the sharpest shortages reported in healthcare, engineering, accountancy and finance, construction, and IT.

Kinsella said: “This is a market where businesses still need people but are under more pressure in how they hire. The challenge now is not simply filling roles. It is balancing growth ambitions with cost control, uncertainty and ongoing difficulty accessing the right skills.

“As students begin reviewing CAO options ahead of the Change of Mind period, the findings also point to a longer-term pipeline issue for Ireland, particularly in areas such as accountancy and finance, engineering, healthcare and technology where demand remains strong and shortages remain persistent.

“That creates a more fragile dynamic underneath the headline numbers. The labour market is still performing, but employers are no longer behaving with the same level of confidence they were a year or two ago.”

Also commenting on the report, David Shanahan, a director at Irish recruitment agency IT Search, which is a member of the Vertical Markets Group, noted that his own organisation’s research found that the volume of tech roles across the Irish market have increased from 6,082 in March 2025 to 6,810 in March 2026. 

He noted, however, that there are some “important nuances” to make note of. “In areas such as data and cybersecurity, hiring is heavily contract focused. However, across AI, software engineering and DevOps, hiring is more evenly split than it might appear.

“Contract roles are largely tied to project and programme delivery, while permanent hiring is driven by product-led and commercial software companies, where the focus is on building and scaling their own technology platforms.”

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• A rare decay exposes cracks in physics that refuse easy explanation
• The Standard Model shows strain under one of its toughest tests
• Four-sigma anomaly hints something subtle may be missing in physics

Scientists at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) have found something strange inside a particle decay process called an electroweak penguin decay, which could signal a major problem for modern physics.

The LHC is a 27-kilometer circular tunnel buried under the French-Swiss border where proton beams smash together at nearly the speed of light, recreating conditions similar to those just after the Big Bang.

YouTube is cracking down on celebrity deepfakes, and this time around, it is not just talking about the problem in vague platform-safety terms. In a new blog post, YouTube announced that it is expanding its likeness detection technology to the entertainment industry.

So now, the tools will be accessible to talent agencies and management companies for the celebrities they represent. This tool works in a way that is similar to Content ID, but rather than matching copyrighted media, it looks for AI-generated content using a person’s likeness and gives eligible participants the ability to find that content and request removal.

Why this is YouTube’s answer to AI celebrity fakes

The Content AI comparison here is key, since that is exactly how YouTube wants people to think about this. If the system works well, it could give high-profile people a much faster way to spot fake videos using their face before those clips spread too far.

And yes, this is clearly about celebrity fakes first. YouTube’s expanded program is aimed at the entertainment industry right now, with support from major talent agencies and management companies, including CAA, UTA, WME, and Untitled Management.

The company has worked with those groups to refine how the tool should serve talent, which suggests this has been shaped around the practical needs of public figures rather than launched as a generic moderation experiment.

One notable detail in the announcement is that celebrities and entertainers are eligible to access the tool even if they do not have a YouTube channel. In other words, it isn’t just a creator perk and functions more like a platform-wide control system. Deepfake scams, fake endorsements, and manipulated celebrity clips are no longer fringe internet weirdness. They’re a real part of online dangers.

How far is YouTube taking this

As of right now, the announcement is focused on the entertainment industry. YouTube did not announce a broad public rollout that protects regular users. We also have no details regarding how fast the detection system is or how proactive the company will be against these deepfakes.

This year, Garmin has been working quite hard to improve its offline presence. And keeping with that momentum, the company has opened a new exclusive brand store in New Delhi. Unlike a typical retail outlet, Garmin’s new store focuses on giving customers a hands-on feel of its products. Visitors can try out a wide range of GPS-enabled smartwatches, including the Fenix series for endurance users, Forerunner models for training insights, Instinct for rugged outdoor use, and the premium MARQ collection.

The store also features wellness-focused options like the Venu and Vívoactive series, catering to users looking for everyday fitness tracking alongside advanced health insights.

More Than Just Smartwatches

Garmin is also using this space to showcase its broader ecosystem. This includes golf tech like launch monitors and simulators, indoor cycling solutions from the Tacx lineup (including the Neo Bike Plus), and handheld GPS devices built for navigation in challenging environments.

The idea is simple: instead of just selling devices, Garmin wants users to see how its products work together across different use cases—from fitness tracking to outdoor exploration and sports performance.

With this launch, Garmin continues to expand its offline footprint in India, complementing its presence across multi-brand outlets such as Just in Time, Helios, Reliance Digital, and Malabar Watches. The company is also active online through its website, Amazon, and Flipkart.

from the first-amendment-isn’t-subjective dept

Last fall, an Alabama police officer decided he wasn’t going to allow a 62-year-old woman to exercise her First Amendment rights — not if she was going to do so from inside an inflatable penis costume.

Yes, these are sentences we actually have to write here at Techdirt — things that seem so implausible you’d expect them to be generated from the sloppiest of AI prompts. It’s a real thing, though. It happened to Fairhope, Alabama resident Renea Gamble. It was inflicted by Fairhope PD officer Andrew Babb, who took apparently personal offense at Gamble’s inflatable penis costume and her “No Dick-Tator” sign she carried during a “No Kings” protest.

You can watch the arrest in all of its ingloriousness below. It’s alternately comical and horrifying. Horrifying, because it involves officers assaulting a 62-year-old grandmother. Comical, because multiple attempts are made to fit the person and costume into a police cruiser before deciding it might be easier if the person and costume were separated… which then leads to an officer discovering it’s kind of difficult to shove a non-resisting inflatable penis costume into the truck of a police car.

This arrest and resulting prosecution gained national attention. Rather than encourage the city to drop the prosecution, it seemingly emboldened it. Prosecutors waited until people had moved onto the next outage before dropping additional charges on Renea Gamble, including “disturbing the peace” and “giving a false name to law enforcement.” (The latter charge stemmed from Gamble telling the arresting officers her name was “Auntie Fa.”)

Officer Babb — as captured by his own recording — presented a very subjective take on the First Amendment when arresting Gamble. He not only demanded Gamble explain what he was supposed to tell his own kids if they happened to see her costume (wtaf?), but said her particular form of expression was inherently unlawful because Fairhope was “a family town.”

The officer was as wrong about free speech as the town officials who supported this arrest and prosecution. Fair hope mayor Sherry Sullivan called the costume an “obscene display.” City council president Jack Burrell said the costume “violated community standards,” without bothering to assess what the community’s standards actually were.

Fortunately/unfortunately for him, a local radio station did exactly that, arriving at the opposite conclusion:

In December, a Mobile-based talk radio station held a listener poll to choose its annual Alabamian of the Year, with “Inflatable Fairhope Protest Penis” receiving the most votes.

Much more legitimately fortunate is the disposition of Renea Gamble’s criminal case. As AL.com reports, it has been tossed by municipal judge Haymes Snedeker. However, Snedeker’s acquittal comes with some caveats that will make it a bit more difficult for Gamble to pursue a civil rights lawsuit in this particular venue:

Judge Haymes Snedeker, after a trial lasting more than two hours, said he did not believe Fairhope Police Cpl. Andrew Babb was attempting to suppress 62-year-old Renea Gamble’s free speech rights during their encounter at the anti-Trump protest. He also said there may have been enough probable cause for Babb to arrest her.

However, Snedeker said he was not 99.9% certain that Gamble should be convicted of crimes stemming from the actions that led to her arrest. She was found not guilty of misdemeanor charges of disorderly conduct and resisting arrest, as well as a municipal violation for disturbing the peace and giving a false name to law enforcement.

Snedeker gives the officer too much credit, especially when his own statements during the arrest made it clear he was singling Gamble out because he didn’t agree with her particular form of free expression. The recording shows Gamble wanted to manhandle this penis because he was employed by a “family town” and didn’t want to have to explain to his kids what this costume might represent. He didn’t present anything approaching legal justification prior to pinning Gamble to the ground and handcuffing her.

The judge said all of this despite the officer’s testimony being completely undercut by the recording of the arrest.

Babb testified that he was using de-escalation techniques he was trained to employ as a police officer. He said he was concerned about safety and viewed Gamble’s costume as an “obstruction.” He said he did not arrest her because he was personally offended by the costume or her anti-Trump message.

[…]

[Gamble’s lawyer David] Gespass disagreed, arguing that body camera footage revealed the true nature of the arrest. In the footage, Babb tells Gamble that her costume would not be tolerated in a town that “has values.”

“That’s all he talked about when he was confronting her was, ‘I am not going to put up with this in my town,’” Gespass said. “He said nothing about her causing any problems with traffic. Certainly, if you watch the video, he is not de-escalating anything. He approached her aggressively.”

That wasn’t the only stupid thing said by the government. Here’s the prosecutor attempting to salvage an obviously bogus prosecution:

“There is no constitutional right to wear a total erect penis on the side of the road,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

Hmm. Seems wrong. Pretty sure in this context it’s protected speech. And all of these qualifiers suggest no prosecution would be happening if Gamble had simply let a little bit of the air out of the costume to appear a bit more flaccid.

Both the cop and the prosecutor (Marcus McDowell) are welcome to say dumb things in their own defense during testimony. For the judge to suggest this arrest might have been supported by probable cause demands a better explanation than what was given here. If the standard is only that one cop felt something violated the law, the First Amendment is meaningless. It’s the sort of thing that tells citizens their rights only matter once they’re violated… and even then, they still may not mean much. The judge blew the call here and the local cops know it. Gamble still has a target on her back and the cops have the judicial leeway to keep arresting protesters they personally don’t like.

Filed Under: alabama, andrew babb, david gespass, fairhope pd, free speech, haymes snedeker, no kings, penis, renea gamble, trump administration