Tim Cook’s Legacy: Turning Apple’s Tech Chic Gadgets Into Status Symbols

In the coming days, a lot will be said about Tim Cook’s legacy at Apple. He expanded the company’s products into new categories like wearables and headphones, debuted a suite of services, developed a strong customer base in China and led the company to a $4 trillion valuation. 

From the moment Cook officially took the CEO position in 2011, he was in the shadow of his predecessor and Apple founder Steve Jobs, whose legacy extended far beyond a lineup of successful products. Jobs’ legacy was being the face of Apple, aggressively pushing for user-oriented design simplicity in the background while singing their praises in the public spotlight. His successor had big shoes to fill and grew the company from a more private vantage, but his legacy is more than just how much Apple is worth. Cook’s lasting impact can also be measured in another way: how much Apple’s products have become status symbols.

I remember my parents buying the 1998 iMac in Bondi Blue, the first major product Steve Jobs released after returning to lead Apple. “There’s no step 3!” came Jeff Goldblum’s voice in a classic commercial summarizing the prodigal CEO’s vision of the company’s products: easy-to-use and chic alternatives to boring beige boxes. This culminated in the white-plastic era of lamp iMacs, MacBooks, iPods and iPhones spearheaded by designer Jony Ive. 

Apple products were cool and big sellers when Cook took over as CEO. But he focused on the iPhone as a new center of the company, using it as a beachhead for its new unified device ecosystem. Once the iPhone was in people’s pockets, iOS’s easy-to-use interface and synergy with MacOS (sharing iMessage from 2012 onward) and WatchOS (with the first Apple Watch in 2015) led them to stick with Apple’s smartphone line. Then their friends did, too, and discovered that their text conversations fell into two camps: blue with other iPhone owners, or green with Android owners.

In 2017, the iPhone X rang in a new era of home-buttonless, all-screen-front handset design and, subsequently, higher prices — the first time it neared four figures (though cleverly priced at $999). Soon, more iMessage features expanded the divide between those paying more money for iPhones and those often paying less for Android devices. This has led to social stigma for those sending “green bubble” chats. Apple was in no rush to bridge this gap, and at Code 2022, I watched as Cook himself told a fan to “buy your mom an iPhone.” 

Apple has somewhat bowed to pressure on this issue, adding some extra messaging functionality between iPhones and Android devices when it incorporated the data-based RCS messaging standard into its handsets back in 2024. But the stigma persists, and iPhones have continued to enjoy social superiority in many markets. That’s undoubtedly contributed to iPhone sales over the years, ensuring Apple’s phones remain the company’s highest-selling devices by a long shot. 

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Cook’s era has seen many products come out that openly resemble Apple products to coast on their credibility. From the Huawei Matebook X of 2017 to the HP Dragonfly Pro of 2023, plenty of laptop makers ape Apple’s sleek silver MacBook aesthetics. And considering all the phones I saw at MWC looking like dead ringers for the iPhone 17 Pro down to its signature orange hue, iPhone envy is alive and well. 

Tim Cook rings in the celebrity era of Apple

Jobs dabbled in using musicians to promote Apple products, like the iPod, but the closest he got to using celebrities was when he brought the actor Noah Wyle on stage at Macworld 1999, giving a faux-Jobs speech (Wyle had just portrayed him in the film Pirates of Silicon Valley earlier that year). 

The Tim Cook era is when Apple launches began openly featuring celebrities, and nothing says status like a famous person using your product. To be fair, Apple isn’t alone among tech companies in doing this, but other examples certainly feel more stilted, like when Jimmy Fallon helped debut the Pixel 10, or when Samsung unveiled the Z Fold 6 and Sydney Sweeney was also there. 

Cook oversaw an embrace of celebrities as pseudo-brand ambassadors. It started with a stumble in 2014 when Apple shoved a U2 album into every iPhone, a wildly unpopular move the company quickly recovered from with its first new product in the new era. Back before the Apple Watch launched in 2015, the company seemingly seeded the device out to Beyonce, Katy Perry, Drake, Pharrell Williams and others to flaunt on social media, cultivating prerelease hype and a luxury association for a tech gadget. 

Then at the grand unveiling of Apple TV Plus in March 2019, a laundry list of Hollywood’s top stars were either featured in the presentation or appeared in the audience to signal their involvement in shows and films to come, including Steven Speilberg, Ron Howard, Reese Witherspoon, Jennifer Aniston, Steve Carell, Chris Evans, Jason Momoa, M. Night Shyamalan, Octavia Spencer, Hailee Steinfeld, Jane Krakowski, Kumail Nanjiani and more. Cook himself brought Oprah on stage to cap off the event. 

Cook has savvily adapted his product launch invite list to bring on more current celebrities who made their mark on social media and streaming. In recent years, he’s set up interviews at Apple events with popular streamers like Marques Brownlee (MKBHD) and iJustine at WWDC 2025, as well as at a secret Grand Central Terminal, NYC event for Apple’s 50th anniversary. Last year, after the iPhone 17 series was introduced, he walked to the demo floor to show off the iPhone Air to Mr. Beast.

But to properly honor 50 years of Apple, Cook brought in one of the greatest living musical legends, Paul McCartney, to mark the company’s half-century. 

Cook’s tenure at Apple may be coming to a close, but he’s shown a keen sense for how to make owning an iPhone or MacBook a measure of status. And by turning launch events into celebrity-studded product galas, he’s ensured the company itself is seen as a global symbol of high-end products. How else do you get a Beatle to celebrate your birthday?