Apple’s WWDC missed the perfect opportunity to send off CEO Tim Cook

WWDC (Worldwide Developers Conference) 2026 was Apple CEO Tim Cook’s last ever presentation as head of the company. When the iPhone 18 Pro models and the foldable iPhone Ultra come out later this year, their launch event will be handled by Cook’s successor, John Ternus.

As Tim Cook signed off for the last time, I must admit that I felt a little emotional. I’ve known Apple under Cook for far longer than I did under Steve Jobs. It’s going to take some getting used to with Ternus holding the reins.

Tim Cook is still going to be around, but he will mostly stay away from the public eye. The era of us seeing Cook talk about everything new that Apple has been working on is over, which is why I couldn’t help but feel a little underwhelmed by how WWDC sent him off.

Tim Cook’s underwhelming farewell

Almost all of WWDC 2026 revolved around the new and rebranded Siri AI. The features that Apple showed off in 2024 have finally become a reality and Siri has caught up with AI services on competing flagship smartphones.

There’s one problem here, however. Despite years of marketing and billions of dollars worth of research and development, most customers still don’t really care for AI on their smartphones. For the majority of phone users, AI services, features, and tools just aren’t solving problems that they care about.

If Apple had at least mentioned something exciting, like the upcoming foldable iPhone or the MacBook with a touch screen, the event would have been a lot more remarkable. Tim Cook would have signed off for the last time after showing everyone the company’s newest endeavor. Leaving, in my eyes, a much more memorable last impression.

But with how WWDC went and with how Apple tried to gaslight everyone about why it was late to the AI market, Cook’s farewell was the most interesting part of the entire event. Sure, I’m glad that Apple is finally getting Siri in order, but I doubt most people who tuned in even cared.

Apple should have mentioned smart glasses

In my opinion, Apple should have mentioned or even shown off the smart glasses that it is currently working on.

Wait, add something that the majority doesn’t care about to a presentation focused on another thing that the majority doesn’t care about? Yes. Hear me out.

During his last two years as CEO, Tim Cook was obsessed with smart glasses. He desperately wants Apple to release a consumer pair of smart glasses around the same time that Meta launches its Orion glasses.

Like Meta, Google, Samsung, and others, Apple thinks that smart glasses might be the successor to smartphones. As such, Cook has been trying for a long time to get a pair ready before competing manufacturers eat up all of the market share and establish themselves in a new emerging market.



Imagine if, instead of just focusing on Siri AI, Apple had also at least talked about smart glasses. Even better, Tim Cook could have talked about the glasses himself during a dedicated section of the event.

If smart glasses really are going to become the future of smartphones — or at least a large part of it — and if Apple really is pivoting into this field, then this was a wasted opportunity. Tim Cook could have been sent off after having talked about the future of the company and the industry as a whole.

Such a sendoff would have been more personal as well, as Cook would have signed off after having shared something that he is passionate about. When we would have remembered Cook’s legacy 10 years from now, we would have seen him talk about devices that might be more popular than the iPhone by then.

We would have seen Cook mention a future that didn’t exist back then. Everyone would label him a visionary. I’m sure they still will, but what a way it would have been to have ended his era as CEO of Apple.

I wonder if Apple just didn’t want a repeat of 2024 by promising something it might not be able to get ready on time.

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