Tim Cook Answers Your Emails Like Steve Jobs Did [Some Apple Fans Try Emailing The New Apple CEO, Find That He Replies Just Like Steve Jobs, Exchanges Auburn University War Cry With A Fellow Alum]

Posted on TFTS by Kevin Schram on Tuesday, 30. August 2011 under: Computers & Computing, Mobile/Cell Phones, PCs, Notebooks, Netbooks & Tablets

Steve Jobs stepped down from the CEO spot last week at Apple, leaving his right-hand man and former COO Tim Cook in the big chair at Apple. A lot of folks have been speculating on how Cook will do running Apple, but he’s already doing one thing as well as Jobs did – replying to customer emails! A few Apple fans have already emailed Cook’s email address at Apple.com and have received responses from the new CEO.

Here’s a few replies that Tim Cook has already sent to fans that we’ve found posted around the internet:

Congrats on being the new CEO of Apple
Zech

Cook’s reply:

Thanks Zech.
Tim
Sent from my iPad

Like Jobs’ replies, they’re pretty concise, but also a bit warmer that Jobs’ stoic replies. Here’s one from an Auburn University alumni (where Cook also went to school):

Tim, just wanted to wish you the best of luck, and to let you know that there are a lot of us that are excited to see where Apple is going. Oh, one more thing- WAR DAMN EAGLE!
Justin R.
Sent from my iPhone

Cook replied:

Thanks Justin. War Eagle forever!
Tim

“War Eagle” and “War Damn Eagle” are war cries of fans of the Auburn Tigers football team. According to another commenter posting on iDownloadBlog, he explained that he was a soldier and while deployed to Iraq, Apple products helped him stay in touch with his family. In his reply, Cook is said to have thanked the commentator for his military service to the country. Pretty personable.

Hard to tell if these are really being written by Cook or not. Many companies (AT&T most noticeably) have executive response teams where teams of young recent MBA graduates respond to customer complaints, pretending to be the CEO. But it’s widely believed that these Jobs/Cook emails are really the men themselves responding to fans. It’s also possible that there is an executive response team that forwards emails to the CEO, and then they write the real response.

Anyway, MacRumors reports that Apple kept track of how many emails were sent to Steve Jobs’ email account, and they’re probably doing the same to his successor. Considering that people liked to go to Jobs with every complaint under the sun about Apple products (like “Why are you canceling Xserver?”), seemed to be a good indication about what things the Apple fanbase was unhappy with.

In the interest of openness, Tim Cook’s email address is tcook@apple.com. Anybody managed to get a reply from the mild-mannered new CEO of Apple?

Source

Ben Crothers
I’ve emailed Mr Cook asking him for Apple to support pancreatic cancer research. No response, yet though.
I’ve also set up an email campaign here ([Ed: link removed]) for others to do the same. Over 250 emails have been sent so far. I can’t tell if any of these nice people have received responses either. :)
I’m wanting to be as respectful as possible, and I’ve told him about the email campaign, and if he tells me to stop it I will. But I (and others hopefully) feel pretty strongly about this issue, and see it as a great opportunity for Apple to do something to support research into the killer that took Steve Jobs.
If I get a reply, you guys will be the first to know! :)