‘You can’t spread your energy like peanut butter’: Tim Cook shares rare insight into Apple’s ‘ruthless’ approach to new ideas — and it says a lot about what to expect (or not) from the company moving forward

We're celebrating Apple's 50th birthday with a week of content about the tech giant. It covers everything from personal recollections from our writers to the greatest — and worst — Apple gadgets as voted by you, and you can read it all on our 50 years of Apple page.

Remember the Macintosh Portable? Or the circular ‘Hockey Puck’ mouse? How about the unsolicited rollout of U2’s thirteenth studio album to 500 million iTunes subscribers?

These are just a few of the things Apple has got wrong in its otherwise illustrious 50-year history. But while marketing blunders and product misfires are inevitable in the pursuit of innovation, Tim Cook hasn’t overseen all that many of either during his time as CEO.

The mild-mannered executive has prioritized supply chain efficiency and steady growth over radical new ideas in his 14-year tenure at the helm ...