Investors should start seeing Apple CEO Tim Cook as an innovator, CNBC’s Jim Cramer said on Wednesday.
“When is Cook going to get the benefit of the doubt?” Cramer said on “Squawk on the Street, ” stressing that key Apple wearables were “all invented after Steve Jobs, ” the company’s co-founder who died in October 2011 after a battle with pancreatic cancer.
Apple released AirPods in December 2016 and the first-generation Apple Watch in 2015.
Cramer was countering criticism of Cook, who has been viewed as more of an operator than an innovator like Jobs, who handpicked Cook to take over as CEO shortly before his death.
Wearables such as the Apple Watch, AirPods wireless earbuds, and Beats headphones contributed to what Cook called a “blowout quarter,” following Apple’s announcement late Tuesday of fiscal third quarter earnings and revenue that were better than expectations.
Apple also plans to launch in August its new Goldman Sachs-linked credit card, the Apple Card, Cook said during the post-earnings analyst conference call. The card is being seen as a starting point for more services in its Wallet app in the future.
“I don’t think anyone could be ready for what I think is going to happen with this card,” Cramer said. “I think it’s going to be amazing.”
Growing services and wearables are becoming bigger focuses for Apple as iPhone sales slow.