Ken Segall knew Steve Jobs well. Segall was a former TBWA\Chiat\Day creative director, he worked on a long range of advertising projects for both Apple and NeXT, and he was and is a fierce advocate for simplicity.

From an interview he did with the Guardian:

A growing number of people are sensing that Tim Cook’s Apple isn’t as simple as Steve’s Apple. They see complexity in expanding product lines, confusing product names, and the products themselves.

And:

Apple has a lengthy, award-winning history in advertising. Even marketers in other industries have long considered Apple ads to be the gold standard.

This isn’t because Steve Jobs created great ads himself – it’s because he was adament about keeping the process simple. He trusted a small group of smart people at his longtime ad agency and he was actively involved in the process, week to week.

There were no middlemen, no multiple levels of approvals, and no focus group research. Trust me, few companies on earth work this way. It was Steve’s way of keeping complexity at bay.

With Steve’s passing, things changed dramatically. Apple is building a large in-house marketing group. Teams compete to produce new campaigns. More people are involved. In short, Apple is now managing its marketing more like a big company and less like a startup.

My 2 cents:

Clearly Tim is not Steve. They have different strengths, different points of intellectual focus. Perhaps more importantly, Steve ruled over a much smaller company (he returned to Apple in 1997, announced his six month medical leave in Jan 2008, officially resigned in Aug 2011). Tim Cook has to both manage one of the largest companies in the world and keep its spirit alive with a wellspring of new products.

Even if, due to sheer size, simplicity on a global scale is no longer possible, simplicity on a local scale should be. Complexity of design is a captive critter, always looking to escape the confines of its enclosure. Minimalism requires diligence.