Why would Craig have been great? macOS usability and quality has suffered greatly under Craig.

Well, if I was Apple, I would not put one of their software guys into the position since the software leadership team has been ineffective. So either hire externally (crapshoot) or promote internally. It makes sense. Hopefully the hardware guys will knock some sense into the software leadership and impose accountability in that arena.

Apple accidentally has a giant moat in having the only hardware that can run AI models locally on consumer products, plus not having thrown a huge pile of money into the tar pit of model training, which is ultimately becoming a race to the bottom with identical products, perfect competition, and razor thin (currently negative) margins.

They're gonna be fine in the AI age just like Costco was able to be a honey badger about e-commerce.

Why is this necessarily a good thing?

Consider that is mostly public headway. Behind the scenes the handover, mentorship, alignment I am sure was already happening for a while. E.g. you probably don't want the incoming CEO to have to immediately clean house or people might end up doubting their decisions, getting anxious or similar. The previous CEO can start retiring, moving people around to clear out possibly problematic leaders, break up internal "gangs" and ways of work - people will be more willing to accept their decision as they've been at the head for a while and have the trust. The new CEO comes in, group dynamics and rules are still fresh and building up between everyone, they don't have a black mark for firing anyone - to me it just feels like it would be a healthier and more mature transition.

To support this I was thinking about (and obviously Googling these names because I definitely don't know them by heart, only that they recently left) the change of CFO Luca Maestri to Kevan Parekh, John Giannandrea being removed, Alan Dye leaving and being replaced with Steve Lemay.

So I take those 4 months more as like an FYI to the public than anything else. Though I am definitely not someone that knows corporate politics all that well (or at all), just mostly thinking out loud in response to your comment.

In 2021 the average time from announcement to new CEO for S&P 500 companies was 3.5 months, so this seems reasonably normal.

[0] https://www.spencerstuart.com/research-and-insight/2021-ceo-...

Given how quickly Cook had to step in for jobs, first in the interim role, four months seems like plenty of time (particularly given he's still executive chairman).

4 months in his _current_ role, but he’s not going anywhere—he’s remaining on as Chairman, which is still very much involved day-to-day.

Not really. Anyone and everyone is replaceable. Even Steve Jobs.