Here are few of the excerpts from Tim Cook’s interview at the AllThingsD D11 conference.
Tim Cook on Competition:
From my point of view, over my long tenure at Apple, not as CEO, we’ve always had competent rivals. We fought against Microsoft — still fight against Microsoft, particularly in the PC space. We fought against hardware companies thought to be really tough, like Dell. We’ve always suited up and fought. Apple has always had competition to focus on, but our North Star is always on making the best products. We always come back to that. We want to do the best phone, the best tablet, the best PC. I think we’re doing that.
Tim Cook on Apple next game changer:
We’re still the company that is going to do that. We have some incredible plans that we have been working on for a while. The culture is all still there, and many of the people are still there. We have several more game changers in us.
Tim Cook in Apple TV:
We’re still playing in TV through Apple TV. For several years we were selling a few hundred thousand. We’ve now sold 13 million — about half of those in the last year. It’s been good for customers, but also for learning for Apple. Customers would agree there are things about television that aren’t so great. We answered some of those — clearly not all of those through Apple TV.
I don’t want to go into detail, as you might have guessed. But it continues to be an area of great interest.
He’s going on about how Apple TV is providing a lot more feedback than when Apple sold fewer of them, but he’s dodging the question of when/if Apple might go beyond its current approach. He does keep reiterating that TV is outdated. It’s not an experience that has been brought up to this decade, Cook said. I don’t want to go any further on this because I don’t want to give anybody any ideas. It’s an area of incredible interest.
Tim Cook on Wearables/ Google Glass:
As for Google Glass, it’s probably not likely to be a mass-market item, Cook said. It’s probably more likely to appeal to certain markets, Cook said. But wearables as a broader market, Cook said, could be a profoundly interesting area of technology. Cook notes that he wears a Nike FuelBand. “I think Nike did a great job with this.” Most of the good ones on the market do only one thing. The ones that do more than one thing don’t do anything particularly well. “There’s lots of things to solve in this space,” he said, adding it is an area that is “ripe for exploration.” Lots of companies will be doing things in this space.
Tim Cook on Android Market Share:
Do I look at it? Of course. I don’t have my head stuck in the sand. Winning at Apple, though, isn’t about making the most. Arguably, we make the best PC. We don’t make the most. They do make the most music players and tablets, but not the most phones, he said. Cook rattles off more usage stats showing that usage of Apple products outpaces even Apple’s large market share. “What the numbers suggest over and over again is that people are using our products more. That’s what we are all about. We want to enrich people’s lives.” Globally, there are a lot of phones that are labeled as smartphones but are used more like feature phones, Cook said. Some tablets are being bought and not used because the experience is not great. Cook said his iPad now handles a significant amount of his computing work. “It’s changed the game. I don’t hear that from people that have Android tablets.”
