“I’m not looking for any sympathy”, he said.
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On the Apple Culture, and social responsibilityCook said that the DNA of the company hasn’t changed since he took over and its mission is still to provide people with great products.
The Washington Post this weekend published a very in-depth video/interview with Apple CEO Tim Cook just weeks before Apple is set to unveil its biggest product of the year by far, the iPhone 7. From speaking about Jobs’s passing in a soft, mournful tone – “I had convinced myself he would bounce” – to reflecting on Apple’s diminished presence in the smartphone industry – “A privilege, not a problem”, and the peculiarities of his job – “A lonely job” – the interview is full of interesting moments and well worth the thorough read.
The Post’s full interview with Cook is available at the source link.
“We knew the positioning on the outside would not be public safety”.
“When I was going through [the question of] what should we do on returning cash to shareholders, I thought who could really give us great advice here?” I thought he’s the natural person, and so I try to go through that process on everyone. For instance when Cook wanted some input on returning cash to shareholders, apart from his own team, he made a decision to call up Warren Buffet who he considered to be an expert on the matter. Tim Cook thought that he will temporarily take over the position until Steve Jobs recovery.
During the course of this interview, Cook admitted, being Apple’s CEO is a lonely job, although in times of crisis he has turned to others for help. He also consulted Anderson Cooper who according to Cook handled his coming out in a classy manner.
He also acknowledges two big mistakes – the first was the release of the Apple Maps app, which was widely criticised. We are producing radio shows for Beats. We started that with a concert kind of video with Taylor Swift. We’ve gone into the Apple Watch business, which has gotten us into wellness and in health.
Cook talks about his successes over his first five years, such as broadening the iPhone lineup.
Cook has also spoken about why 4G will revolutionary for the market during his India visit. He mentioned that Apple believes in making investment decisions for the long term and now there is a “speed bump with the economy”.
Though Apple has been improving Siri, the virtual assistant continues to face stiff competition from third-party rivals (like Google, and Amazon’s Alexa).
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“Look at the core technologies that make up the smartphone today and look at the ones that will be dominant in smartphones of the future – like AI”, he said. Interestingly, he did not mention AR at all while talking about the iPhone, but it’s likely Apple’s AR projects are intertwined with the iPhone. “We don’t have enough anymore in our lives”, he concluded.
