

Apple’s Tim Cook: The Full D11 Interview [video] - adamsmith
http://allthingsd.com/20130529/apples-tim-cook-the-full-d11-interview-video/?

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djt
I was pretty surprised how hostile the interviewers were. It seemed like they
were trying to trick him up rather than interview him.

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drawkbox
They cut him off a few times, not sure if they would have gotten away with
that with Jobs. I would have stated that the market still follows Apple, sure
there is competition but rarely do new game changers come from other
companies. Apple is still a leader. Name one thing (other than a phablet) that
other companies did first... Google Glass is one, and there might be more but
largely the market still follows Apple's lead at least for now.

I do think the sidetrack on the market and taxes is something Cook needs to
hand off if he wants to be a product guy, again Jobs would have slayed the
shorts and not given them another minute. Cook is an excellent operations guy,
needs to stay focused on product to be guy. Getting tired of the 'post-PC' era
line.

He should have asked them what devices they use and what other companies have
come up with that wasn't following the Apple product path. Samsung makes good
products, but they were making phones before Apple, now they follow their
lead.

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bookwormAT
"Name one thing (other than a phablet) that other companies did first"

The smartphone. The mobile device as an independent computer. The voice
interface. The web browser. The app store. The notification panel. Push
messaging. The lock screen widget. Cloud synchronization. Instant messaging.
Panorama images. Mail. Calendar. Documents. Maps.

Apple has a track record in making good and successful products from already
existing ideas and products. It's called innovation, and other companies do it
too.

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drawkbox
Apple's innovations are mostly hardware then software to sell hardware. People
are looking at Apple (primarily a hardware company) to innovate on hardware
(please, please a beefed up AppleTV like game console/app console). Software
like you describe is secondary to them.

But I will say this, Apple funded and created Webkit (Safari/Chrome/Chromium +
now Opera), funded Khronos.org and OpenGL ES/WebGL which has retaken the lead
and saved OpenGL from near death, <canvas> is also largely to thank from
Apple. That is just the tip of the iceberg there. Those are bigger innovations
software wise than the feature innovations you mentioned.

Also the app store is largely Apple's doing, everyone followed their lead
there. Yes there were other good appstores like Handspring/Palm back in the
day but none like the appstore. Apple even revolutionized gaming and handheld
gaming as a side thing. Still an innovation leader even when it is software.

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martythemaniak
If Apple releases a wearable, it'll be an interesting test to see if
competitors have learned from Apple's success. As in, will the iWearable be as
fundamentally different from other watches/bracelets as the iPhone was from
prior smartphones? Or will it be essentially the Apple version of the
Pebble/Jawbone Up?

Being late to the game didn't stop Apple from dominating smartphones and mp3
players, but at those times (6 and 12 years ago respectively), they were the
only ones focusing on design, simplicity and ease-of-use.

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blantonl
Apple's ability to turn relatively new product categories into caché products
is impressive. But one thing to consider is that the wearable market has been
around far longer than the other markets that Apple has moved into.

For instance, the long term existence of a wearable time keeping device has
allowed others to cultivate over time the caché market that exists today.
Think Rolex, Cartier, etc. Apple is going to have a hard time breaking into
that high margin market.

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daegloe
Would you consider the prior portable music market (Walkman, Discman, etc) a
parallel?

Of course, time pieces have a much longer history. But as far as the modern
consumer/brand marketplace is concerned, portable music devices certainly
predated earlier MP3 players by decades, at least.

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itsgettingcold
An hour of talking about nothing. Why not ask broader questions, and get more
interesting answers?

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joeblau
I noticed that as well. He basically answered nothing even though they were
taking a pretty hostile stance towards Tim.

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aashaykumar92
Does anyone else think that Apple is pretty late in its interests for wearable
technology? I mean I'd have thought that by now, Apple would have something
ready.

But then again, when smartphones came out and Apple expressed interest in
them, no one could thing of something as beautiful as the iPhone. So maybe
it's the same thing here. Still weird to me.

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hcarvalhoalves
Everyone is talking about wearable computers but no one knows yet what it
should look like (heck, I don't either, but certainly it isn't cyborg
glasses). It was the same with tablets. Apple's strategy seems to be focusing
on launching good products or nothing at all so it's understandable if they
are late to the game.

The interview is sad though. The interviewers are too rude at times, it seems
bashing Apple is the new thing.

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ernie_
I wouldn't put down Google Glasses so quickly. I really think they're on to
something; even if it's a bit ahead its time socially.

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panacea
Google Glasses (Googles) are all fun and games until some glasshole loses an
eye from being punched in the face.

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owenfi
My coworkers say Tim's statement "We always focus on making the best products"
is BS.

I disagreed, but wonder how that reconciles with a rumored low cost iPhone. If
Apple introduces a "low cost" phone (vs. just lowering prices of previous
generation models) how will they spin that with Tim's methodology?

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Moto7451
Personally I think the low cost iPhone, assuming it is actually more than a
rumor, will be more akin to a re-skin than a new endeavor. Wall Street, Tech
writers, and those swayed by smartphone marketing don't want to see an "old"
iPhone 4S for sale, they want the iPhone Mini! They don't really care what's
inside of it so long as it meets their needs and can be perceived as new and
cool.

The previous model iPhone generally is relegated to "old/uncool" status as
soon as the new model comes out. Shrinking the packaging of the 4S and maybe
adding a couple token updates like the Lightning connector, dual flash, iPod
Touch lanyard, etc at a price to make prepaid and postpaid phone customers
happy will likely be enough to shake the "old/uncool" label and make the
aforementioned groups gush for Apple.

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owenfi
Yeah, an idea I've been grasping lately is that the market segment looking for
something 'new and shiny' is actually underestimated. If true, I guess it
places more emphasis on name/fashion feel of the product even when techies try
to "see through" that.

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adventured
This is a shockingly terrible interview by Tim Cook. He dodged constantly and
rarely actually answered a question (instead redirecting by answering
something that wasn't asked).

He said they weren't religious about not supporting their software on multiple
platforms. If that were true, iTunes would be on Android. The honest answer
would have been: we believe putting iTunes on Android would hurt iPhone sales
and help Android erode our market share faster.

He completely evaded the discussion on how Apple intentionally evades taxes,
almost to a cowardly degree in fact. Obviously the entire global Apple
corporate setup is designed to evade taxes, top to bottom. It was dishonest
for Cook to pretend otherwise. This is par for the course with big company
CEOs, but it's still cowardly.

He did a horrible job discussing iCloud and why it's limited to Apple
products, while the competition is multi-platform. The obvious reason why, is
Apple is trying to protect iPhone sales. Under no circumstances do they want
you using iCloud or iTunes on Android.

Most of his answers about products, present or future were the same monotone
lame response: we're focused on making great products. No shit.

On patents he again acted like a coward. He tried to completely evade the fact
that Apple started the lawsuit wars in smart phones. He came very close to
lying and claiming outright that the competition was responsible for starting
the patent war. He might as well have pretended that Steve Jobs never said
what he did on the matter.

On a question that was about advertising, he dodged massively, and redirected
by answering that iPhone app sales are three times that on Android. He
obviously was desperate to evade the fact that Android's huge user base means
ad supported apps are generating sales far beyond iOS (he didn't even mention
iAds, for good reason).

When asked a straight forward question about streaming vs content ownership,
he couldn't have possibly dodged any more. Instead of answering it, he simply
said that iTunes is still growing. So he ignored the issue of Netflix,
Pandora, Spotify, Hulu, YouTube, etc taking over the media landscape as iTunes
begins to rapidly lose its music dominance (for good reason he avoided talking
about books).

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siglesias
_He said they weren't religious about not supporting their software on
multiple platforms. If that were true, iTunes would be on Android._

How does that follow? I think it's a rather strong signal that they're going
to do it. Let's not forget that following his announcement that he wasn't
"religious" about hoarding cash, a dividend program was announced. Let's not
also forget that once upon a time they ported iTunes to a dominant Windows
with incredible success.

HN: I don't think we should aspire to comments like the parent that are filled
with vitriolic personal attacks and name calling.

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JuliaFunti
Well we'll find out soon enough. But then again Jobs promised Facetime would
be cross-platform almost 3 years ago and there's still nothing there.

Tim Cook could start by getting the Apple Store app (1) to Android and WP8.
There's no reason not to and it'd be helpful for Apple's core business.

(1) <https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/apple-store/id375380948?mt=8>

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lostlogin
It would seem a better return on investment to make the App Store work better
in IOS than invest on an (at this stage) also-ran platform like WP8. However
investing in android whilst keeping the 30% would be amusing, and, if it
worked, amazing. But it's not going to happen is it...

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kmasters
I think its important to remember that this is a WSJ interview meant to not to
befriend industry leaders but to grill them on investors behalf. If you watch
previous ATD interviews with Steve Jobs even, you see some of the same
attitude from Kara, and Walt.

If you go back far enough in ATD, you can see Walt mocking Steve Jobs before
he had completed their comeback. Mocking Steve's demo of iTunes. Which saved
the company.

I think the worst you can say about this interview was, Tim Cook is not as
disarming (and in some cases dishonest) as Steve Jobs was.

And it was boring to see WSJ tech reporters try and call him on the carpet to
expose a vision, just to please the stock market.

We all were left unsatisfied by the excersis, but ATD shouldnt call itself a
tech event, if its really just a second rate version of an investor conference
call.

