Tim Cook has never been more bullish about Apple’s ability to innovate, and he sees the company continuing to produce great products that deliver a killer user experience, thanks to Apple’s ability to meld hardware, software, and services into a single package. And on those days when things aren’t going so well, he just takes a trip to the Apple Store, an experience he likened to taking Prozac.
Cook held forth on all things Apple during an unusual public appearance at the Goldman-Sachs Technology and Internet Conference on Tuesday morning, where he laid out an exceptionally bright picture of the company while responding to softball questions before an adoring audience. Not exactly the best place to glean any insights, but interesting nevertheless. During his hour-long chat, Cook discussed everything from the state of Apple retail, to the “Depression-era mentality” of maintaining mountains of cash to whether we’ll ever see an iPhone that’s actually affordable. While much of Cook’s statements were blatant cheerleading — an attempt to buoy investor confidence in his company after its dismal stock performance following its latest earnings call — he also let slide some telling tidbits.
Here are the five biggest takeaways from Cook’s interview, and why they matter.
This Is Tim Cook’s Apple
Perhaps the most notable thing about Cook’s interview was what wasn’t said. No one mentioned Steve Jobs. This is Tim Cook’s Apple now, and there’s no mistaking it.
When Cook spoke at the same event in 2012, just a few months had passed since the death of Steve Jobs, and so his role in the company and place in history was a hot topic. But Cook has been running the show for more than year now, leading one of the largest and most profitable companies in the world, while pushing its success to new heights. He is, at last, emerging from Jobs’ long shadow. And he’s definitely stoked about it.
“I’ve never been more bullish about innovation at Apple,” he said at one point, a theme he’d return to twice during the interview with comments like, “I’m incredibly bullish on our retail stores” and “I’m incredibly bullish about the future,” Cook iterated at different points throughout the talk.
This comes as a bit of a contrast to the Apple CEO’s typical demeanor. Cook often comes across as more reserved than his predecessor, but today Cook showed more passion, fire, and confidence than we’ve seen in past earnings calls or media events. This isn’t a CEO toiling under the shadow of his old boss. This is Apple’s fearless leader in his element.
It’s about time. Since taking over as CEO, every move Cook, and Apple, makes has been scrutinized perhaps even more microscopically than in the past as weary investors look for any indicator of Apple’s downfall. And with competitor Samsung threatening Apple’s dominance in the smartphone space at every turn, he’s got to prove Apple’s still the market leader to the public too. Cook has to show that Apple is at the top of its game, and this sort of chutzpa is certainly a step in the right direction.
On Creating More Affordable Products
One of Apple’s continued challenges is making more affordable products without making cheaper products. The biggest example of this, and reason it needs to be done, is the iPhone, which at a baseline price of $650 is way too high for emerging markets like China, India, and Brazil. Apple wants to — and, in fact, must — make inroads into these regions, which is why the company is believed to be hard at work on an affordable iPhone, possibly made of plastic.
Asked about this issue, Cook reiterated Apple’s focus on developing great products, and pointed out another product line that began with a single, expensive option, and expanded to encompass models at a wide range of prices and functionalities. The iPod launched at $399, and today, you can get an iPod shuffle for a mere $49.
“Instead of saying ‘how can we cheapen this iPod to get [the price] lower, we asked, how can we do a great product?’” Cook said. So the team developed a product that could “excel at a very low price of $49, and appeal to a lot more people.”
On a similar front, critics historically asked Apple why it didn’t offer a sub- $1,000 Mac. “Frankly, we worked on this, but we concluded we couldn’t do a great product,” Cook said. What did Apple do instead? Why, invent the iPad.
For now, the iPhone 4 is offered for free on contract as the company’s budget iPhone offering. But based on Cook’s statements, and what we’ve seen from Apple in the past, it seems highly likely that Apple will eventually flesh out its iPhone lineup to encompass options at a wider range of price points, including a cheaper option.
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Tim Cook on Innovation, Retail and Whether We'll See a Cheap iPhone
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Tim Cook on Innovation, Retail and Whether We'll See a Cheap iPhone
