Apple CEO Tim Cook was the opening speaker at the D11 conference that kicked off on Tuesday.
At D11, Cook sat down with Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher to answer questions about the tech Apple has in the works, the declining stock price, its competitors, acquisitions, Apple TV and the on-going Apple/Samsung patent wars.
Apple recently made headlines when the company faced The US Senate (watch it here) about its very clever but questionable tax strategy, also addressed in the interview on stage.
Mossberg and Swisher dive right in – overall, if Apple is in trouble, Cook says “absolutely not” noting Apple’s astounding sales figures including 85 million iPhones sold last quarter and customer satisfaction numbers being “off the charts”.
About its competitors, which are ever-present, Apple has “always suited up and fought” said Cook.
About it’s tax strategy, Cook says that Apple do not use tax gimmicks but explains it as a “Band-Aid-and-paper-clip kind of thing”.
As for what Apple has in the works, Cook doesn’t reveal much. No surprise there. He only says that Apple will be rolling out the future of iOS and OS X at its WWDC in June 2013.
Cook even went so far as to say that Google Glass is probably “not likely to be a mass-market item” appealing only to a particular market. However, the concept of wearables as a broader market could be a “profoundly interesting area of technology” praising the Nike FuelBand and commenting that the wrist is a more natural area for a wearable device.
A recently discovered patent filing for a slap bracelet design watch with flexible display reveals Apple’s possible foray into the wearable device arena.
About the Apple/Samsung spat Cook says that one benefit for the whole industry is that “companies haven‘t been able to use standards-essential patents to get injunctions on other products and that we‘ve run the standards-essential question largely to ground”.
And there’s more…
Read the full D11 opening interview on All Things D.
