Tim Cook Speaks About Apple Maps, Samsung, and Apple's Future in TV Interview with Brian Williams

Keebler said:

true, but remember that Brian Wallace has a producer who helped set the questions up.

Oh and they mentioned that it took months of talks with Apple to get the interview so I'm sure it was a like an actor during press releases where they have a handler or 2 ensuring certain questions aren't asked

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I don't doubt that at all. There was no depth to the interview. Cook probably approved what questions could be asked. It was more for patching up the recent bad publicity than it was to give viewers some knowledge about Cook and the company in general. It could have been a much more in depth interview even without asking to give away secrets about the future or about Cook's personal life. In most ways it was quite superficial. I think that there was great potential there. Tim seems like a nice guy and I would like to hear what was on his mind. I don't believe it was the interviewers fault. Everything was scripted before the interview took place and it was on Cook's terms.

Samsung was listening intently at that last part of video two hoping to steal some more ideas from Apple.

Steve would never have allowed this interview.

greenmeanie said:

I doubt you can afford US made products.
The first thing that is going to happen is a UNION will want in.
Then people will be making $30.00 hr to put screws in a case making Apples products 3 times as much as now.
Apple will fold in 2 years at that rate because no one is going to buy MAC PRO costing 10K

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First off you have no clue how much money I make.

Second they are assembling the iMac in the USA did the base model price jump to 2,000 ? NO
If walmart can treat people like slaves and pay minimun wage Apple can find a factory to assemble the products for 12-15 an hr. China won't last forever, fuel prices are increasing and it will become more beneficial to build in the USA. You sound like a typical republican.

Michael Scrip said:

+1 for people buying a TV just because it has an Apple logo on it

But I'm really curious what all that television will do once they get it home...

People who cut the cord and buy shows from iTunes will love the new Apple Television. It will have an amazing interface and access to all that programming.

But MOST people subscribe to cable or satellite and have a DVR box... which will then be plugged into Input 1 on the back of this beautiful TV. At that point it won't make much difference which brand of TV you have... you're still at the mercy of the Comcast on-screen menus.

So... if you can live in the iTunes/Netflix/Hulu ecosystem... I think an Apple Television will be great.

But there are 100 million cable/satellite subscribers in the US... what will an Apple Television do for them?

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I still don't get why people assume Apple will try to bypass the providers... Its pretty obvious that whats Apple cooking is not the current Apple TV + a tv set with a nice interface. Its much more than that.

But we may get hints before the full thing is out, like bluetooth support and an app store on the current Apple TV before they come out with the big stuff.

herbapou said:

Its pretty obvious that whats Apple cooking is not the current Apple TV + a tv set with a nice interface. Its much more than that.

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So what can it possibly be?

If you're a cable subscriber... you get a cable box.

How will Apple sprinkle their magic on that?

It's highly ironic that Cook mentions the "engine" of the iPhone being made here in the U.S. given that it's SAMSUNG that makes the chips for iPhone at their Texas manufacturing facility and given Apple is actually trying to END their relationship with Samsung and instead contract out to TAIWAN Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) for their iPhone chips, sending all those American manufacturing jobs to Asia.

mankar4 said:

Steve would never have allowed this interview.

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Well, guess what. Steve Jobs told Tim Cook to never second-guess and try to figure out what Steve would have done.

vvswarup said:

Well, guess what. Steve Jobs told Tim Cook to never second-guess and try to figure out what Steve would have done.

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thats exactly why I posted it lol its a joke.

The Phazer said:

It was a terrible, low balled interview.

Cook admits Maps is a disaster, but the interviewer doesn't do a followup question asking why Cook allowed it to be released given that. Cook says that Apple "loves" competition, but the interviewer doesn't mention anything about Apple's consistent anti-competitive behaviour.

Really poor, uninspiring stuff. This would be laughed at on British TV.

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Tim Cook also said right after that that Apple loves competition but Apple wants competitors to make their OWN stuff, not copy from Apple. Anti-competitive? Sounds familiar. I think you're lost from the Android forums.

a0me said:

It's obvious. Apple is making a flying car.

Image

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And robot to go with it!

louis.b said:

Tim Cook also said right after that that Apple loves competition but Apple wants competitors to make their OWN stuff, not copy from Apple. Anti-competitive? Sounds familiar. I think you're lost from the Android forums.

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I have an iPhone. That does not cause a loss of critical faculty.

If Apple wants people to make their own stuff, let Google make Chrome for iOS and implement their own Javascript engine rather than forcing them to use the iOS one that is artificially crippled for third party apps. Let users change the default browser. Let apps use a third party payment gateway rather than the iTunes store and tell users what it is.

That is "their own stuff". And it's stuff Apple explictly disallows, making their own products worse, in order to protect it's own inferior software.

The Phazer said:

I have an iPhone. That does not cause a loss of critical faculty.

If Apple wants people to make their own stuff, let Google make Chrome for iOS and implement their own Javascript engine rather than forcing them to use the iOS one that is artificially crippled for third party apps. Let users change the default browser. Let apps use a third party payment gateway rather than the iTunes store and tell users what it is.

That is "their own stuff". And it's stuff Apple explictly disallows, making their own products worse, in order to protect it's own inferior software.

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The interview was more about the patent/trademark/trade dress cases. It's a bit hypocritical to say "Apple wants others to make their own stuff" and hint that patent infringement is akin to theft when Apple itself has been found guilty on many occasions of patent infringement also.

It's part of the media smear campaign some posters here drink up as if it were liquid gold. Apple wants you to think that all they do is innovative and all others do is take what Apple has done. The fact of that matter is patent infringement isn't so clear cut and pretty much everyone is guilty of it, most of it not being purposefully too.

There are so many patents on so many aspects of computing/communicating that it is literrally impossible to know if your upcoming product is infringing on someone else's patent. It doesn't even have to be a 1:1 verbatim copy or do you even have to have copied anything either.

mantan said:

It's possible...the million (actually billion) dollar question is will it make more money than the current model.

The music industry was different in that it completely unprepared for the digital age and the entire Napster episode forced the music industry to the brink. They had to move to a different model to surive.

While the TV model isn't ideal, is it broken enough to force industry change.

The current TV model is essentially 'all you can eat' for a set price. How would viewing habits change if people were forced to pay 'a la carte' pricing for content? Some would argue it would force the content to improve. Others would argue that it would result in a watering down of content to appeal to the lowest common denominator. I think a lot of the content that is produced now on the backs of popular network shows would die a quick death if forced to live on their own.

The movie model is a bit more interesting. Movie ticket sales has been flat for the past 7 years, with a modest increase in revenue mostly spurred by ticket pricing. Home theater equipment has no doubt had an impact as many people have no problems waiting for a movie to come to video.

The question I have is whether or not people would be willing to pay a premium to get that content sooner? I think there is a market for some movies. A blockbuster like 'The Avengers' could probably get a family to drop $29.99 for a same day release and the comfort of watching in their home theater instead of the multiplex. But I'm not sure most movies could do that.

The music industry was ripe for evolution, i'm not sure the TV or film industry is there yet.

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You're right, that is the billion dollar question. I agree with you also that movies are probably more likely than TV to go along with it. They're already viewer-supported, rather than advertiser-supported. It might very well come down to distribution costs.

The fear, they'll have, is that if Apple is letting people download even DRM'd movies on day one, it makes piracy a lot easier. Right now, they can try to crack down on people with video cameras in the movie theater, and the output of those bootleggers is of low quality until the first legitimate DVD releases, perhaps encouraging people to go pay to see the movies in theaters. If they have release day full quality movies straight to people's homes, it will be trivial to make high quality bootlegs, DRM or no DRM. I would argue a lot of movie pirates are just waiting for the DVD release and watching the movies then, but that will be their fear.

If Apple can offer high quality release day movies at reasonable prices in people's homes, I think piracy will get easier but fewer people will want to pirate. We may be in store for more product placement, though.

Television is already convenient in the home, but people choose not to watch or to pirate because of scheduling, advertisements, and lack of portability. This is a bit different than not wanting to go out to the record store or movie theater, but there are some similarities. And yet, television is dying, becoming far less relevant across the spectrum of human culture and information sharing, and television really does need to adapt. I think they're particularly resistant, just as you do, but at the same time, they are the most in need of change. They may very well struggle for a long time. I just hope there's enough people with some vision over in Hollywood to realize the sooner they change, the better off they'll be.

JohnDoe98 said:

We don't need to go beyond 1080p for most viewing distances/screen sizes. 1080P is already Retina quality for the majority of cases.

Ultra-Retina? Do you even know what the term Retina means in computing contexts? Simply put, it means the eye cannot distinguish the individual pixels, so there is no such thing as ultra-retina. Greater pixel density is indiscernible, and so useless and a waste of resources.

True, but those are atypical usages since they involve sitting very close to the screens given the relative screen size, which is disorienting and bad for your eyes anyway. The future is going to be about better contrast ratios and colors(including deeper blacks).

Even 4k is unlikely unless marketing and advertising can convince people they can see what they physically can't.

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Some of us like to fill our peripheral vision . My main television isn't quite retina at my viewing distance, though it's mostly good enough. I would still gladly upgrade to a 4K picture if it was available. If nothing else, it would make for a sharper image, even at larger distances, with the pixels smaller and crammed closer together. I think the difference in "fuzz" would be worth it, even if playing a 1080p image on the 4K screen.

I was saying we don't need "ultra-retina" on our iPhones. Did you misunderstand?

I disagree with you on "disorienting" and the "bad for your eyes" thing is a myth. A large television close to you is no different than a small television close to you or a book close to you or anything close to you. It's all just photons, and if you only focus your eyes on a single distance away from you, you'll strain them just as much regardless of what that distance is.

The HDTV switch was big business. I'm sure it will happen with 4K as well.

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12dylan34 said:

It's a very rare thing now, actually. I'm a student and I work in the production dept. of my University's planetarium and we work with 8K x 8K video that gets split up between 6 projectors in realtime. I would say that even the professional film industry probably isn't ready for this, though.

We have a small render farm, but still consistently have to make sacrifices on animation render quality/elements because it takes so long to render. The stuff we're doing isn't really that high end of stuff either. Not to mention the massive time it takes for files to be transferred, etc. One frame is 70MB, which is just a massive data rate that I don't see being feasible for home use anytime soon.

I agree that home use for 8K is a ways off, if it ever happens. Right now, it's suited for a 70 foot diameter dome, and it's new even for that.

Here.

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Absolutely. 8K less likely in people's homes than holodecks, simply because the pixels are so numerous. Data rates and processing speed will catch up in consumer devices, to be sure, but it's simply not needed and won't be until people are projecting video all around them, like a holodeck. 4K you can make an argument for, and there would be clearly observable difference in my own home. Very large screens will benefit from 8K and higher, like your planetarium. But 4K is most useful in the foreseeable future in the widest range of theaters and home theaters.

https://www.macrumors.com/2012/12/09/speculation-targets-mac-pro-as-first-made-in-usa-mac-product/
If you think apple is going to pay someone 15h/r while not changing prices on their computers I have a bridge to sell you.

luqtotheman said:

First off you have no clue how much money I make.

Second they are assembling the iMac in the USA did the base model price jump to 2,000 ? NO
If walmart can treat people like slaves and pay minimun wage Apple can find a factory to assemble the products for 12-15 an hr. China won't last forever, fuel prices are increasing and it will become more beneficial to build in the USA. You sound like a typical republican.

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mrxak said:

Some of us like to fill our peripheral vision . My main television isn't quite retina at my viewing distance, though it's mostly good enough. I would still gladly upgrade to a 4K picture if it was available. If nothing else, it would make for a sharper image, even at larger distances, with the pixels smaller and crammed closer together. I think the difference in "fuzz" would be worth it, even if playing a 1080p image on the 4K screen.

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Please explain to me how you can see increased sharpness when you can no longer differentiate the pixels. Same with fuzz, which is just another way of saying the image is not sharp. If there is fuzz or a lack of sharpness, it's because you can differentiate the pixels, and the image therefore isn't Retina.

I was saying we don't need "ultra-retina" on our iPhones. Did you misunderstand?

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Right, and I was saying the term "ultra-retina" is nonsense. So it would be like saying we don't need "sacvdsdasda" on our iPhones. So my point is it isn't even worth saying that.

I disagree with you on "disorienting" and the "bad for your eyes" thing is a myth. A large television close to you is no different than a small television close to you or a book close to you or anything close to you. It's all just photons, and if you only focus your eyes on a single distance away from you, you'll strain them just as much regardless of what that distance is.

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Well you may be right that the damage to eyes point is a myth. In which case if people want to watch things closely, its up to them, and yes in that case there may be some marginal benefit for those resolutions. I wouldn't expect that to become mainstream though.

As far as there being no difference focusing on something far away vis-a-vis closer up, I think our brains are hard-wired to be extremely sensitive to detecting motion, so obviously the more moving stimulus in our range of vision, the harder it is to stay focussed on a single point for prolonged periods of time. I suppose it could be done though.

Finally, maybe its just me and my acquaintances that are idiosyncratic, but we find sitting in the first two rows of movie theatres disorienting, especially for action movies where there is a lot of moving imagery being bombarded at you. Anyway, I guess time will tell if there is value for the kinds of resolutions you want.

The HDTV switch was big business. I'm sure it will happen with 4K as well.

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Yes but it worked because the product was actually better. If people won't actually see the 4k difference, they'll just stick with HDTV, aside from a small niche market influenced by stats and bragging rights as opposed to what they can see. The question is can you gain the majority of the market off of hype alone. I doubt it.

JohnDoe98 said:

Please explain to me how you can see increased sharpness when you can no longer differentiate the pixels. Same with fuzz, which is just another way of saying the image is not sharp. If there is fuzz or a lack of sharpness, it's because you can differentiate the pixels, and the image therefore isn't Retina.

Right, and I was saying the term "ultra-retina" is nonsense. So it would be like saying we don't need "sacvdsdasda" on our iPhones. So my point is it isn't even worth saying that.

Well you may be right that the damage to eyes point is a myth. In which case if people want to watch things closely, its up to them, and yes in that case there may be some marginal benefit for those resolutions. I wouldn't expect that to become mainstream though.

As far as there being no difference focusing on something far away vis-a-vis closer up, I think our brains are hard-wired to be extremely sensitive to detecting motion, so obviously the more moving stimulus in our range of vision, the harder it is to stay focussed on a single point for prolonged periods of time. I suppose it could be done though.

Finally, maybe its just me and my acquaintances that are idiosyncratic, but we find sitting in the first two rows of movie theatres disorienting, especially for action movies where there is a lot of moving imagery being bombarded at you. Anyway, I guess time will tell if there is value for the kinds of resolutions you want.

Yes but it worked because the product was actually better. If people won't actually see the 4k difference, they'll just stick with HDTV, aside from a small niche market influenced by stats and bragging rights as opposed to what they can see. The question is can you gain the majority of the market off of hype alone. I doubt it.

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Smaller pixels will necessitate the gaps between the pixels to shrink as well. That's where you get a reduction in fuzziness. And, my whole point here, is that 1080p is not always retina, so yes, you can differentiate the pixels, or at least I can.

I used the made-up term ultra-retina to differentiate between 1080p, with which you can see the pixels in certain distances and screen sizes, and a hypothetical.

Human vision is concentrated in a fairly small area and we see detail by rapidly moving our eyes. It's not really comparable to the image displayed by a monitor or TV, or what's captured by a camera.

Anyway, this is all kind of a pointless argument. I know that 4K is an improvement, and I know it's coming, just probably not as soon as I'd like. I know it will sell, since people looking at big screen TVs are usually standing pretty close to them in the store, and I know the TV companies and media producers will want to keep selling new devices and new formats. In this case, it's actually worthwhile. You don't see the difference, so you don't think it's a big deal. I'm not going to try to argue with you any further about it, I know I'll be proven right in time and glad when it happens.

mrxak said:

Anyway, this is all kind of a pointless argument. I know that 4K is an improvement, and I know it's coming, just probably not as soon as I'd like. I know it will sell, since people looking at big screen TVs are usually standing pretty close to them in the store, and I know the TV companies and media producers will want to keep selling new devices and new formats. In this case, it's actually worthwhile. You don't see the difference, so you don't think it's a big deal. I'm not going to try to argue with you any further about it, I know I'll be proven right in time and glad when it happens.

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Ok fair enough if you don't want to discuss further. Thanks for sharing your opinion thus far. I may have sounded confrontational, but I was only trying to get you to convince me and thus airing why I was skeptical of the viability of 4k.

Apple's future

I think Apple currently is going through a period of commoditization as experienced after every big major innovation.

The magic of Iphone and the later derivative Ipad was the touch screen interface experience coupled with various apps. While the experience with touch screen interface was incredible for the first time consumers (it made you think like you have a device from a future century), the various apps kept the consumers think "what is the next thing this phone can do?". Consequently, even 6 months after the purchase a user had still big room for excitement which came with new apps.

But now after 2-3 years after Iphone and Ipad, the excitement for this innovation couple (both the touch screen interface and apps) diminishes at a very fast pace. There are "me too" offeres in the market based on platforms like Android which can give more or less the same experience to the consumers at even more affordable prices. In other words, the commoditization of Apple's big innovation has started. And, as you can guess people started to talk negatively about Apple. I think negative comments have increased further when people realized that the New Ipad with Retina display or Iphone 5 with bigger screen was not really very much different from the previous generations of these products. People who have replaced their old versions with the new ones were disappointed big because they paid lots of money for actually more or less minor improvements vs the old versions. They also have seen their friends buying cheaper android versions which are more or less parity to Apple products.




When criticizing Tim Cook everyone needs to aware of the fact that it is not easy to make a major innovation like Iphone every year (even every 10 years). The magnitude of the innovation is extremely big since it is modifying a consumer behaviour completely. We had been using buttons and keys for the last 100 years to control electronic devices and at once we switched to a touch screen. That is the biggest innovation after the innovation of mouse and the graphicaly controlled operating systems. The touch screen required the innovation of slim led screens, fast chips and lots of programing tools and of course the presence of Steve Jobs in order to be invented. The lack of any of these ingredients would have result in the non-existence of Iphone.

Consequenlty we need to be aware of the fact that a major innovation like Iphone or the tablet can require many years. In the mean time, the best what Tim can do is try to be the best with the current smartphone and table technology. To improve the consumer experience continously ahaed of samsung and others, but with the current technology the difference between apple and the rest can be at best be minimal. The other thing what Tim can do for Apple is to keep the company fit so that Apple stays as the best candidate which can reinvent the smartphone/computer/TV.

Last but not least: Samsung was the second winner after the invention of Iphone. The reason is that the touch screen was the heart of any Iphone or tablet. And this technology is basically dominated by Samsung (even the retina display). I believe that Apple is very disadvantaged vs Samsung in touch screen wars. Also many critical chip components of Iphone are produced by Samsung. If Apple wants to stay in this game it needs to reinvent the wheel very soon or the commoditization and Samsung presence will kill all profits and innovation power within a few years. If the next I phone (let's say Iphone 6) will bring us something similar to Iphone 5 experience and if we see lots of forums discussing "whether Iphone 6 or Galaxy 1234 is better" than we call it as "the beginning of the end". Let's be aware of it.

Excellent analysis. Thoughtful and well written.