Tim Cook is on a visit to Germany: After a trip to the Oktoberfest, the Apple boss now visited a start-up in Berlin. Stern accompanied him and talked to him about books, series and the power of his company.
Granted, the situation is already bizarre. There are five people, two women, three men - including one of the most powerful entrepreneurs in the world - in front of a huge shelf full of books. They talk passionately about literature and about what you can learn from biographies for your own life. But no one takes one of the countless tome in the hand. Everyone is staring at the smartphone that Tim Cook holds in his left hand. But why should not they - the app on the phone is finally the reason why the Apple boss ever came here, to the edge of the Berlin district of Neukölln.
Tim Cook is on a visit to Germany: On Sunday, the Apple boss visited the Oktoberfest in Munich, then looked at the 58-year-old by a former Apple interns, who made himself independent with a DJ app. Then he set course for the Sonnenallee: Here, directly on the Neukölln navigation canal, is the company office of the start-up Blinkist.
The new desire to learn
Blinkist is an app that makes thick non-fiction books manageable small. No matter if you are a bestseller or a psychological guide, experts dilute all books to their key messages—so-called blinks—that can be captured in 15 minutes. Depending on your preference, you can read the summary yourself or listen to it.
The ambitions of the seven-year-old start-up are huge: "Our goal is to become the leading brand for lifelong learning”, says Blinkist founder Holger Seim. But there is still a long way to go. At the beginning of his visit, Tim Cook looks at a whiteboard that shows the evolution of subscribers over the years. "In the beginning it was really hard, but in between it got so tight that no salaries could be paid for two months," says co-founder Niklas Jansen.
But in times of permanent self-optimization, the concept has meanwhile found its niche. "We have 500,000 paying subscribers, and next year we want to break the million mark," says Seim. The customers come from all over the world: The main markets are Germany, Austria and Switzerland, the USA and Great Britain.
For Cook, Blinkist is a "prime example" of a modern company, which was only successful through the App Store, he tells in conversation with the star. "Whether you're in Berlin or Munich, you can become a globally active company from there, which is phenomenal," enthuses the Apple CEO.
Cook and the developers
The fact that Cook stops by at the young company is not surprising. Apple and Berlin have a long tradition. Here he already met Angela Merkel and inspected the halls of the Philharmonic, last year he looked past the yoga rebels of Asana Rebel (read the accompanying report here).
In addition, the company represents many values that are important to the Apple boss: More women than men work here, a rarity in the tech industry. English is spoken in the hallways - the team is global, with 155 employees from more than 40 nations.
For Cook, the visit is also a service in its own right. By talking to developers and acting as a sparring partner—with the Blinkist founders he discusses about the influence of read-aloud votes on the mood of the user—he is approachable. And Cook relies on the global developer community. It's the water on the mills of Apple's software world, and it's always tweaking new applications for Apple's devices.
This is important for Cook for two reasons: On the one hand, the users are kept by new applications on the shelf, on the other hand, Apple earns every time you sell a paid app (84 percent of all applications are free). The Group requires a 30 percent stake in the app purchase price and in-app sales. For subscriptions, it is 15 percent from the second year. A practice that is also common on other platforms like Google's Play Store.
Are 30 percent too much?
But in the US home market, this process is now under pressure: In May, the US Supreme Court has allowed a cartel action against Apple. With it consumers want to force that apps for iPhone and iPad can be offered to the group over directly to the customers. Apple has illegally monopolized the market, argue the plaintiffs. There would be less competition and consumers would incur higher costs. Tim Cook disagrees with this claim: "No reasonable person would ever call Apple a monopolist", he tells Stern. He also emphasises that there is strong competition in every market where Apple is active and that one does not have a dominant market share.
The fact that apps can only be obtained from an App Store is not seen as a limitation by Cook, but as an advantage: "Customers buy an experience from us, and this experience includes a trustworthy place to buy apps in which we curate and check all applicationsAs a result, many apps would not come to the iPhone, such as pornographic offers, explains Cook. "But anyone can take their iPhone and access that content in the browser, but we do not offer it ourselves”.
But not only in the US threatens anger, but also in Europe. The music streaming service Spotify appealed to Apple in March. It is accused the group from California, to abuse its power and to favor the own music service Apple music. Apple rejects the allegations of the business partner and competitors. This should be clarified by the EU Commission.
Transformation of Apple
These debates are not in the foreground for Tim Cook this Monday. Instead, he chats with an employee about the pros and cons of algorithms. An issue that he should not have accidentally picked out, after all, the Apple boss makes no secret of the fact that despite all the technology he considers the human factor in his services to be essential. Among other things, by curating, Cook wants to stand out from the portals of competitors.
As people continue to use their devices and iPhone growth expires, Tim Cook initiates the next transformation of the group: his company no longer wants to just sell hardware and related software, but increasingly focus on services. In this way, with each device over the years continuously further sales can be achieved. In addition to the App Store and the iCloud he relies on Apple Music or the upcoming movie and series streaming service Apple TV +. The so-called services should become the foundation of a new growth story.
The fact that the group wants to expand its base for the service business with its for the first time in years falling iPhone prices, but Cook. "We always try to keep our prices as low as possible and fortunately we were able to lower the price of the iPhone this year," says Cook.
The strategy seems to work out so far. "My assessment is that with the new services Apple will achieve even faster growth in the coming year, and this year Apple could achieve service revenue of $ 46- $ 50 billion," estimates Gartner analyst Annette Zimmermann.
"I do not think the competition is afraid of us
The most attention is currently receiving the film and serial service Apple TV +. The group starts it from November for five euros per month for up to five family members at the same time. Asked whether Netflix sees this as a challenge, Cook replies: "I do not think the competition is afraid of us, the video section works differently: it's not about whether Netflix wins and we lose, or if we win and they win Many people use multiple services and we are now trying to become one of them”.
The analyst Annette Zimmermann sees it similarly. She thinks the low price for a clever move: "You have not got too greedy." With five euros a month you can easily decide whether to book the service in addition to Netflix & Co. Then there is no longer the inevitable or issue”.
From the point of view of the critics, Apple's role in the App Store has changed, because the Group no longer just sells applications, but also becomes a competitor. Addressing the allegation, Cook replies, "We have 30 to 40 apps - versus more than two million others”. Cook compares the App Store to a supermarket: "The likelihood that it owns a private label is very high, and who benefits from having another product on the shelf? The customer, and that's a good thing”.
Competition everywhere
He considers the breakup, such as that demanded by US presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren, to be the wrong approach. "I'm the first to say that big companies should be investigated in detail, so I have no problems with that”, says Cook. "I just hope that people are not all lumping together big technology companies”.
In the past, Cook did not miss an opportunity to draw a line between his and other Silicon Valley corporations, most notably Google and Facebook. Especially in the area of privacy, he tries to stand out from the competition (read more in our report from Apple's secret laboratory). "If people just look a little under the surface, they'll come to the conclusion that we're in a very different position in all of these things."
Blinkist co-founder Holger Seim follows the debate relaxed. Fear that Apple eventually becomes a competitor from the partner, he has not. "Should Apple one day also build an offer for lifelong learning, we have just Apple as a competitor, which spurs us even more so because the market is significantly larger." When such a huge company enters, you can say you have managed".
