Apple's CEO Tim Cook laat keer op keer zien dat onder hem Apple een veel opener bedrijf is dan in het verleden, onder Steve Jobs was de standaardreactie altijd om zoveel mogelijk binnenshuis te houden.

Dat is niet alleen te zien aan de openheid van zaken die Apple tegenwoordig over allerlei zaken geeft, bijvoorbeeld op het gebied van milieu en arbeidsomstandigheden, maar ook aan de hoeveelheid interviews die tegenwoordig door het management gegeven worden.



Daarbij is nu een interview van Megan Murphy voor Bloomberg met Tim Cook zelf bij gekomen, waarin een aantal erg interessante dingen voorbij komen. Het is dan wat ons betreft ook verplicht leesvoer voor iedereen die wil weten waar Apple op dit moment mee bezig en waar het bedrijf naartoe op weg is en een kleine hint over zijn gedachtes over de huidige politieke situatie in de VS.

Hieronder een paar citaten, te beginnen wat Steve Jobs nog altijd voor Tim Cook betekent.

You've talked about Steve Jobs and how you revere him. How much time do you spend thinking about what people will say about your legacy at Apple?

None. To be totally honest with you, I don't think in those terms. I think more about doing stuff. I hope people remember me as a good and decent man. And if they do, then that's success.

Steve's DNA will always be the base for Apple. It's the case now. I want it to be the case in 50 years, whoever's the CEO. I want it to be the case in 100 years, whoever's CEO. Because that is what this company is about. His ethos should drive that-the attention to detail, the care, the ­simplicity, the focus on the user and the user experience, the focus on building the best, the focus that good isn't good enough, that it has to be great, or in his words, "insanely great," that we should own the proprietary technology that we work with because that's the only way you can control your future and control your quality and user experience. And you should have the courage to walk away and be honest with yourself when you do something wrong, that you shouldn't be so married to your position and your pride that you can't say, "I'm changing directions." These kind of things, these guardrails, should be the basis for Apple a century from now. It's like the Constitution, which is the guide for the United States. It should not change. We should revere it.

In essence, these principles that Steve learned over many years are the basis for Apple. It doesn't mean the company hasn't changed. The company's going to change. It's going to go into different product areas. It's going to learn and adjust. Many things have changed in the company, even in the last six to seven years. But our "Constitution" shouldn't change. It should remain the same. I think of it as a North Star. It's always important to have that in mind as you make decisions. It ­actually makes decision-making much simpler.

Over de HomePod, die Apple tijdens de keynote van de WWDC voor het eerst aan ons presenteerde (de presentatie van de HomePod begint op 2.01:15).

I was a little surprised the HomePod was pitched primarily as a music device when the competitive talk is of Amazon Echo's Alexa and the immersive experience in the home. How will the HomePod better integrate Apple inside people's lives?

We're actually already in the home through the iPhone you take with you everywhere. It's in your pocket or laying on a stand. Today, pre-HomePod, I can control my home using Siri through the iPhone. When I get up in the morning, my iPhone is my alarm clock. I say, "Good morning," and all of a sudden my lights come on. The temperature adjusts and a series of things occur. We're also in the home through Apple TV. Many people use iPad as their computing device. The desktop Mac enjoys a place in the home. The thing that has arguably not gotten a great level of focus is music in the home. So we decided we would combine great sound and an intelligent speaker.

So it's going to be a holistic process joining up all those touch points so people can exercise control over their lives, whether through Siri or iPad?

To put it in perspective, Siri is getting requests from 375 million devices right now. My guess is it's the largest by far of any kind of assistant. Some of those requests are done in the home. Some of those are done on the go. That's the platform that we build off. It's very different from our starting point. We're also in so many languages around the world: Siri isn't just in English. We're well-positioned around the world. So, again, what is the thing that's missing in this equation? The combination of quality audio and instinct.

Do you think people will pay $349?

If you remember when the iPod was introduced, a lot of people said, "Why would anybody pay $399 for an MP3 player?" And when iPhone was announced, it was, "Is anybody gonna pay"-whatever it was at that time-"for an iPhone?" The iPad went through the same thing. We have a pretty good track record of giving people something that they may not have known that they wanted.

When I was growing up, audio was No. 1 on the list of things that you had to have. You were jammin' out on your stereo. Audio is still really important in all age groups, not just for kids. We're hitting on something people will be delighted with. It's gonna blow them away. It's gonna rock the house.

En, last but not least, Tim Cook's gedachtes over Augmented Reality, waarbij hij in de twee openingszinnen meteen duidelijk maakt hoe belangrijk hij denkt dat dit gaat worden:

You've talked a lot about augmented reality at the heart of the company's future. How do you see AR moving forward?

I think it is profound. I am so excited about it, I just want to yell out and scream. The first step in making it a mainstream kind of experience is to put it in the operating system. We're building it into iOS 11, opening it to ­developers-and unleashing the creativity of millions of people. Even we can't predict what's going to come out.

There's some things that you can already get a vision of. We've talked to IKEA, and they have 3D images of their furniture line. You're talking about changing the whole experience of how you shop for, in this case, furniture and other objects that you can place around the home. You can take that idea and begin to think this is something that stretches from enterprise to consumer. There's not a lot of things that do that.

You'll see things happening in enterprises where AR is ­fundamental to what they're doing. You're going to see some consumer things that are unbelievably cool. Can we do everything we want to do now? No. The technology's not complete yet. But that's the beauty to a certain degree. This has a runway. And it's an incredible runway. It's time to put the seat belt on and go. When people begin to see what's possible, it's going to get them very excited-like we are, like we've been.

Er komt nog meer veel meer aan bod tijdens dit interview, het complete vraaggesprek is te lezen op deze pagina van Bloomberg.