While he has presided over a number of events since taking over as Apple CEO last year, Tuesday night promises to offer a new look inside the mind of Tim Cook.
Cook, as Steve Jobs did several times during his career, is taking the stage at D: All Things Digital for an in-depth sit-down with Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg. Cook’s appearance will kick off the conference, which runs through Thursday in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif.
There’s a ton to talk about, from Cook’s vision for the company to Apple’s plans for the living room and his views on China’s labor practices.
The onstage interview won’t be livestreamed, but AllThingsD will have live coverage starting around 6:30 pm PT.
5:48 pm: So, Tim Cook probably won’t hit the stage until close to 6:30, but there will be some fun opening festivities once the conference kicks off at 6:00 p.m.
So grab a beverage and come back to your computer, tablet, e-reader or other device of choice.
6:00 pm: The crowd is being asked to take a seat.
6:07 pm: Things are kicking off with News Corp. COO Chase Carey.
Carey notes it has been 20 years of @waltmossberg ‘s tech column, 10 years of D: All Things Digital and 5 years of AllThingsD.com
6:09 pm: And here come Walt and Kara, preceded by clips from the first 10 D conferences.
Man, Kara has had some great hair styles over the years.
Interesting trivia: the signature on-stage chairs have been there since the first year, but they were black at D1 and red ever since.
6:12 pm: Now, the real Walt and Kara take the stage.
“That was like a cavalcade of bad haircuts for me,” Kara said.
To celebrate 10 years they bring out a Safeway cake (missing a piece) along with a party popper.
“That’s crappy,” Kara said.
We are unimpressed, Kara tells the actor.
Out comes Jane Lynch, harassing Rupert Murdoch for his poor planning.
“I have a back-up plan as I always do,” Lynch said.
Cue the gospel choir. Yes, we have an actual gospel choir kicking off D10. That’s how we roll.
They are singing an amazing rendition of the Beatles “A hard day’s night.”
I think this is a sign Apple will announce a deal with the Beatles. Oh wait, they already did that.
6:19 pm: Naturally, now there is a marching band.
It’s a marching band from a local high school in Palos Verdes, Calif. playing “When the Saints Go Marching In.”
Now, this is an entrance.
6:20 pm: More trivia: the actor that brought out the original dud of a cake was actorLarry Scott who played Lamar Latrell in the Revenge of the Nerds movies.
Jane Lynch intros her good friend, “Kate,” err Kara along with Walt.
6:22 pm: And, here he is, Apple CEO Tim Cook.
“I would have never agreed to follow that act if you had told me,” Cook said.
On his time as Apple CEO “I’m loving every minute of it.”
He says he’s never been as amazed by all”the things I cannot talk about today.”
The juices are flowing and we have some incredible things coming out.
6:25 pm: Cook talks about the reception that the iPad is getting from people of all ages, across consumers, business and education.
The iPad has just been unbelievable. It’s just the first inning. It’s only been two years.
As for the Mac, it continues to outgrow the market quarter after quarter.
Walt notes that is admittedly from a small base.
“We’re never going to make the most personal computers. I don’t see that. But we are going to continue to make the best.”
6:26 pm: Cook credits the iPod for introducing many, many people to the Mac.
Cook noted that was largely just in the developed world, but the iPhone is what took the company into China, the Middle East, Eastern Europe and Russia.
“The world opened all of a sudden.”
The iPad is continuing that.
“The world has met Apple,” he said, adding that it is just the first question.
So what’s the second inning? What’s on tap for Apple’s developer conference.
“That’s a great question,” Cook said. “I’m not going to answer it.”
He does promise that people will like it.
Cook reckons that there are a lot of people that use their iPad more than their computer. Cook says he does, and he loves his Mac.
6:29 pm: Walt points out that Microsoft is taking a different approach, putting a single operating system on tablets, PCs and devices that are a hybrid of the two.
What’s wrong with that?
Cook: “In my view the tablet and the PC are different. You can do things with the tablet if you are not encumbered by the legacy of the PC.”
Cook says that isn’t the only way to do tablets but says Apple’s approach doesn’t require all that.
“We didn’t invent the tablet market,” he notes. “It was there. We invented the modern tablet.”
Cook says that supporting the past requires lifting leg weights.
“Products are about trade-offs and you have to make tough decisions. You have to choose.”
Microsoft, for its part, has pitched Windows 8 as a “no-compromise” operating system.
6:32 pm: Cook makes his analogy of merging the toaster and the refrigerator, saying that someone may merge the two but it won’t be Apple. That’s not what is coming next week, he says.
If you merge the two the PC isn’t as good as it can be, nor is the tablet.
6:33 pm: Walt: How is Apple different with you as the CEO?
“I learned a lot from Steve. It was absolutely the saddest days of my life when he passed away.”
At some point late last year, I sort of, somebody kind of shook me and said, it’s time to get on. That sadness was replaced by hhis intense determination to continue the journey.”
6:34 pm: What did I learn from him? Focus.
“You can only do so many things great and you should cast aside everything else.”
Cook said not accepting things good or very good but only the best. “That’s embedded in Apple.”
I’m not going to witness or permit the change of that.
He also taught me the joy is in the journey and that was a revelation for me.
Cook also made a reference to the fact that Jobs stressed the importance of owning the key underlying technologies.
As for moving on, Cook said. “I love museums but I don’t want to live in one.”
6:37 pm: Cook said he is committed to preserving the culture of Apple.
“It is not that easy to duplicate, either, Cook said.
“If they could, everybody would be like this,” Cook said. “You can’t get a consultant report” and change to be like Apple.
6:38 pm: Cook said that Jobs told him not to ask what Steve would have done?
He looked at me with those intense eyes that only he had and said just do what’s right.
“I’m doing that. Does that mean something would be different Of course. But he was the best person at doing that.”
Cook notes that Jobs was well known for doing a 180-degree turn if needed, without ever letting on that he had advocated the opposite.
6:40 pm: One of the things Apple has done is start an employee charity donation matching program.
Cook said that he subscribes to the notion that “to whom much is given, much is expected.”
Matching employee donations allows Apple to do good without having to form lots of committees, etc.
“I think we can do even more so we are looking at some things. Maybe that is a change.”
Cook said Jobs knew about that program before he died. “He was for it.”
He notes Apple will invest a lot in new products and stores and other things he won’t talk about.
“We’ve got a little bit left over and we should share it.”
So will Apple be less secret, Walt asks.
“We’re going to double down on secrecy on products,” he said. But, other things, he said, Apple will be the most transparent company. Supplier reponsibility, environmental issues, etc.
“In this area I want people to copy us.”
6:43 pm: On China, Kara notes, you have many critics, and not just fictional ones (a reference to Mike Daisey). Why doesn’t Apple have own factories in China?
Cook: We decided a decade ago there were things Apple could do best and that there were other things that somebody else can do as well or better.
“Manufacturing was one of those,” Cook said, adding later, “I think that’s still true.”
As for China, Cook notes that Apple has been working to reduce overtime. That, he said, is tricky.
“Some people want to work a lot. They want to move and work for a year or two and then move back to their village and bring back as much money as they can.”
Apple, he said, now has 95 percent compliance and is tracking 700,000 workers in China.
“I don’t know anyone else (that) is doing this,” Cook said. “We’re micromanaging this.”
6:46 pm: Walt notes Apple used to have factories in the U.S. He asks if Apple ever envisions having big manufacturing in the U.S.?
“I want there to be,” Cook said.
This is not well known, Cook said, but the engine for the iPhone and the iPad are built in the U.S. in Austin. The glass is made in a plant in Kentucky.
There’s an intense focus on the final assembly, Cook said, but a lot of the value is in the different materials.
On the assembly piece, could that be done in the U.S., “I hope so, someday,” Cook said, but he notes the tool and die industry has shrunk dramatically.
“There are things we can do and that’s what we are working on,” Cook said. “We should do more semiconductor things in the U.S.”
6:51 pm: One thing that has changed a lot since the first D Conference, Cook said, is the explosion of mobile apps, which he said is a huge industry that has grown up in the U.S.
“It’s big enough to be in the Bureau of Labor Statistics.”
So why be in the computer business, Kara asks?
“I don’t see the tablet replacing the need for all PCs,” Cook said. But, he notes it may slow the replacement cycle for computers.
Kara asks about the patent wars. Is it a probelme for innovation
“Well it is a pain in the ass,” Cook said.
He says Apple can’t afford to paint a painting and then have someone else sign their name to it.
“From our point of view, it is important for Apple not be the developer for the world,” Cook said. “We just want other people to invent their own stuff.”
Walt, but lots of folks are suing Apple too.
Cook acknowledges that, but says there is a difference.
“The vast majority of those are on standards-essential patents,” Cook said. “This is an area where the patent system is broken today.
Microsoft has a similar beef with Motorola.
“No one should be able to get an injunction off a standards-essential patent,” he said.
Apple has not sued anyone over standards-essential patents that we own, Cook said. This was never the intention of a standards-essential patent.
If you add up all the money that people feel they are owed for such patents, he said that no one could afford to be in the phone business.
“It’s kind of gotten crazy,” he said. “It’s not going to stop us from innovating but it’s overhead. It’s overhead that I wish didn’t exist.”
Apple recently had court-ordered settlement talks with Samsung, but Cook said he couldn’t comment on those per the magistrate’s order.
Kara: So what do you think of Google’s painting. Cook demurs. “I love Apple’s painting,” he said.
6:58 pm: How do you look at competitive landscape when it comes to smartphones, Kara asks.
“I wouldn’t say we dominate it,” he said. “I’d say we have the best phone.”
There are two big ones, Android and iOS, Cook said. Windows Phone is just really coming to the market, he said.
“We’ll see how they do.”
Then you have RIM that is still serving some large number of enterprise customers. The momentum right now are in the first two.
“Will That change? Anything can change. The smartphone revolution is still in the early stages.”
Huge opportunity still he said, noting in a few years there will be few phones that aren’t smart.
7:01 pm: Walt notes that Android makers are focusing on fewer models than in the past.
“I wonder where they got that idea,” Cook said.
What about Apple, Walt says, noting it only has one new iPhone at a time, as contrasted with the Mac and iPad. Why don’t you have more than one iPhone and more than one iPad and is there any chance you might?
“Our North Star is to make the best product,” Cook said, adding that Apple doesn’t design products for schedules. There’s not a policy or commandment that ‘Thou shalt have One.’ ”
“If we find that we can do more, great.”
Cook notes Apple approach avoids fragmentation with one screen size and one App Store with one policy.
7:04 pm: Walt: Why not make a $99 iPhone?
“Who knows what we will do in the future?” Cook said. “I am not going to conjecture.”
He said that with the iPod, Apple didn’t set out to cover all the price points, but instead found it could build a lot of great products. That, he said, was the result, but not the goal.
“Whenever we can do fantastic products and they yield great price points,” that’s great, he said.
7:06 pm: Kara turns to another topic — TV. Steve talked a lot in his last appearance here about wanting to change TV.
Cook notes that Apple has stayed in Apple TV business even without a huge hit.
“We’re not a hobby kind of company, as you know.” The company tends to put a lot of wood behind a few arrows. “We’ve stuck in this.”
“It’s not a fifth leg of the stool. It’s not of the same market size of the phone business or the Mac business or the music business or the tablet business.”
Sold 2.8 million last year and sold nearly that many in the first few months of the year.
“This is an area of intense interest for us,” Cook said.
“We are going to keep pulling the string and see where this takes us,” Cook said.
7:09 pm: Walt — what about a TV set.
Cook: “You were right. I’m not going to tell you.”
Walt, hypothetically, can TV be improved with just a box and leaving the panel to others?
Cook: “We would look not just at this area, but other areas and ask can we control the key technology? Can we make a significant contribution far beyond what others have done in this area. Can we make a product that we all want… Those are all the things we would ask about any new product category.”
Kara: Is Apple TV good enough?
Cook: It’s more something where you keep pulling the string to see where it goes.
Walt and Cook disagree over whether there is or isn’t a lot of content on there.
Walt says that Apple is not solving every problem with the current Apple TV.
“I agree,” Cook said
“Kara, what question did you have,” Cook said, hoping to change the topic.
Kara: How is your relationship with Hollywood?
“We have very good relationships with the content owners,” Cook, said. “We don’t want their stuff to be ripped off.”
Apple, he said, took the same approach with music. Cook noted that there was a generation that didn’t think it should have to pay for music but that would have led to no artists.
Plus, of Hollywood, he said. “These guys have been buying Macs forever. There is a level of trust in those relationships. Steve bought us even closer because he also owned a content business for a while [Pixar].”
Kara: What is their biggest complaint of Apple
“I don’t know,” Cook said. “I’ve met with several of them recently. They were talking about what more we could do with them” rather than some issue.
7:16 pm: Walt: Are you working on some new kind of content business?
Cook: “Kara, What question did you have?”
Kara repeats Walt’s question.
“I don’t think Apple has to own a content business,” Cook said. “We haven’t had an issue for the most part getting content.”
“This is an area where Apple partnering well is the right approach.”
The best thing Apple can do, he said, is make a great vehicle for selling content. “The consumer loves it because they can get it where they want it, when they want it.”
7:18 pm: Walt: W
“Facebook is a great company. I have great appreciation for them.”
Walt, but yet Twitter is integrated and Facebook is not. Why not?
“I think the relationship is very solid,” Cook said. “We have great respect for them. I think we can do more with them. Just stay tuned on this one.”
Are thy still onerous
“They have their way of doing things, but people could say the same thing about us.”
“They have their way of doing things, but people could say the same thing about us.”
“Because you have a point of view doesn’t mean you can’t work with someone?”
Kara: Do you see more acquisitions in the future?
“We continue to buy companies,” Cook said. THey are not ones we seek to make public.”
Kara: Don’t you have to eventually?
“It depends on the amount. If I don’t have to, I won’t.”
That’s part of the doubling down on secrecy.
Kara: Did you look at Instagram?
“We didn’t look at Instagram.”
As for other big ones?
“I wouldn’t rule it out. We’re not looking at a big one right now, but I wouldn’t rule it out.”
We haven’t bought a company for revenue stream, he said.
“It’s not how we are wired,” he said.
Walt notes Apple bought Siri, which actually demoed at D before Apple acquired them. Siri, Walt said, is great when it works, but doesn’t work a lot of the time. That’s not what a lot of people have come to think about Apple products. What’s going on with that.
Cook: “Customers love it. It’s one of the most popular features of iPhone 4S. But there’s more that it can do and we have a lot of people working on this. And I think you will be really pleased with some of the things you see over the coming months on this. We have some cool ideas about what Siri can do. We have a lot going on on this.”