It’s rare for the chief executive of a major tech company to make a public appearance, and even rarer for the head of Apple to do the same. But Tim Cook took to the stage at the All Things Digital D10 Conference yesterday – and revealed some interesting tidbits about what’s happening at Apple.
This is Cook’s first public appearance since he took over the top job last year, and already spectators are noticing the difference between him and his predecessor.
He’s more softly spoken; carefully choosing his words to make sure no information slips by unintentionally.
But what he did say provides good insight into what’s happening at Apple under his reign.
The interview wasn’t so much about Cook’s management style, but rather the direction of the company as a whole – here are five of the best tidbits from Cook’s appearance.
Apple’s voice-recognition technology has been branded as a type of personal assistant, and it’s definitely filtered through tech culture in a big way.
But as Walt Mossberg pointed out on stage, sometimes it doesn’t work. How does Apple intend to address this?
“I think you’re going to be really pleased with where we’re taking Siri,” Cook said. “We’ve got some cool ideas about what Siri can do. Siri proved to us that people want to relate to the telephone in a different way.”
The new iOS is set to be previewed next month, and analysts expect an update for Siri will make an appearance there.
The new iOS is integrated with Twitter, allowing users to tweet photos directly from the camera app and so on. But what about Facebook? As it turns out, Cook says there may be something happening here.
“I think we can do more with them, so just stay tuned on this one,” Cook said, also adding he still had respect for the company as a whole.
Patrick Stafford is a freelance journalist and a former deputy editor of SmartCompany.
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