Tim Cook on New Products: ‘Take the Time to Get It Right’ / Apple

Apple’s Cook on New Products: ‘Take the Time to Get It Right’

Bloomberg News

Tim Cook, AppleAAPL +8.20%’s chief executive, said its strong fiscal second-quarter might silence chatter that the company is in decline. He paused before adding: “Maybe it will take some new products.”

Cook knows that’s the biggest question hanging over the company: whether it can repeat the innovative success with a new product category – as it did with theiPhone in 2007 and iPad in 2010. He has promised that Apple will break into new product categories this year, but so far has revealed nothing.

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Cook said Apple is hard at work but it will not rush.

“You want to take the time to get it right. Our objective has never been to be first. It’s to be the best. To do things really well, it takes time. You can see a lot of products that have been brought to market where the thinking isn’t really deep and, as a consequence, these things don’t do very well. We don’t do very many things so we spend a lot of time on every detail and that part of Apple isn’t changing. It’s the way we’ve operated for years and it’s the way we still operate. I feel great about what we’ve got coming. Really great and it’s closer than it’s ever been.”

How close is that? Cook lets out a laugh and said he didn’t accidentally tip his hand. The company, he said, is closer to announcing a new product than it was at the end of January, yesterday or ten minutes ago. Not much help.

Cook did say that Apple’s 15% year-on-year increase in earnings per share and rising gross margin – both their highest in six quarters – are proof that “the current product line can do amazingly well.”

He added: “New things will only make it better.”

Cook also made it clear that new products may extend beyond hardware. What about mobile payments? Apple has many customer credit cards, and fingerprint sensor in itsiPhone 5S. It also has made some recent moves in the area.

“I think it’s a really interesting area. We have almost 800 million iTunes accounts and the majority of those have credit cards behind them. We already have people using Touch ID to buy things across our store, so it’s an area of interest to us. And it’s an area where nobody has figured it out yet. I realize that there are some companies playing in it, but you still have a wallet in your back pocket and I do too which probably means it hasn’t been figured out just yet.” 

蘋果(Apple)的首席執行長(Tim Cook)說，該公司最好的日子還在前頭。
公司首席執行長發出這樣的訊息並不是特別不同尋常。但蘋果正在面臨著尖銳的質疑：有人認為，iPhone的增長將變慢，該公司的創新勢頭即將終結。

周四，庫克接受了《華爾街日報》記者Daisuke Wakabayashi的獨家專訪，就一系列涵蓋廣泛的問題表達了自己的看法。以下是經過編輯的訪談摘錄。

			《華爾街日報》：有人認為蘋果不再是成長型公司，對此你有什么回應？ 庫克：去 年，我們的營收增長了140億至150億美元。的確，與一年前和兩年期以及再往前的年頭相比，百分比增幅已有所下降。但這并不意味著我們就不是一個成長型 公司了。我們處在“超速增長”之中，而不僅僅是增長。我們的營收已經從650億美元逐年攀升，達到1,000多億美元、1,500多億美元、1,700多 億美元。這樣的數據不但是歷史性的，而且前所未有。我沒見過有任何其他公司達到了這種增長水平。所以，如果你說140億到150億美元與那些數據相比，很 顯然所占比例越來越小，但從某些環境來看，這就相當于增加了三個《財富》(Fortune)雜志500強企業。我認為，很難說蘋果不是一個增長型公司。 從 很多方面來說，去年第四季度都是一個很有意思的季度。這是我們有史以來營收最高的一個季度，是iPhone銷售最好的一個季度，是iPad銷售最好的一個 季度，也是Mac銷售最好的季度之一，而且取得這樣成績的背景是，PC行業正在不斷萎縮。我們增長率達到了19%，這相當不錯。 《華爾街日報》：新興市場現狀如何？ 庫克：過 去這幾年，我們的一個挑戰就是進入新興市場。如果你觀察Mac和iPod的情況，就會發現這些產品在發達市場表現極好，比如在美國、澳大利亞、英國、法 國、德國和日本，但iPod在新興市場的銷售始終都沒有太大起色。Mac在新興市場有一定銷量，但銷量不大。因此可以說，在中國、俄羅斯、巴西、印度、馬 來西亞、印尼、泰國和菲律賓，iPhone是蘋果第一個真正贏得大量用戶的產品。上一個季度，這些國家的iPhone銷售增長超過30%。 在中國，如果看過去這12個月的數據的話，我們在大中華區的銷售額達到了290億至300億美元。我不知道還有哪家美國公司在中國能達到這一水平或跟這一水平接近的業績。我們真的為此感到自豪，而且我們也真的為此付出了艱苦的努力。 中國移動(China Mobile)推出第四代移動通信LTE網絡已經一年多。不過就算加上中國移動，我們的產品也只被全球三分之二的用戶所接觸到。實際上，本季度我們還將與50家新的運營商簽下合作協議。 《華爾街日報》：你曾說過，蘋果2014年將推出新的產品類別，那是否包括對現有產品的新改進呢？ 庫克：這 個問題問到了點子上，那就是什么是創新。我們走過了創新特別多的一段時期，在過去的幾個月間，我們推出了大量新產品，包括配備了Retina顯示屏的 iPad Air和iPad Mini。我們還推出了新的Macintosh操作系統Mavericks，推出了iOS 7。還有iTunes Radio。基本上來說，我們重新設計了整個Macintosh產品線。我們有史以來第一次同時推出了兩款手機，iPhone 5C和iPhone 5S。使用指紋進行身份驗證的夢想已經變成現實。創新在蘋果仍然極富生機，而且也進展得也相當好。當然話說回來，我們還能做到更多。 我認為憑藉對現有產品類別的重大改進，以及增加新產品，蘋果能夠取得很好的增長。iPhone等產品還沒有到達上限。我們早前說過，平板電腦的業務將超過PC業務，而且這種情況會比我們預期更早出現。 我們也沒有放棄Mac。很多人已經在PC領域放棄了努力。我們還在大量投入人力財力，為Mac的未來打拼。 《華爾街日報》：智能手機的市場份額對你重要嗎？你常說，蘋果要生產最好的智能手機，而不是最多的智能手機。 庫克：在 我看來，手機市場上有三種手機：功能手機、功能和用途相當于功能手機的智能手機和真正的智能手機。我關心的是最后一種的市場份額。我不在意功能手機賣出了 多少。這種手機賣的越多，我越認為是個好事，因為這些都是真正的智能手機的未來用戶。第二類的情形也是如此。我愿意把盡可能多的人轉變成真正的智能手機的 用戶。 再說一遍，我非常關注最后一類手機，而且我們希望在這一類別中起到舉足輕重的作用。在真正的智能手機這一類別，蘋果在美國是第一 名，在加拿大是第一名，在日本是第一名，在西歐是第二名，在東歐是第二名，如果不算日本的話，我們在亞洲是第二名。所以說，在大多數地理位置，在大多數全 球重要的地區，我們都是數一數二的。在排名第二的地區，我們想不想成為第一呢？當然想，這一點請你相信。如果有什么辦法能做到這一點，同時又不會改變我們 生產偉大產品這一路線，我們就會這么做。不過，如果是生產垃圾的話，我們是不會這么干的。我們不會把蘋果的品牌貼到別人設計的什么東西上。 我并不認為，這就是說我們滿足于小規模或怎么樣。并不是說市場份額就不重要。我從來沒有這么說過。我想說的是，對蘋果而言重要是事是拿出偉大的產品，而且必須做到。 《華爾街日報》：人們都希望擁有一個大屏iPhone，你不想要大屏iPhone嗎？ 庫克：我 們曾說過，在技術成熟之前，我們不向越過那條線。這并不是說我們永遠不會生產大屏iPhone。我們希望的是，給客戶的東西從各個角度來說都是正確的，不 僅僅是尺寸，也包括分辨率、清晰度、對比度和可靠性。衡量顯示屏有很多不同的參數，對這些參數我們都非常關注，因為我們知道，顯示屏是軟件的窗戶。 《華爾街日報》：你怎么看谷歌(Google)將摩托羅拉(Motorola)出售給聯想(Lenovo)這件事？ 庫克：我并不感到意外。這看起來是個合乎邏輯的交易。谷歌擺脫了賠錢的業務，他們也沒有真正投入手機業務。我認為，做硬件、軟件、服務并把這些東西整合到一起很難。這也正是蘋果如此特別的原因。這真的很難，所以說，如果他們選擇不做了，我并不感到意外。 《華爾街日報》：蘋果從來沒有進行過規模數十億美元的收購。谷歌正不斷進行收購，包括你老朋友創建的Nest。這是否改變了你對大規模收購的看法？ 庫克：我 們一直在關注大公司。我們并沒有一條戒律，說不能收購大公司。同時，我們也不是有錢就要馬上花掉的公司，非要列出10個公司，然后選擇最好的一家收購。我 們不會這么做。對蘋果來說，為合適的公司、長期而言符合蘋果最佳利益的公司花上幾十億美元沒有問題。但如果沒有這樣的公司，那就一分錢不花。 但我們不會僅僅因為想變大而四處收購。我們的收購對象是能夠帶來更多了不起的產品的公司，是非常具有戰略意義的公司，我們對這些公司很感興趣，而且我們也在一直在尋找這些公司，不管它們的規模如何。 Daisuke Wakabayashi
			Apple’s Tim Cook on Plans for Cash and Emerging Markets By Daisuke Wakabayashi CONNECT Associated Press AppleAAPL +1.40% CEO Tim Cook says the company’s best days are still ahead. It’s not a particularly unusual message coming from a CEO. But Apple is facing pointed questions that the iPhone’s growth will slow and that the company’s innovative run is coming to an end. Cook sat down Thursday for a wide-ranging interview with the Journal’s Daisuke Wakabayashi. Edited excerpts follow: WSJ: There is a perception that Apple’s no longer a growth company. How do you respond to that? Cook: Last year, we grew (revenue) by $14 billion to $15 billion. Yes, those percentages are smaller compared to a year earlier and two years earlier and so forth. But that doesn’t mean that you’re not a growth company. We were in hyper-growth, or whatever is above growth. We went from $65 billion to over $100 billion to $150 billion to $170 billion. These are historic, unprecedented numbers. I don’t know any companies adding growth at that level. So when you say $14 billion to $15 billion compared to those numbers, it’s clearly smaller and a smaller percentage, but, to put it in some context, that’s like adding three Fortune 500 companies in a year. I think that’s hard to say that’s not a growth company. [The last quarter] was an interesting quarter in a lot of ways. It was our highest revenue ever. It was our best iPhone sales, best iPad sales and one of our best Mac quarters ever and this is in an environment where the PC industry is shrinking. And we grow by 19%, that’s pretty fantastic. We always look at the underlying health of our businesses. And what I mean by that is we look at sell-through because that’s what’s most important to us. About 70% of our business is indirect, 30% is direct. In that 70%, we look at great detail of what’s selling through. So when you look at the sell through, the iPhone was actually higher than the sell-in so I care more about that. WSJ: What’s happening in emerging markets? Cook: One of the challenges for us for the last few years is to begin to penetrate in emerging markets. If you look at the Mac and iPod, these products did exceptionally well in the developed markets – in the U.S., in Australia, UK, France, Germany and Japan — but the iPod never really took off in emerging markets. The Mac has sold some units in emerging markets but not large units. So it was really iPhone that was Apple’s first product that really introduced a large number of people in China, Russia, Brazil, India, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines. And last quarter, those set of countries grew over 30%. In China, if you look at the last 12 months, we’ve done $29 billion to $30 billion in revenue there in greater China. I don’t know of any other American company that does that kind of business in China or anywhere close. These are things that we’re really proud of and we worked really hard at. The China Mobile roll-out of LTE (fourth-generation wireless) takes place over a year. And even with adding China Mobile, we still only present our products to two-thirds of the subscribers in the world. In fact, this quarter, we’ll sign on 50 new carriers. WSJ: Was the weakness in developed countries? Cook: North America was a challenge. We had no growth basically as you could see from our results and that of course pulls down the top line because the weight is so large. Japan is a very key market for us. Japan is roughly 9% of our revenue. This is strange for a U.S. company to have that percentage of revenue in Japan. The dollar has gotten so strong that last quarter, our revenue growth in Japan was 11%. At constant currency from year before, it would have been 37%. When you lose 26 points on a currency conversion and it’s 9% (of the total), it takes off a couple of points on the macro-side. WSJ: You’ve said Apple will be entering new product categories in 2014. Does that include new improvements to existing products? Cook: It goes to the heart of what is innovation. We’ve had a prolific period of innovation. We’ve had enormous new products over the last several months with the iPad Air, the iPad Mini with Retina display. We’ve had Mavericks (the new Macintosh operating system). We’ve had iOS 7. We’ve had iTunes Radio. Basically we re-did the entire Macintosh line. We came out with two phones at the same time for the first time ever with the iPhone 5C and the iPhone 5S. And the dream of using your fingerprint for authentication has come true. Innovation at Apple is alive and well. But all of that being said, we can do more. We don’t believe we can do things at the level of quality and link things as we want to between hardware, software and services so seamlessly if we do a lot of stuff. So we’re going to stick with our knitting with only doing a few things and doing them great. There will be new categories and we’re working on some great stuff. We’re not ready to talk about it. We’re really working on some really great stuff. I think no one reasonable would say they’re not a new category. I think Apple can grow well with great improvements and new products on its existing category of products. We haven’t exactly hit a ceiling with products like the iPhone. There are still a lot of people buying feature phones. There are a lot of people still buying smartphones that they use like a feature phone but it’s labeled as a smartphone. We said early on that the tablet business would be bigger than the PC business. If anything, that’s happening sooner than we thought. There’s still a lot of PCs being sold and a lot of those users would have a better experience on an iPad than a PC. We still view that as an opportunity. And we haven’t given up on the Mac. A lot of people are throwing in the towel right now on the PC. We’re still spending an enormous amount on really great talent and people on the Macs of the future. And we have some really cool things coming out there. Because we believe as people walk away from the PC, it becomes clear that the Mac is what you want if you want a PC. We don’t think about our size and we don’t manage the company like a big company, but we did sell $171 billion worth of stuff last year. WSJ: Does market share in smartphones matter to you? You often say Apple wants to make the best, not the most? Cook: I look at the mobile phone market as having three kinds of phones: feature phones, smartphones that function as or are used as feature phones, and real smartphones. I care about the market share of the last one. I don’t care how many feature phones are sold. The more that are sold I look at as good because those are all potential future customers for real smartphones. The same thing goes for the second category. I’d like to convert as many of those as possible to real smartphones. Once again, I do care about that last category and you want to be relevant. (Among true smartphones), we’re number one in the U.S., we’re number one in Canada, we’re number one in Japan, we’re number two in Western Europe, we’re number two in Eastern Europe. We’re number two in Asia when you take Japan out. So in most geographies, in most major regions of the world, we’re one or two. Would I like to be one in the places where we are two? You better believe it. If there is a way we can do that without changing where our line is on a great product, then we’re going to do it. But what we’re not going to do is we’re not going to make junk. We’re not going to put Apple’s brand on something someone else designed. I don’t view that as being satisfied with being small or however you want to define it. It’s not saying that market share is irrelevant or not important. I’ve never said that. I just always tried to say that the macro thing for us is to make a great product and we must do that. WSJ: People want a bigger screen iPhone. Are you against that? Cook: What we’ve said is that until the technology is ready, we don’t want to cross that line. That doesn’t say we’ll never do it. We want to give our customers what’s right in all respects – not just the size but in the resolution, in the clarity, in the contrast, in the reliability. There are many different parameters to measure a display and we care about all those, because we know that’s the window to the software. WSJ: Will the smartphone market follow the PC market, where Apple is a niche player? Cook: I don’t view it that way. There are several reasons. If you look back at the Mac/Windows battle that was going on at the time, you’d find that one of the things that was the catalyst for separating Mac from Windows share was applications. There was a vast, vast difference in the number of applications that was available for the Macintosh than what was available on Windows. Over time, that gap grew and grew and grew. And in fact, the Mac began to lose some key applications. We have over a million apps on iOS. We have over half-million that have been optimized for iPad. That half-million compares to 1,000 for Android tablets. That’s one of the reasons, although not the only reason, why the experience on Android tablets is so crappy because the app is nothing more than a stretched out smartphone app. The other thing is that Windows pretty much was one thing. Android is like Europe. Europe was a name that somebody came up with for Americans who didn’t understand that Europe was a lot of countries that weren’t like U.S. states. They were very different. Android is many things. How many people who use a Kindle know that they’re using Android? And you see what Samsung is doing by putting more and more software on top. I think it’s night and day. The compare is so off. So, no, I don’t see it as same. And I’m not saying this just because I am at Apple because I do understand the PC world at that time because I was in it. It was totally different. If you really talk to the people who went through it and understood it at a deep level, I don’t think any of them would tell you it’s the same. WSJ: What did you think of Google selling MotorolaMSI +1.89% to Lenovo? Cook: I wasn’t surprised. It seems like a logical transaction. Google gets rid of something that’s losing money, something that they’re not committed to. I think it’s really hard to do hardware, software and services and to link all those things together. That’s what makes Apple so special. It’s really hard, so I’m not surprised that they are not going to do that. WSJ: Some investors want you to be more aggressive about returning cash. What’s your view? Cook: We started to return (cash) to shareholders in 2012. It was a combination of dividends and share repurchases. We more than doubled the program in 2013. When we did that, we became one of the largest dividend payers in the world and we had the largest share repurchase program in history. We recognize that we have more money than we need to run our business and invest for the future and invest in new products and acquire new companies and invest in capex, etc. We fully recognized that. We even said after we more than doubled it that we’re going to look at this thing every year. And each time we do this, we go back out to shareholders and listen to them. They’re owners of the company. We’re looking at tax policy. It’s a fairly complex set of things to consider. It’s not a simple thing. But we also wanted a program that’s flexible. We wanted to take advantage of opportunities that came our way. Those opportunities may be acquisitions. In the last 15 months, we’ve acquired 21 companies. We’re doing it low-key. We’re not making big announcements about these. It shows that we’re looking a lot. I think we’ve made smart purchases. WSJ: What about Carl Icahn’s proxy proposal to distribute another $50 billion in cash by September, beyond your existing plans? Cook: We think you want a cash-return program that’s flexible. We may see a huge company tomorrow that we want to acquire or something may happen in the stock market that’s unpredictable. You want to be able to adjust for the long-term interest of the shareholders, not for the short-term shareholder, not for the day trader. We’re trying to build a company for the long term, so that’s how we look at these decisions. We’re still re-evaluating, getting shareholder input and in March or April, we’ll be out with how we’re going to update the plan that we announced last year. In the meantime, we’re executing to what we announced but in a much more accelerated way because of the opportunity that existed. WSJ: Apple has never made a billion-dollar acquisition. Google is snapping up everyone including your old friends at Nest. Does this alter how you think about bigger deals? Cook: We’ve looked at big companies. We don’t have a predisposition not to buy big companies. The money is also not burning a hole in our pocket where we say let’s make a list of 10 and pick the best one. We’re not doing that. We have no problem spending ten figures for the right company that’s the right and that’s in the best interest of Apple in the long-term. None. Zero. But we’re not going to go out and buy something for the purposes of just being big. Something that makes more fantastic products, something that’s very strategic – all these things are of interest and we’re always looking regardless of size.

2012.5.30 Apple CEO Forgoes $75 Million
All Things Digital: Apple CEO Tim Cook is turning down $75 million he was due from dividend payouts.

 A New Stage for Apple's Tim Cook

Apple CEO Tim Cook steps into a new spotlight Tuesday, when he will make his first appearance at D: All Things Digital, a gathering of technology celebrities.

Apple Gears Up for New Products

Tim Cook said Apple has "intense interest" in TV, and said the company wants to move as much manufacturing to the U.S. as possible.

• Interview Recap: Cook on China, iPad, more

• Clip: Tablets Should be Free of PC Legacy

圖片來源：lemagit@flicker, CC Licensed 《華爾街日報》公布企業執行長薪資調查，提姆‧庫克（Tim Cook）以3億7,800萬美元的高薪榮登第一，最主要的關鍵就在於庫克手中持有的蘋果股票，價值大約是3億7,600多萬美元。

即將於下星期一出刊的美國《財星》（Fortune）雜誌，湊巧以提姆‧庫克（Tim Cook）為封面人物，製作了「提姆如何改變蘋果」（How Tim Is Changing Apple）題的封面故事。
蘋果既然敢於支付如此高昂的薪資待遇，庫克也證明了自己值得這樣的身價。
自 從庫克接任執行長之後，市值增加了1,400億美元，目前蘋果的市值為5,000億美元左右，比艾克森石油多出1,000億美元。庫克上任後的三個季度， 蘋果獲利達到310億美元，iPhone出貨8,900萬支，iPad出貨3,800萬台，以上成績均超乎華爾街預期。
當然，這些成績並非全是庫克功勞，在他接任執行長時，正是蘋果高速成長的巔峰期。而且事實上，從庫克上任至今，蘋果並未推出全新的產品，除了改版的iPhone 4S以及New iPad。
但是，這位行事低調、個性柔中帶剛的執行長，卻是個營運天才，與創意天才賈伯斯正好形成互補。1998年庫克加入蘋果，便大刀闊斧地改造了蘋果的工廠、物流與供應商系統。
一直以來所有人目光只看到蘋果設計簡單、純粹的美學經典產品，然而生產這些美麗產品背後所牽涉的複雜精密的製造流程與供應鏈，絕對是蘋果能有今日成就的關鍵，重要性不低於產品設計。

●效率管理vs.設計創意：隨著庫克的上任，重視效率的管理師思維也開始改變賈伯斯時代設計創意 為王道的企業文化。過去賈伯斯絕不允許其他人去干涉有創意的天才工程師的工作。但現在任何重要的會議，所謂的產品專案經理或是全球供應鏈主管都成了座上 賓。過去是工程師告訴大家該如何做，現在則變成了產品經理或供應鏈主管的工作。
●MBA vs.設計師：過 去的蘋果是設計師與工程師的天下，在傳統企業吃香的MBA，賈伯斯很難看上眼，事實上也不需要他們，賈伯斯心中永遠只有產品設計。如今，蘋果開始出現愈來 愈多MBA。出身高盛證券的銀行家安德瑞安‧佩瑞卡（Adrian Perica）數年前加入蘋果，負責企業購併業務，但實際執行人其實是賈伯斯。如今佩瑞卡的企業購併業務已自成一個獨立部門。
從某個角度來說，蘋果已經愈來愈像「傳統企業」，愈來愈多所謂具有商業管理背景的員工，愈來愈多的流程。目前蘋果28,000名員工當中，在社群網站LinkedIn標明自己學歷為MBA的人數有2,153人，其中有一半以上加入蘋果不到兩年的時間。


●人性化vs.獨裁式：庫克對於產品與細節的要求與賈伯斯一樣嚴格，但是面對人，卻比賈伯斯柔軟得多、也容易親近得多。他願意與投資人溝通、願意親自中國與當地供應商溝通、願意與媒體溝通，而受惠最多的自然是蘋果的員工。
過去的賈伯斯受人崇拜，但他獨裁式的管理風格，成了許多人口中的惡魔執行長。庫克卻是完全不同，他要求高，但是態度溫和，三不五時走到員工餐廳和員工一起吃飯。賈伯斯永遠只和設計總監強納森，伊夫（Jonathan Ive）一道用餐。
不過，或許也可以這麼說，庫克似乎比較接近「傳統企業執行長」的形象，比現親民隨和，賈伯斯卻是獨具個人魅力，不按牌理出牌，讓人崇拜、也讓人畏懼。
庫克用他自己的方式，保持蘋果原有的獨特，但也改造了蘋果。這位「庫克」船長，也將開啟蘋果的「庫克時代」。