At Goldman Q&A, Apple CEO Cook attacks specsmanship

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At Goldman Q&A, Apple CEO Cook attacks specsmanship

Currently speaking at the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference, Apple CEO Tim Cook responded to a question about increasing the screen size on phones by mounting a direct attack on specsmanship. “The customer experience is always broader than that which can be defined by a simple number,” Cook said, suggesting that specs are what companies focus on when they can’t make truly great products. “Do you know the speed of an AX processor?” asked Cook. “Does it matter?” He said that for Apple, a great experience and great products were the goal, “the only religion that we have.”

Cook compared Apple’s Retina display to OLED displays, which have been the topic of much discussion yet have what Cook deemed “awful” color saturation. “The Retina display is twice as bright as an OLED display,” he said, mentioning that Apple feels very confident about the choices it has made with displays. “The only thing we’ll never do is make a crappy product. We’re going to make a great product… We must do something great, something bold, something ambitious. We want the customer to be the center of it ... to enrich customers’ lives.”

As for future display technology, Cook said, “I’m not going to comment about what we’re going to do in the future, that releases our magic, I’m not going to do that.”

« Cook talks up growth, potential of iPad

Apple patents 4th-gen iPod, Newsstand »

Comments

1

“...for Apple, a great experience and great products were the goal, “the only religion that we have.””

Hmmm, somehow think that the several people who were waiting at the altar of the Genius Bar with me, all with defective/faulty MacBooks/MacBook Pros, were not feeling the “great experience” or the “great products”.
Never mind, I get to go back for a third time to prostrate myself at the foot of the great Apple…

“The only thing we’ll never do is make a crappy product.”

ORLY…...

Posted by Bob Levens in UK on February 12, 2013 at 9:08 AM (PST)

2

@1: Heh. The local Genius bar is constantly booked, if you don’t make an appointment, you’re looking at 90-120 minutes minimum before the next walk in, and that’s during “off hours”. If you walk in on a weekend they probably just laugh.

I do love the relative painlessness of Apple’s customer service if you follow protocol, but in my nearly 10 years of using iDevices, I’ve had a seemingly high number of product replacements under warranty (5 out of 12 swapped for one failure or another). Anecdotal, just one guy, so maybe the aggregate statistics are better, but, as usual, it appears the PR speak is divorced from the reality of their penny pinching, bottom line focused design and delivery.

Posted by Code Monkey in Midstate New York on February 12, 2013 at 9:39 AM (PST)

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