In an expansive interview with the Washington Post, Apple CEO Tim Cook hinted at Apple’s plans for the future, touching on artificial intelligence and augmented reality. While Cook dodged questions on the company’s car project, he was bullish on artificial intelligence’s ability to transform the dwindling cell phone market in the near future, renewing the company’s focus on things that will help users in their daily lives. Touting Apple’s own efforts and those of Uber and Lyft to integrate car-hailing services into Siri, he said the company opening up the personal assistant to third-party developers has unlocked a lot of potential. “Third-party developers are writing tons of those that will be available to the public in the fall,” Cook said of the integrations. “And that’s how we’re broadening Siri in a huge way.”
He also sees augmented reality as a “core technology,” and while he didn’t go into specifics, he said “it’s something we’re doing a lot of things on behind that curtain that we talked about.” The rumored car project is another of those open secrets, with Cook refusing to even answer a question about what new technology excites him most for fear of giving something away. “We have ramped up R&D because we are heavily investing in the future — both in current product lines and things that aren’t visible as well, including in services,” Cook said. “In due time, some of those things will be visible. But there will always be other things that will replace those things that are invisible.”
