Tim Cook Discusses His Job, Apple’s Long-Term Future, AI, Virtual Reality, and More

The Washington Post today posted a lengthy new interview with Tim Cook, in which he discussed his first five years as Apple CEO and hinted at the company’s work on augmented reality products.

When asked how he handled the scrutiny that came with the role, Cook admitted that it was something he’d had to adapt to since taking over from Steve Jobs, and that there was very little Apple could do without it being reported somewhere.

You’re both praised and criticized, and the extremes are wide — very wide. And that can happen all in a day. You build up — my skin got materially thicker after August 2011. And I don’t mean in a bad way. I don’t mean that I’m callous and don’t care. I think I’m a bit better today about compartmentalizing things and not taking everything so personally.

Asked what has changed about Apple since his tenure in the role, Cook explained that while the company’s aim of making “insanely great products” remained the same, its interests had broadened in line with its tremendous growth.

The obvious things are we have more employees. The company is four times larger [by revenue since 2010]. We’ve broadened the iPhone lineup. That was a really key decision and I think a very good one. We’ve gone into the Apple Watch business, which has gotten us into wellness and in health. We keep pulling that string to see where that takes us. Lots of core technology work has been done.

Cook also explained that the company had stepped up its social responsibility and been more transparent about issues such as its environmental work, which had been “going on at Apple for decades, but we didn’t talk about it.” When asked how Apple could move forward when so much of its business is tied up in the iPhone and an industry that’s cooling off, Cook said:

Look at the core technologies that make up the smartphone today and look at the ones that will be dominant in smartphones of the future — like AI. AI will make this product even more essential to you. It will become even a better assistant than it is today. So where you probably aren’t leaving home without it today — you’re really going to be connected to it in the future. That level of performance is going to skyrocket.

When asked about some analysts’ claims that Apple’s best days are behind it, Cook said the suggestion “doesn’t bother him” because “he’s heard it all before” and he doesn’t subscribe to it “because it’s traditional thinking in a lot of ways: You can’t get large because you are large”.

Asked about Apple’s future and statements he made in the last earnings call about artificial intelligence, Cook argued that the company wasn’t falling behind AI efforts by other companies and called the breadth of Siri “unbelievable”:

Increasingly, Siri understands things without having to memorize certain ways to say things. The prediction of Siri is going way up. What we’ve done with AI is focus on things that will help the customer. And we announced in June that we’re opening Siri to third parties, so third-party developers can now use Siri. So a simple example with that, whatever kind of ride-sharing app you might use, Uber or Lyft in the United States, you could just — using your voice — order the car. So third-party developers are writing tons of those that will be available to the public in the fall. And that’s how we’re broadening Siri in a huge way.

Apple has had a team working on virtual and augmented reality technologies since at least early 2015, when rumors suggested there were a small number of employees investigating how Apple could incorporate the technologies into its products. Apple’s interest in virtual reality dates back much further, however, and Apple has filed multiple patents over the years, for products like video goggles, motion-sensing 3D virtual interfaces for iOS devices, and 3D “hyper reality” displays. When asked if Apple had designs on the augmented or virtual reality space, Cook said:

I think AR [augmented reality] is extremely interesting and sort of a core technology. So, yes, it’s something we’re doing a lot of things on behind that curtain that we talked about. [Laughs.]

In the full interview, Cook reflects on the death of Steve Jobs, Apple’s tax policies, his non-traditional view of the role of a CEO, his succession planning, and some of the mistakes he’s made along the way. You can read the full Washington Post interview here.
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MacRumors Giveaway: Win a Lightning MicroSD Card Reader and 64GB MicroSD Card from Lexar

For this week’s giveaway, we’ve teamed up with well-known storage and memory company Lexar to offer MacRumors readers a chance to win a bundle that includes Lexar’s Lightning-based MicroSD Card Reader and a high-performance 64GB MicroSD card.

Lexar’s MicroSD Lightning Reader is a tiny coin-sized dongle that makes it easy to transfer content from a microSD card to an iPhone or iPad, so it’s an ideal companion to products like drones and GoPro-style action cameras. Many Android phones also feature microSD slots, so it’s also a good way to transfer files between Android and iOS device, and it’s also useful for transferring files directly between two iOS devices.

The Lightning MicroSD Reader is small enough that it can go anywhere, from a pocket to a small camera bag, but it looks like a high quality accessory that matches well with Apple’s design aesthetic. It’s so compact that it’s potentially easy to lose, but it comes with a little strap so it can be attached to a set of keys or a loop on a backpack. The Lightning connector of the MicroSD Reader fits well into the Lightning port of an iPhone even with a case on, including Apple’s own line of cases.

With a USB microSD reader (included with the 64GB card in the giveaway) you can also offload files from a computer and transfer them directly to the iPhone through the microSD reader, or use the reader to offload files from an iPhone to the microSD card for extra storage space.

The MicroSD Lightning Reader has to be used with the Lexar app, which is decent. If you put content like videos and photos on the microSD card, you can view them directly within the app and save them to the camera roll. You can also use the app to back up your iPhone’s photos and contacts and transfer files to Dropbox.

The Lexar MicroSD Lightning Reader can be purchased from Amazon for $19.99, but four MacRumors readers will win a Lightning Reader and a 64GB Lexar microSD card through our giveaway. To enter to win, use the Rafflecopter widget below and enter an email address. Email addresses will be used solely for contact purposes to reach the winner and send the prize.

You can earn additional entries by subscribing to our weekly newsletter, subscribing to our YouTube channel, following us on Twitter, or visiting the MacRumors Facebook page. Due to the complexities of international laws regarding giveaways, only U.S. residents who are 18 years of age or older are eligible to enter.

a Rafflecopter giveawayThe contest will run from today (August 12) at 11:00 a.m. Pacific Time through 11:00 a.m. Pacific Time on August 19. The winners will be chosen randomly on August 19 and will be contacted by email. The winners have 48 hours to respond and provide a shipping address before new winners are chosen.
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Apple Re-Hires Flipboard Co-Founder Evan Doll for Continued Push Into Health Initiatives

Apple has re-hired software engineer Evan Doll to help the company “develop more health-related software,” according to information spotted by Bloomberg on Doll’s LinkedIn account. Specifically, Doll is now a director of health software engineering at Apple, a position which he began sometime in July, but his profile information doesn’t provide any further details into his role at the company.

The software engineer worked at Apple from 2003 to 2009, helping create and develop the software operating system for the iPhone. In 2009, he left Apple and co-founded magazine app Flipboard with Mike McCue. Similar to Apple News, Flipboard curates content and stories tailored to each user’s personal tastes and preferences, and has even been endorsed by Apple in the past.

The launch of Apple News was reported as a steep competitive challenge for the small company, resulting in a majority of its executives leaving the company — including Doll himself — in September 2015. Despite his background in the news curation space, Doll’s new placement at Apple has him focused on potential new health initiatives, an area that the company has slowly been building upon lately.

Apple has been beefing up its engineering team for health-care applications, hiring Sage Bionetworks founder and Merck & Co. veteran Stephen Friend and former Nest Labs technology chief Yoky Matsuoka earlier this year. Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook is increasingly positioning the Apple Watch as a wellness accessory as he tries to win a slice of the $4.6 trillion U.S. health and fitness industry.

A report from earlier in the week suggested that Apple is working on a new health-tracking piece of hardware to launch alongside the 10th anniversary iPhone in 2017. Although details are still lacking for a product launch over a year away, the product is said to collect heart rate, pulse, and blood sugar changes, which could be describing a next-generation Apple Watch if it’s not an entirely new addition to the company’s hardware lineup.

Earlier in the year, Apple CEO Tim Cook spoke with Jim Cramer on “Mad Money,” discussing Apple’s initiatives in the health landscape. Cook described services like ResearchKit and the Health app as “significantly underestimated” sections of the technology market. Ultimately, when asked what the “next frontiers” in product development, Cook described health, and all the inroads taken by Apple to provide detailed analysis of a user’s well-being, as “the biggest one of all.”
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Apple Patent Describes ECG-Based Heart Health Wearable

Apple has invented a new health wearable device that measures electrocardiographic signals via a series of built-in electrodes (via PatentlyApple).

The device was revealed in a new patent application published today by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and appears to show designs on another wearable apart from the Apple Watch that can be worn on different locations on the body.

Electrocardiographic measurements rely on multiple electrode readings that can vary depending on where the recording is taken on the body. For example, accidental misplacement of limb lead electrodes is a common cause of ECG reading abnormalities. To solve this, Apple’s patent details how the device can intelligently adapt its measurements for accuracy by taking and comparing readings in different body locations.

In one example, the device can be run through an ‘enrollment’ process, whereby the measurements are taken at different locations on the body. Once the process is finished, electrocardiographic results obtained from the arm can be compared against the stored measurements and determine an accurate reading of heart functioning.

The patent describes how a user wearing the device on their arm can take manual measurements, by placing their finger on an electrode that is not already in contact with the body, whereby the device compares the inverted readings relative to one another to calculate an accurate measurement.

Earlier this week it was reported that Apple is developing at least one new health-tracking product that could debut alongside the tenth-anniversary iPhone in 2017. The product is said to have an array of health-related apps that collect data such as heart rate, pulse, and blood sugar changes.

It’s extremely unlikely that today’s patent relates to the upcoming device, but it does serve as another example of the research Apple is ploughing into this area, and indicates that the company is not averse to developing wearable technology that isn’t necessarily linked to the Apple Watch.

In a recent interview, when asked what he believes the “next frontiers” will be when it comes to product development, Apple CEO Tim Cook highlighted health as “the biggest one of all.”
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Apple May Build $1 Billion Research and Development Center in Vietnam

Apple may be planning to build a research and development center in Vietnam, reports Vietnamese site BizLive. Work on the R&D center, which will be located in the Vietnamese central province of Da Nang, was uncovered following a local government meeting on foreign direct investment.

Da Nang, image via VnExpress
Rumors earlier this year suggested Apple would invest up to $1 billion to build an Asia-focused research and development center in Vietnam, designed to “enhance its competitiveness over major global electronic manufacturers present in the country.” Last October, Apple also established an Apple Vietnam LLC in Ho Chi Minh City, led by Gene Daniel Levoff, Apple’s VP of corporate law who is also in charge of international operations.

Companies like Microsoft, Intel, and Samsung have had investment projects in Vietnam for several years, but the R&D center will be Apple’s first major project in the country.

A final decision on whether the research center plans will move forward is expected in late August.
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Apple May Build $1 Billion Research and Development Center in Vietnam

Apple may be planning to build a research and development center in Vietnam, reports Vietnamese site BizLive. Work on the R&D center, which will be located in the Vietnamese central province of Da Nang, was uncovered following a local government meeting on foreign direct investment.

Da Nang, image via VnExpress
Rumors earlier this year suggested Apple would invest up to $1 billion to build an Asia-focused research and development center in Vietnam, designed to “enhance its competitiveness over major global electronic manufacturers present in the country.” Last October, Apple also established an Apple Vietnam LLC in Ho Chi Minh City, led by Gene Daniel Levoff, Apple’s VP of corporate law who is also in charge of international operations.

Companies like Microsoft, Intel, and Samsung have had investment projects in Vietnam for several years, but the R&D center will be Apple’s first major project in the country.

A final decision on whether the research center plans will move forward is expected in late August.
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Accessibility Software Suffers Following Apple’s Faceshift Acquisition

Back in September, MacRumors uncovered evidence that Apple had acquired Zurich-based real-time capture firm Faceshift, in a move possibly related to the development of biometrics for unlocking devices or authorizing payments through facial recognition techniques. Apple later confirmed the purchase in a statement.

Before the acquisition, Faceshift worked closely with game and animation studios on technology designed to quickly and accurately capture facial expressions using 3D sensors.

One of the lesser known aspects of Faceshift’s business was licensing out its face tracking SDK to other companies, one of which was Xcessity, a small Austrian firm that specializes in designing human-computer interaction software to improve accessibility.

One of the most popular products made by the firm is KinesicMouse, which enables disabled people and those with degenerative conditions like Parkinson’s disease to control a mouse through facial expressions. The functionality of the KinesicMouse software – which is also used in hospital settings – depended heavily on the SDK developed by Faceshift, which received a royalty fee for every purchased license.

Earlier this week, Xcessity CEO Markus Pröll revealed in a tweet and a post on the Xcessity forum that Faceshift had revoked the license following Apple’s acquisition of the company, and that he would no longer be able to develop or offer the software:

The Faceshift SDK is the result of a research team that focused on this topic for several years at the university ETH Zürich. Whilst it would not be impossible to create such a software it would take way too much time and resources. Believe me after about four years of development I have tried about everything.

I don’t know who or why the decision was made to cancel the existing license agreement. I want to explicitly mention that I don’t make any claims that Apple or Faceshift is responsible for the cancellation. On this part I am left in the dark just as you are. All I can tell is that the guys from Faceshift have been very supportive through all those years.

The news came as a blow to users of the software, and Pröll says he has received “quite a few messages” from people who really depend on the app. One user of the software told MacRumors:

People like me depend on this affordable solution to access computer games. It brought me back to gaming although I have suffered from muscular dystrophy since I was a child. Shame on Apple for locking down such a solution.

If the license cancellation is indeed linked to Apple’s acquisition of Faceshift, the KinesicMouse software would appear to be an unfortunate casualty, given Cupertino’s stated commitment to accessibility. MacRumors has reached out to Apple for comment and we’ll update this story with any forthcoming response.
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