AMITIAE - Saturday 8 December 2012
Tim Cook Interview with Brian Williams on Rock Center (with links) |
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By Graham K. Rogers
There are some criticisms, especially over Siri. And Maps. When asked, Cook says, "It didn't meet our customers' expectations, and our expectations are even higher than our customers'. . . So we screwed up." When asked about saying goodbye to some executives (Forestall), there was no direct answer but he repeated, "We screwed up," adding "We are putting the weight of the company behind correcting it." Williams' overdubbed commentary was all a bit shallow: not discovering anything really new, but propagating some of the mythology, in a voice just a shade below hysteria. Cook's own comments sometimes sidestepped questions asked, but even so there was some interesting ideas. And on the need to stay focussed: "We can only do great things a few times on a few products."
He also discusses his recruitment by Steve Jobs, bringing him from COMPAQ to Cupertino; there is also some discussion of Cook's personal life, with Williams not delving too deeply but selecting his words carefully. And television? "An area of intense interest. I can't say more than that. . . ." Williams (unsurprisingly) could not get more than that about the future from Apple.
Graham K. Rogers teaches at the Faculty of Engineering, Mahidol University in Thailand. He wrote in the Bangkok Post, Database supplement on IT subjects. For the last seven years of Database he wrote a column on Apple and Macs. |
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