Ondrej Holzman Last week Apple announced financial results for the first quarter of the new fiscal year and then the company's executive director, Tim Cook, convened a large meeting of top managers and employees, where he presented upcoming plans and answered questions. Cook talked about future iPad growth, Watch sales, China and the new campus.
The meeting was held at Apple headquarters in Cupertino and exclusive information from it acquired Mark Gurman of 9to5Mac. According to his sources, who directly participated in the event, he also appeared alongside Tim Cook new COO Jeff Williams.
Cook didn't announce any groundbreaking news, but he did drop some interesting information. At the latest financial results, Apple announced record sales of the Watch, but again refused to provide specific numbers.
Now, at the company meeting, Cook has at least revealed that more watches were sold during the Christmas quarter than the first iPhones were sold at Christmas 2007. That means one of the "hottest" Christmas gifts, as the Apple Watch boss called it, sold roughly 2,3 to 4,3 million units. That's how many first iPhones were sold on the first and second Christmas respectively.
Everyone is also wondering what will happen next with iPads, because they, like the entire tablet market, have been experiencing a decline for several quarters in a row. However, Tim Cook remains an optimist. According to him, revenue growth for iPads will return at the end of this year. The new iPad Air 3 could also help with this, which could be presented by Apple in a month.
In the future, we could also expect more applications from Apple for Android or other competing operating systems. The CEO of the Californian giant, currently with Alphabet is fighting for the position of the most valuable company in the world, said that with Apple Music on Android, Apple is testing how its service works with competitors and did not rule out such versions for other services as well.
There was also talk of a new Apple campus in Cupertino grows like water. According to Cook, it would be a giant complex called Apple Campus 2 the first employees were supposed to move early next year.
Finally, Cook also touched on China, which is becoming an increasingly important market for Apple. It was thanks to China that Apple reported record revenues in the last quarter and maintained year-on-year growth in iPhone sales, albeit minimal. Cook confirmed to employees that China is key to the company's future. At the same time, in this context, he revealed that Apple does not plan to release a cheaper and cut-down iPhone in order to succeed in emerging markets. According to surveys, Apple found that even in these regions, people are willing to pay more money for a better experience.
The new website look is really terrible :( what's with everyone all of a sudden with the images on the articles (alluding to the Zive change)? They're mostly just for illustration anyway... the old look was much better