Michal Marek In Rancho Palos Verdes, California, one of Apple's top men, Jeff Williams, attended the Code conference. The man who manages the company's strategic operations and Tim Cook's successor as chief operating officer answered questions about the Apple Watch to journalists from Re/code.
Jeff Williams is the man who oversees Apple's manufacturing and supply chain. He was described by Walt Mossberg as the quiet eminence behind many of Apple's popular products including the iPhone and Apple Watch. Williams then himself admitted that in addition to the production chain, he also oversees 3000 engineers.
As expected, Williams refused to share any numbers during the interview, but expressed great satisfaction with sales of the Apple Watch, which he said are doing "fantastically". When asked what that awesomeness is, Williams replied that customers love Apple's new watch even more than expected. According to him, the Apple Watch is experiencing great success in a market where other products have so far failed.
When asked how many watches have been sold so far, Jeff Williams said that Apple prefers to focus on creating great products rather than numbers. But he admitted that the Cupertino company sold "a lot" of them.
As for Apple Watch apps, Williams said they will get better as developers can develop native apps and have access to built-in sensors. As an example for his claim, Williams used the Strava application, which, according to him, will be able to bring much greater quality to the Apple Watch when it is allowed to use the watch's sensors directly.
The SDK, which will allow developers to create native applications, will be introduced during WWDC conference in June. Full access to the sensors and, for example, the digital crown, will then be enabled for Apple Watch applications in September, when the new version of iOS with serial number 9 will be made available to the public.
In addition to the Apple Watch, there was also talk of working conditions in the Chinese factories that manufacture their products for Apple. This topic has long been one of the most important for journalists and is often denied. Jeff Williams responded to questions by repeating how Apple is working hard on this issue to improve the lives of factory workers.
During the interview, Jeff Williams also touched on the topic of the automotive industry and Apple's interest in it. When asked what industry Apple might be targeting with its next amazing product, Williams said that Apple is interested in making the car the ultimate mobile device. He then specified that he was talking about CarPlay. He only said that Apple is "exploring a lot of interesting areas."
