Philip Houska Apple CEO Tim Cook during his trip to Italy, where he also met with developers on the occasion opening of a new iOS developer center, met in the Vatican with the head of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis. During the Friday day, they communicated together for about a quarter of an hour, all surrounded by their "personal teams" and cameras.
Cook wasn't the only tech figure to meet the Pope. The executive chairman of the holding company Alphabet Inc. also exchanged a few sentences with the bishop of the Italian capital. (under which Google falls) Eric Schmidt.
It is not known if the Pope plans to become more involved in the field of technology, but since his election in 2013 he has constantly used services such as Google Hangouts to communicate with children around the world or Twitter, which he uses to spread excerpts from his sermons. Otherwise, however, it is cut off from technological conveniences in a certain way.
This is also proven by the situation when an unnamed child asked him during a Hangouts communication last year if he would like to save the photos he took on his computer. “To be honest, I'm not very good at it. I don't know how to work with a computer, which is quite a shame,” His Holiness replied.
However, he has a positive attitude towards technology in general and has promoted it as an educational tool for those who struggle with certain disabilities. Among other things, he declared that the Internet is "a gift from God".
Great to meet talented Italian developers today with @matteorenzi in Roma pic.twitter.com/2DcRPMYNHD
- Tim Cook (@tim_cook) 22 January 2016
It can be noticed that his favorite social network is Twitter, as he actively communicates and comments on current world events and controversies on his account. His favorite means of "tweeting" is said to be the iPad, which he uses to fully service his account under the name Pontifex. An interesting fact is that his previous tablet was auctioned for 30 dollars (that is, for approximately 500 thousand crowns) and all the money went to charity.
During the fifteen-minute interview with Cook, it is not certain what exactly they talked about, but both of them have recently been involved in issues such as gay rights, so this could have been one of the topics of discussion. It is known that the executive director of Apple in 2014 admitted to his homosexuality, to "support" those who were condemned for their orientation.
However, the head of the church was not the only high-ranking official Cook met with in the past week. He also spoke briefly with Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, and his Brussels meeting with Margrethe Vestager, European Commissioner for Economic Competition at the European Commission, was important.
Cook and Vestager discussed the current case in Ireland, where the Californian company is accused of not paying taxes and if the investigation confirms the illegal actions, Apple is threatened with having to pay back more than 8 million dollars. The result of the investigation could be known this March, however Apple continues to deny any wrongdoing.
