Ondrej Holzman A new Apple TV next week, 6,5 million paying customers for Apple Music and a focus on a better experience in cars - these are the main points mentioned by Apple CEO Tim Cook at the Wall Street Journal Digital Live conference.
With the editor-in-chief Wall Street Journal With Gerard Baker, he also talked about the Watch, about which Apple - especially in terms of sales numbers - is obstinately silent. "We will not reveal the numbers. It's competitive information," Apple's boss explained, explaining why his company adds Watch sales with some other products during financial results.
"I don't want to help the competition. We sold a lot in the first quarter, and even more in the last quarter. I can predict that we will sell even more of them in this one," Cook is convinced, according to whom Apple can push its watch further, especially in health and fitness. Customers can look forward to significant improvements in this area. When asked if the Apple Watch will one day come without the need to connect to an iPhone, Cook declined to answer.
Over 6 million people have paid for Apple Music
Much more interesting, however, was the topic of Apple Music. In these weeks, the free three-month trial period for users who signed up for the new music streaming service at the beginning began to end, and everyone had to decide whether to pay for Apple Music.
Tim Cook revealed that 6,5 million people are currently paying for Apple Music, with another 8,5 million people still in the trial period. In three months, Apple thus reached roughly a third of the paying customers of rival Spotify (20 million), however, the head of Apple said that he is extremely satisfied with the reaction of users for the time being.
"Fortunately, a lot of people like it. I find myself discovering a lot more music than before," said Cook, according to whom Apple Music's advantage over Spotify is precisely in music discovery thanks to the human factor in creating playlists.
The automotive industry is awaiting a fundamental change
The car is also a hot topic like Apple Music. In recent months, he has been regularly informed about Apple's next steps in this area, especially the hiring of new experts who could build a vehicle with the Apple logo in the future.
"When I look at the car, I see that software will become an increasingly important part of the car in the future. Autonomous driving will be much more important," says Cook, who, as expected, refused to reveal more about Apple's plans. For now, his company is focused on improving CarPlay.
“We want people to have an iPhone experience in their cars. We examine many things and want to reduce them to just a few essentials. We'll just see what we do in the future. I think the industry has reached a point where there will be a fundamental transformation, not just an evolutionary change," Cook said, referring to the gradual transition from internal combustion engines to electric or the continued electrification of cars, for example.
The responsibility of being a great citizen
In addition to the almost traditional questions about security and privacy protection, when Tim Cook repeated that his company definitely does not make any compromises in this regard and tries to protect its users as much as possible, Baker also asked about the role of the Californian giant in public life. In particular, Tim Cook himself has profiled himself as a public defender of the rights of minorities and homosexuals.
“We're a global company, so I think we have a responsibility to be a great global citizen. Every generation struggles with treating people with basic, human respect. I think it's weird," said Cook, who saw such behavior growing up and still sees it now. He himself would like to do something to rectify the situation, because "I think the world would be a much better place."
"Our culture is to leave the world better than we found it," recalled Apple's motto, its boss, who also recalled his predecessor, Steve Jobs. “Steve created Apple to change the world. That was his vision. He wanted to provide technology to everyone. That's still our goal," Cook added.
Apple TV next week
During the interview, Tim Cook also revealed the date when the new Apple TV will go on sale. The fourth generation of the Apple set-top box has already been put into the hands of the first developers who are preparing their applications for it after the presentation in September, and next week, on Monday, Apple will start pre-orders for all users. Apple TV should reach the first customers during the next week.
For now, however, it is not clear whether Apple will start selling its set-top box worldwide at the same time, i.e. also in the Czech Republic. However, Alza has already revealed its prices, which will offer the novelty (it is not yet known when) for 4 crowns in the case of the 890GB version and for 32 crowns in the case of double capacity. We can expect that Apple will not offer a lower price in its store.
Bullshit farts. Watch is quite a failure then. Rich people prefer to buy hand-made charms rather than Tamagotchi. Apple will sell it more than others only because there are many people among apple fans who do not look at functionality but only at the brand. Apple Music not much either. That was bullshit about tens of millions of paying people. They can't even catch up on Spotify. And I personally don't even listen to the radio in the car. Having some sophisticated entertainment there did not appeal to me at all. Maximum navigation and there are also better products than from apple. They would have a chance there, if only they bought the whole Tesla. But I'll agree with Tim on one point. He is doing well with the protection of his lungs.
you probably have a lot of big brains :)
The last sentence could be carved in stone...
So to write such a post, it must be a very high IQ :-/ And the best part is that these people just know how to hide behind anonymous nicknames. And getting attached to someone just because of their orientation - that shows the level of IQ in itself (and I write that as "hetero") :-/
Tolerance is one thing and promotion is another, let her bed whoever she wants, but she doesn't have to brag about it publicly. When children today are taught in elementary schools that homosexuality is a natural thing, then something is probably wrong...
But with this opinion, you won't get a lot of positive feedback here. Among other things, I listen to Erasure or Pet Shop Boys. Especially the first named group is very popular among the gay minority. I don't care who does what with whom, as long as they are adults and well behaved. But the promotion of the style, I'm busy, who's joking, really turns me on.
I agree with the passerby, the promotion of left-wing propaganda is disgusting, it is not their only act. This spina supports borderless emigration, fetas and often protests against the punishment of the murderer.
It is necessary to see the connections. Personally, I don't care what two adults do together, but I hate it when they try to claim that their deviation is the norm.
And it is sad that Apple joined this farce and thus missed the dream of remaining neutral.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvueoKTTPrg
So the sale of watches probably won't be a big deal, they can easily brag about the sale of other HW and SW...
I wonder how many of those 6,5 million people forgot to turn off their subscription after the free trial...
Otherwise, I'm a fan of an electric car, but maybe it won't become an iPhone on wheels...
6,5 million is a nice number, but comparing how long it took them to do it is nonsense, because it was certainly more difficult to get people to pay for music streaming when it was just getting started, than now, when it's different and it's a runaway train. which Apple just got into and took a bite out of the cake that someone else had baked
I don't think AW sales are going to be desperate. In our office alone, 4 people already have them (including the boss with a salary in the order of millions, who, however, according to the self-proclaimed experts in the discussions, will never buy an AW, because he should want an ordinary expensive watch). I'm excited about them myself. Durability is more than decent (2 days without problems) and the function is also great. For example, I wouldn't want to go back to Fitbit.
Otherwise, it's Apple Music for me. I tried it and I can say that functionally it is somewhere where Spotify was a few years ago. And that number of subscribers is desperation. Apple Music installed on hundreds of millions of devices worldwide, there was no choice. And of all those users, they managed to catch 6,5 million.
In my opinion, the biggest fail was that they chose a business model with automatic renewal. I have a lot of people around me who didn't turn it on just for the sake of it. If, on the other hand, they came up with the idea that "Try Apple Music for yourself for three months. You are not committing to anything. At the end of the trial period, you decide if you want to subscribe to the service or not.” so it would probably make a much better impression on people.
you are a failure, as the first part of the post is praise and then hate. 'go put these rants elsewhere and don't pollute the air...
Sure, Apple can only brag, right? Human stupidity knows no bounds. I think that if we put at least 50 a year into things from Apple at home, then I can have an opinion on what should be improved. And Apple Music simply failed.