Apple COO Tim Cook on Android, Verizon, and more

19.01.2011

The next-generation Android tablets, which are primarily what you mentioned in terms of CES, there's nothing shipping yet, and so I don't know. Generally they lack performance specs, they lack prices, they lack timing, so today they're vapor. We'll assess them as they come out, however, we're not sitting still. And we have a huge first-mover advantage. And we have an incredible user experience, from iTunes to the App Store, and an enormous number of apps, and a huge ecosystem. And so we're very, very confident with entering into a fight with anyone.

We're always looking and assessing in every country who we should be doing business with and exploring different deals and arrangements, etc. And so, we'll continue to do that. What I've said before, and we have seen this in every case literally that we've done, is where we've moved from a exclusive carrier arrangement to a dual- or multi-carrier arrangement, our growth has changed significantly and our market share has increased. That doesn't mean that would happen in every country, nor does it mean that we're just out doing that in every country. We look at each one individually. Each market has its own individual characteristics, and parameters, and technology.

On the CDMA phone specifically, I don't have any specific thing to announce today other than we are truly thrilled to be working with the Verizon team. They have built quite a company, and earned a great deal of respect from their customers, and some of them have waited a long time to get iPhone, and we're very, very happy to give them iPhone. And any other customers, that are non-Verizon customers that wish to buy an iPhone. We're also very happy that we've signed a multi-year non-exclusive deal with AT&T. And so we're very happy that we will have shortly a dual-carrier setup in the U.S.

I've generally found, people really want to do business with us, and their customers very much desire to have the iPhone. I don't really see a lack of desire. I don't want to comment about any specific country, because I view any conversations that we have going as confidential in nature. It is true, as you said, that we are not under a contractual exclusivity now in any country in the world. The last one was the United States. We have moved away from those. I can guarantee you that we always are looking at opportunities to grow. Of course in the very short term, I would also remind you that we're constrained on iPhone 4 and we're working around the clock to get as many of these out to our existing partners as we can.