Apple CEO Tim Cook’s latest visit to London, on Wednesday, Dec. 11, was an opportunity to emphasize the company’s commitment to London and the U.K. Apple’s investment in the U.K. has been over $22 billion or £18 billion in the last five years, the company says.
While he talked to young people at Caius House, a youth center near Apple’s London HQ in Battersea, he was candid and open about his life and Apple’s latest features.
I’ve seen Cook work the room like this before. He can take the “OMG, it’s him!” energy and use it to get to know people, putting them at their ease not least because of his effortlessly genuine interest.
I ask Cook what it meant to him to be at events like these. “It means something to be able to give back,” he says, “and to connect with kids that are going to run the companies and businesses and governments in the future, and see what’s on their mind, to see what their dreams and aspirations are. It keeps me connected to youth, which is so important both from a personal point of view, but also from a business point of view.
Asked by the group about how he started out, he talks about his interest in computing, which spiked when he realized that it had great potential for helping people, connecting them. The spark came when he was at college, not high school. “Find what it is that you’re most curious about, and don’t worry if you don’t get that lightbulb moment immediately,” he reassures the room populated mostly by teenagers.
Succeeding in business is another question and Cook has plenty of tips. Don’t look in the rear-view mirror, always be looking forward instead of congratulating yourself on what you’ve achieved, surround yourself by a strong team of people and so on.
He talks about how he started out at Apple, saying that in 1997, the company, “and it may be hard for you to believe this, was thought to be on the verge of bankruptcy.” He goes on that Michael Dell, the CEO of Dell Computers, said that the best thing would be for Apple to be shuttered and the money given back to the shareholders. “And the only difference between Michael Dell and the rest of the industry was that he said it while everyone else was thinking it.”
None the less, he joined Apple because, “There was something about the twinkle in Steve Jobs’ eye, the way he was turning left while everyone else was turning right,” that appealed to him.
Asked about Apple Intelligence and where it would lead, Cook says, “We’re actually releasing iOS 18.2 today, and I would encourage you to get 18.2 in a hurry. It has many different parts of Apple Intelligence, from the ability to clean up a photo to writing tools to ChatGPT integration. There’s a ton of features in it but the elegance of it is that it’s integrated into the apps that you use every day. And the elegance of it is also that it’s private. It’s very unusual in that we’ve kept the processing either on-device or in a private cloud. In the future, you’ll see more features being added and it will just keep getting better and better. Artificial intelligence is a horizontal technology in that it will touch everything in your life over time. It will change everything. because it will be like having an assistant, to prepare things that it would have taken you longer to do, to free you up to spend more time, pulling that string of curiosity or creating or following your passion.”
One of the developers he met talked about the need to “always be iterating.” I ask Cook if that rings true for Apple, as well. “Yes, it’s the incredible, relentless drive that nothing is ever perfect. That there are always improvements to be made. And there’s the importance of being willing to view people’s feedback as jewels and continuing to make your craft better and better over time.”
As Cook met with app developers today, I wonder if the App Store is part of Apple’s focus on democratization. “Even before I worked there, Apple’s always been about democratization. The aim of putting a personal computer in every classroom. that doesn’t sound too ambitious, in 2024, but it was ambitious at the time,” he says.
“Then getting a personal computer for everyone, and then a smartphone in every pocket, the ability for everyone to be a photographer, to film a movie and then edit it. These things used to cost hundreds of thousands of pounds or more, and now all of a sudden you can put them in your pocket. The latest example, perhaps is the Hearing Test. There are a billion and a half people with hearing problems in the world, and now we can democratize the hearing test, because very few people get one. It’s always about democratizing for us.”
That feature has just gone live on AirPods Pro 2, alongside iOS 18.2. So I ask Cook what Apple Intelligence means to him and to Apple.
“I think it means a whole new era for iPhone, because the difference with Apple Intelligence versus a usual feature is Apple Intelligence touches everything. It touches every application that you use so much of. It touches Notes, Mail, it touches Messaging. These apps that you live in today, it touches all of those, and so the integration is deep and very different than having to think, oh, I want to use Apple Intelligence, let me go to this special place. It’s in the places that you are already in. It starts a level of innovation that’s on a different trajectory for the future. I think it’s foundational and huge.”
