Apple Expresses Confidence in Future

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In light of CEO Steve Jobs’ medical leave, Apple said it is producing the best products it’s ever made and is “very, very confident,” about the future, according to COO Tim Cook, who now oversees day to day operations of the company.

Apple Confident in Wake of Job's leave of absence
Apple COO Tim Cook
]However, Apple would not respond to a question asking how far in advance the company plans it road map.

Instead Cook said, “Apple is doing its best work ever. We are all very happy with the product pipeline…and the team here has unparalleled depth and breadth. The culture of innovation that Steve has driven…excellence has become a habit. We feel very confident in the future of the business.”

During a call with analysts Monday night, he pointed out that Mac, while a growing at almost 8X the market growth for PCs this quarter, still has a very low share of the PC market. And iPhones have a relatively low share of the 1 billion handset market. Plus tablet sales are expected quadruple in the next three years, according to a new IDC report, said Cook.

He admitted that while the iPad may cannibalize some iPad sales, there’s also a halo effect that can boost Mac sales. “Cannibalization is not something we are spending one minute on here.”

Cook noted, “One of the key learnings from the iPad is that people love instant on; they really love it, so the MacBook Air incorporated that…”

Apple also said it sees no real competition from the current tablets on the market. In terms of Android tablets that have yet to ship, Cook said, “they generally lack performance specs, lack prices, lack timing, so they are vapor. We’ll address them as they come out. However, we’re not standing still. We have a huge first mover advantage and we have an incredible user experience for iTunes and the App Store and an enormous number of apps and a huge ecosystem. So we’re very, very confident with entering a fight with anyone.”

The company said it is still not meeting iPhone worldwide demand, and it believes it could have sold more iPhones in the recent quarter were it not for supply constraints. Apple would give no time frame for matching supply and demand for the iPhone, which goes on pre-sale to 93 million Verizon customers on February 3.

Source: Apple

Photo of Apple COO Tim Cook via TechCrunch

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