Tim Cook: Apple Watch is first smartwatch that matters

Photo by Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla/ CanadianReviewer.com

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

There’s this thing in technology, almost a disease, where the definition of success is making the most. How many clicks did you get, how many active users do you have, how many units did you sell? - Tim Cook

Apple CEO Tim Cook gave a recent interview focusing on Apple Watch, the company's newest product category since the iPad in 2010. The exclusive Q&A interview given to Fast Company yields a lot of insightful gems from the CEO of the world's most valuable company on the cusp of an important and possibly risky new product introduction.

Cook hit on a number of points that reflect the principles of his predecessor and friend Steve Jobs. One particular line really explains Apple's approach in making the best products even if they don't sell the most units.

"There’s this thing in technology, almost a disease, where the definition of success is making the most. How many clicks did you get, how many active users do you have, how many units did you sell? Everybody in technology seems to want big numbers. Steve never got carried away with that. He focused on making the best," Cook revealed during the interview.

Regarding the Apple Watch, which Apple previewed for the second time a week ago during a special event in San Francisco, Cook recalled Apple's approach in various product categories where they weren't the first mover but offered such compelling products, that they eventually dominated the market for those products.

"We weren’t first on the MP3 player; we weren’t first on the tablet; we weren’t first on the smartphone. But we were arguably the first modern smartphone, and we will be the first modern smartwatch—the first one that matters," Cook stressed. During the interview, he showed off his own Apple Watch and demoed how it has changed his own life.

"See, my calendar is right here, there’s the time, the day, the temperature. There’s Apple’s stock price. This is my activity level for today. You can see what it was yesterday, and now it’s redrawing it for today. I haven’t burned very many calories today so far," Cook pointed out. 

The Apple Watch, which will be available for pre-order on April 4, 2015 and starts at CAD $449.00 for the 38mm version and CAD $519.00 for the 42mm Apple Watch Sport in aluminum, challenges current smartwatch conventions. Apple attacked the problem by starting with the small-sized screen and how user can best interact with it.

"You’re working with a small screen, so you have to invent new ways for input. The inputs that work for a phone, a tablet, or a Mac don’t work as well on a smaller screen. Most of the companies who have done smartwatches haven’t thought that through, so they’re still using pinch-to-zoom and other gestures that we created for the iPhone," Cook explains.

The interview with Fast Company Executive Editor Rick Tetzeli is an insightful read, aside from the focus on Apple and technology in general, there are various gems about Cook and his predecessor as well.

Source: Fast Company via The Verge