Tim Cook discusses manufacturing, Maps in Bloomberg interview
Apple CEO Tim Cook has given an interview to Bloomberg Businessweek, in which he discusses his first year at Apple, the company's manufacturing practices, Maps and much more.
Regarding Apple's overseas manufacturing partners, Cook noted that many Apple employees spend time in China:
"We have hundreds of people that reside in China in the plants on a full-time basis that are helping with manufacturing and working on manufacturing process and so forth. The truth is we couldn't innovate at the speed we do if we viewed manufacturing as this disconnected thing. It's integrated."
Cook also discussed Apple's poorly received Maps application, its replacement for the recently scuttled Google Maps for iOS. He acklowdges the poor result in no uncertain terms:
"We set out to give the customer something to provide a better experience. And the truth is it didn't live up to our expectations. We screwed up."
There's so much more to this compelling interview. It ends with Cook speaking about his friendship with the late Steve Jobs:
"I guess the external view of that is that [Steve was] a boss, but when you work with someone for that long, for me anyway, the relationship is really important. You know? I don't want to work with people I don't like. Life is too short. So you do become friends. Life has too few friends."
