‘Buy your mom an iPhone’: Texting experience with Android phones is a minimal priority for Apple, Tim Cook says

Apple CEO Tim Cook said on Wednesday that Apple will not expend a great deal of energy strengthening the texting working experience amongst iPhones and Android gadgets simply because its users haven’t been inquiring for it.

“I never listen to our users asking that we set a good deal of power on that, on this position,” Cook dinner said in response to an audience concern at Vox Media’s Code Meeting in Beverly Hills, California. “I would adore to convert you to Apple iphone.”

The response arrives a lot less than a month right after Google kicked off an promoting campaign meant to set strain on Apple.

At this time, texts concerning iPhones use iMessage, which has a substantially smoother experience than when an Android device texts an Apple iphone, in which SMS messages show up as inexperienced bubbles. Google desires Apple to undertake RCS, a sort of messaging that is meant as a next-technology SMS substitute with encryption and other contemporary characteristics.

The questioner pressed Prepare dinner, saying that he won’t be able to send videos to his mom due to the fact of the limitations of SMS messaging.

“Acquire your mother an Apple iphone,” Prepare dinner mentioned.

Prepare dinner was joined by former Apple head designer Jony Ive and Laurene Powell Employment to discuss the legacy of Apple’s founder and announce a new Steve Employment archive and probable documentary.

Apple’s current privateness force is not a new aim for the firm — the pondering actually goes back again to founder Steve Positions, Cook dinner said.

“Steve genuinely ingrained in the company in the early times in the relevance of privacy and it has only developed given that,” Cook stated.

Cook dinner cited a 2010 communicate by Work where he explained that privateness suggests that users consent to share their knowledge. “Privacy means individuals know what they’re signing up for, in plain English, and consistently. That’s what it means,” Careers explained in the communicate cited by Cook dinner.

Cook’s remarks come as the firm’s privacy thrust has drawn raising criticism as self-serving as the corporation has introduced new privateness options that make on the net promotion much more challenging to evaluate as Apple reportedly designs to enhance the measurement of its promoting small business and introduces new advertisement units.

That is the exact philosophy powering Application Monitoring Transparency, a element introduced in 2021 that has roiled the on the internet advertising and marketing sector. Apple iphone entrepreneurs are requested before sharing a exclusive unit identification selection with apps when they boot up — and most Apple iphone entrepreneurs pick not to, avoiding on the web advertisers from precisely tracking the efficiency of their adverts.

Businesses such as Fb parent Meta have blasted the modify as anticompetitive. In February, Meta reported it would expense it $10 billion this year.

“What we felt is that men and women should really individual their information, and they really should make their personal choice,” Cook reported on Wednesday. “Persons really should be empowered to be in a position to make that decision in a truly clear-cut and uncomplicated fashion. Not buried 95 internet pages deep in a privateness plan someplace.”

Cook elaborated that Apple follows stricter regulations than advertisers and defended the company’s lookup ads.

“We’ve never mentioned digital advertising and marketing is a poor issue,” Cook dinner claimed. “What is not very good is vacuuming up people’s information when they are not doing so on an knowledgeable basis.”

Cook dinner was requested if he noticed Apple as a highly effective company that has stepped in for the reason that regulators have not passed privacy legal guidelines.

“We’re not hoping to be a regulator,” Cook dinner explained. “All we are striving to do is give people today the ability to make the final decision for by themselves.”