In a new interview with CBS Mornings, Apple CEO Tim Cook touched on a wide range of topics, including the iPhone 14's new Emergency SOS via Satellite feature, the future of Twitter, and what it means for the app on the App Store, and what's next for Cook after he steps down as CEO of the company.
In a teaser for the interview earlier this week, Cook said Apple will be deliberate in its hiring amid economic uncertainty. "That means we're continuing to hire, but not everywhere in the company are we hiring," Cook said, amid reports the company has halted hirings. In the full interview, Cook talked about the iPhone 14's Emergency SOS via Satellite feature, which launched earlier this week to iPhone 14 users in the United States and Canada.
I'm a hiker, and so I'm frequently out in places where there is no service, and you don't want there to be poles out there either. But now, to have the ability to contact in the event of an emergency is huge. You know, if you go to national parks, they are largely not covered by cellular service, and so this happens to people all the time, and it feels so great to be able to talk to a satellite hundreds of miles away traveling at 15,000 miles an hour.
Cook also touched on Apple's stance on privacy, saying the company does not believe in "sucking that information [user data] up into the cloud to make decisions off of it." Cook added: "We believe in getting the bare minimum level of information that we need to provide somebody a service."
For the first time, Cook also commented on recent developments at Twitter following its takeover by Tesla CEO Elon Musk. When asked about what the recent changes mean for the relationship between Twitter and Apple and the app's presence on the App Store, Cook said: "They say that they're going to continue to moderate, and so I count on them to do that because I don't think anybody really wants hate speech on their platform."
During the interview, Cook declined to respond directly to a question regarding his future at Apple, saying instead, "it's a privilege of a lifetime to be here," and "I get to work with people I really love to work with and spend time with them. And so, there's a lot of joy in my life because of Apple. And it's really hard to envision life without Apple."
