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Tim Cook has become the latest chief executive to criticize President Donald Trump over his response to the white nationalist rallies in Virginia.

The Apple boss said he did not agree there was a “moral equivalence” between white supremacists and “those who oppose them”.

President Trump has disbanded two business councils after top bosses resigned.

Tim Cook said Apple will also make donations to human rights charities.

In an email to staff obtained by BuzzFeed News, Tim Cook said: “I disagree with the president and others who believe that there is a moral equivalence between white supremacists and Nazis, and those who oppose them by standing up for human rights.

“Equating the two runs counter to our ideals as Americans.”

Image source Flickr

Charlottesville Protests: Donald Trump Now Blames Violence on Both Sides

Charlottesville Protests: Donald Trump Condemns Racist Violence

Charlottesville Protests: Governor Terry McAuliffe Blames White Supremacists for City Violence

Tim Cook added that “in the wake of the tragic and repulsive events in Charlottesville, we are stepping up to help organizations who work to rid our country of hate”.

Apple will donate $1 million to both the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League. It will also match two-for-one any staff donations to these and several other human rights groups until September 30, the Apple boss said.

On August 16, Presidnet Trump said he was scrapping two business councils after more bosses quit over his handling of the violent clashes in Virginia.

Business leaders left the White House manufacturing council after the backlash against how he reacted to the far-right rally last weekend.

The clashes culminated in Heather Heyer’s death and 19 wounded when a car ploughed into a crowd of anti-fascist protesters.

President Trump’s reaction has sparked outrage and generated global headlines.

His announcement on Twitter came as the heads of 3M, Campbell Soup, Johnson & Johnson and United Technologies announced their resignations on August 16.

President Trump said: “Rather than putting pressure on the businesspeople of the Manufacturing Council & Strategy & Policy Forum, I am ending both.”

Before Donald Trump’s announcement, the Strategy and Policy Forum announced it was a joint decision to disband the council.

Businesses have been under pressure to distance themselves from President Trump over his handling of the clashes in Charlottesville, Virginia.

On August 14, President Trump belatedly condemned the white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups that rallied in a small Virginia town on August 13.

However, in a rancorous news conference on August 15, the president backtracked and again blamed left-wing counter-protesters for the violence too.

On August 16, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, a member of the Strategy and Policy Forum, released a separate statement saying he strongly disagreed with President Trump’s recent statements, adding that “fanning divisiveness is not the answer”.

“Constructive economic and regulatory policies are not enough and will not matter if we do not address the divisions in our country. It is a leader’s role, in business or government, to bring people together, not tear them apart,” he said.

Denise Morrison of Campbell Soup said she could not continue to participate in the advisory panel after President Trump’s comments. Activists had called on Campbell Soup, among other firms, to take action.

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Apple has posted a record jump in profits in Q2 2015 as demand for iPhones soared.

However, Apple’s shares fell in after-hours trading after revenue forecasts disappointed analysts.

Apple sold 47.5 million iPhones in the quarter to June 27, up 35% on a year ago, with Mac computer sales up 9% to 4.8 million.

CEO Tim Cook called it “an amazing quarter”.

Profits rose 38% to $10.7 billion, while revenue was up 33% to $49.6 billion.

The third quarter is typically the slowest for iPhone sales because many customers put off buying new phones, on the expectation of a new model.

Despite the strong results, shares fell 6.7%, or $8.85, to $121.89 in after-market trading in New York.

Analysts blamed the fall on disappointment about Apple’s revenue forecasts for the fourth quarter, which were slightly lower than expected, as well as the firm’s profits being too heavily dependent on the iPhone.

Apple is forecasting revenue to be between $49 billion and $51 billion in the fourth quarter.

Demand for iPad tablets remained weak, with Apple selling 10.9 million, down 18% from a year earlier.Apple profit report 2015

However, Tim Cook also said the Apple Watch had had a “great start”, in the first indication of how well the company’s first piece of wearable technology was selling.

Apple’s chief executive said last autumn that he did not want to reveal detailed figures for the watch, which went on sale on April 24, to avoid giving competitors inside information.

Apple said that revenue from “other products”, which includes the watch as well as products such as the iPod and its Beats headphones, came to $2.6 billion – about $952 million higher than the previous quarter.

Chief financial officer Luca Maestri said that revenue from the watch amounted to “well over'” that $952 million increase.

Sales of the watch in the first nine weeks had exceeded those of both the iPhone and iPad after they were first launched, he added.

Apple said its gross margin – the difference between the amount it spends on making the products versus how much consumers pay – was 39.7%, up slightly on a year ago.

The technology giant also continued to do well in the China market – defined by Apple as China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Sales doubled year-on-year and accounted for more than a quarter of Apple’s total third-quarter sales.

The jump should help to reassure investors that demand in China remains robust despite fears the market is close to saturation point.

The iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, which smashed iPhone sales records when they were launched last year, are now 10 months old.

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Apple CEO Tim Cook has announced he is donating most of his wealth to charity before he dies.

The boss of the world’s most profitable company is worth over $800 million.

Tim Cook told Fortune Magazine that he would leave his wealth to philanthropic causes but not before paying for his 10-year-old nephew’s college education.

He joins a growing number of the world’s super-rich who are giving away their wealth, including Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.Tim Cook to donate his wealth to charity

Five years ago, billionaire investor Warren Buffett and Microsoft founder Bill Gates launched the campaign The Giving Pledge. It aims to convince billionaires to give at least half of their fortunes to charity.

Mark Zuckerberg and over 100 others have so far signed up to the “moral commitment”.

Tim Cook’s base salary went up by 43% in February 2014, rising to $9.2 million a year.

According to Fortune Magazine, Tim Cook holds $120 million worth of Apple shares and a further $665 million of restricted stocks.

According to a new book due to be released this month, Apple CEO Tim Cook offered a part of his liver to a dying Steve Jobs.

Becoming Steve Jobs excerpts of which have been published online throws light on life inside Apple as it grew into one of the world’s most powerful technology companies.

The book also charts the relationship between Tim Cook and Steve Jobs.

According to the book, Steve Jobs angrily turned down Tim Cook’s offer.

In 2004, Steve Jobs announced that he was suffering from pancreatic cancer and by 2009, the Apple chief executive was very ill, unable to come into the office and waiting for a liver transplant.

Tim Cook regularly visited Steve Jobs at home and after one visit he “left the house feeling so upset that he had his own blood tested”, according to excerpts published by Fast Company executive editor Rick Tetzeli, who co-authored the book.Tim Cook offered liver to Steve Jobs

Fellow author Brent Schlender is a journalist who interviewed Steve Jobs several times throughout his life.

Tim Cook found out that he, like Steve Jobs, had a rare blood type, and guessed that it might be the same.

According to the book, Tim Cook went through a series of tests and discovered that a partial liver transplant was feasible.

When he shared the news with Steve Jobs, the dying Apple boss reacted angrily, according to the book.

“He cut me off at the legs, almost before the words were out of my mouth,” an excerpt says.

“<<No>>, he said. <<I’ll never let you do that. I’ll never do that>>.”

“Steve only yelled at me four or five times during the 13 years I knew him, and this was one of them,” Tim Cook added.

Steve Jobs did go on to have a liver transplant, in March 2009.

He resigned as Apple chief executive in August 2011 and died in October at the age of 56.

The book also reveals that Steve Jobs contemplated buying Yahoo as a way for Apple to get into the search business.

Parts of the new book contradict an earlier biography written by Walter Isaacson. In that book Walter Isaacson claims that Apple was contemplating creating a television – but according to Becoming Steve Jobs, the Apple founder had little interest in this.

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Tim Cook has publicly admitted he is gay.

Apple’s CEO says that he is “proud to be gay”.

Tim Cook, 53, made his announcement to try to help people struggling with their identity, he wrote in a Bloomberg article.

This week he challenged his home state of Alabama to ensure the rights of gay and transgender people.

Tim Cook says that he is proud to be gay

Tim Cook says that he is proud to be gay (photo Twitter)

“I don’t consider myself an activist, but I realize how much I’ve benefited from the sacrifice of others,” Tim Cook wrote.

“So if hearing that the CEO of Apple is gay can help someone struggling to come to terms with who he or she is, or bring comfort to anyone who feels alone, or inspire people to insist on their equality, then it’s worth the trade-off with my own privacy,” he added.

Tim Cook said that he had been open about his s**uality with many people, including colleagues at Apple, but that it still “wasn’t an easy choice” to publicly announce his orientation.

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Mark Zuckerberg was in Beijing as a newly appointed member of the advisory board for Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management.

As part of that role, Mark Zuckerberg met students for a 30-minute chat, which he conducted in Mandarin.

Facebook founder’s attempt to woo the audience by speaking Mandarin has had mixed reviews from Chinese speakers.

There was plenty of reaction to his attempts to communicate in Chinese.

“It’s hard to describe in English what Zuckerberg’s Mandarin sounded like but I’d put it roughly at the level of someone who studied for two years in college, which means he can communicate like an articulate seven-year-old with a mouth full of marbles,” one blogger wrote.

Others commented: “Oh my god… this is terrible… but apart from the tones, he seems to have learnt the vocabulary and grammar pretty well.”

News outlet Quartz described Mark Zuckerberg’s 30-minute chat as making him sound “like someone was stepping on his face”.

Mark Zuckerberg was in Beijing as a newly appointed member of the advisory board for Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management

Mark Zuckerberg was in Beijing as a newly appointed member of the advisory board for Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management

One tonal slip-up led Mark Zuckerberg to claim that Facebook had just 11 mobile users instead of one billion.

While most agreed that his pronunciation was far from fluent, most were also impressed that he had attempted it at all.

Mark Zuckerberg, who is married to Chinese-American Priscilla Chan, set himself the goal of learning Mandarin in 2010, in part so that he could communicate with Priscilla’s relatives.

Facebook as a company is also keen to improve relationships with China. There is currently a ban on the use of the social media site, which dates since 2009.

There was no explicit chat about the ban and Mark Zuckerberg described China as a “great country”.

“The Chinese language is difficult, and I speak English, but I like challenges,” he said.

On Facebook’s future in China, Mark Zuckerberg was diplomatic: “We are already in China. We help Chinese companies gain customers abroad. We want to help the rest of the world connect to China.”

Fellow chief executive – Apple’s Tim Cook – was also in China, questioning officials about an alleged hack of its iCloud service.

Tim Cook will attend a meeting at Beijing’s Tsinghua University with Mark Zuckerberg later in the week.

Meanwhile he has had talks with the vice premier of China to discuss protecting user data in the wake of recent alleged hack attacks targeting iCloud users.

The attacks were revealed by Chinese activist group GreatFire.org, which accused the Chinese government of being involved.

iCloud user data was collected by creating a spoof icloud.com website.

Tim Cook also used the trip to China to visit Foxconn’s iPhone factory and said that the company would open 25 retail stores in China in the next two years.

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Apple has reported its first quarterly drop in profits in a decade, but said it will raise dividends for shareholders.

Apple made a net profit of $9.5 billion in the first quarter of 2013, down from $11.6 billion last year.

However, the results were better than many had expected, as strong iPhone and iPad sales boosted revenues to $43.6 billion.

Concerns over slowing demand for Apple products amid increased competition have hurt its share price recently.

“Though we’ve achieved a credible scale and financial success, we acknowledge that our growth rate has slowed and our margins have decreased from the exceptionally high level we experienced in 2012,” Tim Cook, Apple CEO, said.

Apple said it sold 37.4 million iPhones and 19.5 million iPads worldwide in Q1 2013.

Although Apple continues to remain a dominant player in the tablet computer and smartphone markets, investors have been worried that its market share was being eroded by increasingly popular offerings from rivals such as Samsung.

Apple has reported its first quarterly drop in profits in a decade, but said it will raise dividends for shareholders

Apple has reported its first quarterly drop in profits in a decade, but said it will raise dividends for shareholders

There have also been concerns over the lack of new product launches.

Analysts have suggested the company needs to innovate and develop new products to stay ahead of the competition, rather than relying on updates to existing products.

“The market is tired of the same old thing at Apple,” said Lauren Balter, an analyst at Oracle Investment Research.

“Investors are looking for innovation. The reality is that people are looking at other products now and they are looking at other cool features from competitors.”

These concerns have seen investors ditch Apple shares over the past few months. It has lost around 40% of its stock market value since hitting an all-time high in September last year.

However, Tim Cook tried to assure investors and shareholders that the firm was continuing to take measures to ensure that it maintained its dominance in the market.

“The decline in Apple’s stock price over the last couple of quarters has been very frustrating for all of us… but we’ll continue to do what we do best,” he said.

“The most important objective for Apple will always be creating innovative products.

“Our teams are hard at work on some amazing new hardware, software and services, and we are very excited about the products in our pipeline,” he added.

Some analysts said that the lack of a new product did not mean that Apple was not developing one.

“What no investor can see is what is happening between closed doors in research and development,” said David Tan, assistant professor of strategy at Georgetown University.

“[Research and development] is always very secretive. It always takes a very long time between the inception of an idea and commercializing a product.”

Apple, which before the latest earnings had $137 billion in cash, has been under pressure to share some of it with shareholders.

On Tuesday Apple said it planned to buy back $60 billion in shares, and raise its dividend to shareholders by 15%.

The move encouraged investors and Apple’s shares rose 5.5% in after-hours trading on Wall Street.

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Apple has now unveiled the iPhone 5 in San Francisco.

Apple CEO Tim Cook, talking on the stage in San Francisco and beamed live to London, announced: “We’ve got some really cool stuff to show you, it’s an extraordinary time at Apple.”

The latest version of the iconic smartphone comes with a four-inch screen, an eight-megapixel camera which can take 28-megapixel panoramic shots, and is the thinnest iPhone yet, at just 7.6 mm.

All of which comes, for the first time, in a package made entirely in glass and aluminium.

Apple confirmed iPhone 5, available in black and white, has a four-inch display, – 1136×640 – which is the same width as previous models but taller.

It uses a new display which is 30 per cent thinner that previous handsets.

Phil Schiller, vice president of marketing, said: “It is designed to fit in the hand, and all of our software is being updated to take advantage of this display.”

The handset also has a new chip, the Apple A6, which is twice as fast as previous versions but 22% smaller.

iPhone 5 is expected to be the biggest selling in Apple’s history, with an estimated 8 million set to be sold according to some estimates.

The battle for domination of the mobile market has become increasingly heated recently with Apple’s competitors taking it on with a series of new products.

iPhone 5 will cost the same price as the iPhone 4S, $199 to $399 depending on size

iPhone 5 will cost the same price as the iPhone 4S, $199 to $399 depending on size

The firm boasted the new handset has eight hours of 3G talk time, and a 225 hour standby time.

It also has an eight megapixel camera with a 3264×2448 sensor, and has improved its performance in low light, and a lens made from sapphire crystal.

The handset also now has a panorama mode to create wide shots.

“The ocean looks bluer, kids look happier,” joked Phil Schiller.

Phil Schiller also confirmed the handset has a controversial new connector.

“The iPhone from its start used the 30 pin connector, and it has served us well. A lot has changed and it is time for the connector to evolve – and out new connector is called Lightning.”

Apple also showed off a connector allowing people to use their existing chargers and accessories.

The handset will use iOS 6, and dumps Google’s maps for Apple’s own.

“We’ve built in free turn by turn directions,” said Scott Forstall of Apple as he demonstrated the new Apple Maps app.

“We use a cinematic camera angle to fly you around corners.”

Apple also showed off a 3D flyover feature allowing people to virtually fly over an area, and showed off the software “flying” over Big Ben in London.

A new app called Passbook also allows people to collect store cards, tickets and other information in a single app.

It can be used to show boarding passes on planes and for entry to concerts and sports games that support the codes.

Users can also share photo albums easily, and Apple’s speech recognition software Siri has been updated to give people sports scores, and even book restaurants.

Facebook has also been integrated into the service, allowing people to update their status via speech.

The handset will cost the same price as the iPhone 4S, $199 to $399 depending on size.

It will begin shipping on September 21st in US, Canada and several other countries, and customers can pre-order from this Friday.

 

Apple is reportedly considering buying a stake in Twitter worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

The technology giant, which has stumbled on the social media front, has been in talks with Twitter in recent months about the strategic investment, according to The New York Times.

Apple’s hefty injection of funds would value the social networking powerhouse at more than $10 billion, up from an $8.4 billion valuation last year, the newspaper’s sources said.

Apple has had huge success selling its iPhones and iPads but has had little traction in the fast-growing social media world.

As social media, accessed on computers and mobile devices, increasingly influences how people spend their time and money, Apple, which also sells applications, games, music and movies, is keen to get in on the action.

Apple is reportedly considering buying a stake in Twitter worth hundreds of millions of dollars

Apple is reportedly considering buying a stake in Twitter worth hundreds of millions of dollars

The New York Times said it’s not a done deal and the companies are not in negotiations at the moment. But are likely to form a strong partnership against intensifying competition from the likes of Google and Facebook.

Facebook is aligned with Microsoft, which owns a small stake in it, and Google, which rivals Apple in the smart phone market, is pushing its own social network, Google Plus.

“Apple doesn’t have to own a social network,” Timothy D. Cook, Apple’s chief executive, said at a recent technology conference.

“But does Apple need to be social? Yes.”

Twitter and Apple have already been working together, with the technology leader embedding Twitter features into its software for phones, tablets and computers.

Meanwhile, Twitter has been working to bolster its relationship with Apple, according to The Times.

An investment in Twitter would not be a big financial move for Apple, which has $117 billion in liquid investments, but it would be one of Tim Cook’s most important strategic decisions since taking the helm after Steve Jobs’ stepped down due to illness.

For Twitter, having the backing of a tech icon like Apple would see its valuation shoot up overnight.

Like that of other start-ups, the company’s valuation has languished in the wake of Facebook’s lackluster market debut.

But Twitter does not need Apple’s cash injection. Earlier this year, chief executive Dick Costolo, said the company had “truckloads of money in the bank”.

The Times’ sources reckon this “truckloads” adds up to more than $600 million in cash on hand thanks to a healthy flow of advertising revenue.

Both Apple and Twitter refused to comment in the article, but Dick Costolo said of Apple in a recent interview: “Those guys are a great partner. We think of them as a company that our company looks up to.”

 

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Tim Cook, Apple CEO, has turned down a payout worth about $75 million.

Apple will pay a quarterly dividend of $2.65 per share from July, the first time the technology giant has declared a dividend since 1995.

But a regulatory filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission revealed that Tim Cook will not take up his dividends.

A newspaper recently said that Tim Cook was the best-paid boss in the US with an income of more than $300 million.

“At Mr. Cook’s request, none of his restricted stock units will participate in dividend equivalents,” the filing said. It did not say why.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Tim Cook made $378 million last year, most of which came from a grant of one million shares awarded.

His base salary is $900,000. His predecessor, Steve Jobs, famously had an annual salary of $1.

A regulatory filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission revealed that Tim Cook will not take up his Apple dividends

A regulatory filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission revealed that Tim Cook will not take up his Apple dividends

Earlier this week, Apple’s lead designer Jonathan Ive was knighted.

The Briton – responsible for the designs behind iconic products like Apple’s iPod, iPhone and iPad – also reaffirmed his desire to stay at the company.

Since the death of Steve Jobs, the Apple co-founder and figurehead, many have speculated that the company might struggle to maintain its reputation for innovative products and would face an exodus of top talent.

That has not happened yet as Apple has sought to lock in people like Tim Cook and Sir Jonathan Ive through long-term stock options.

Apple has about $110 billion in cash. In March, the tech giant said it would use its cash to start paying a dividend to shareholders and to buy back some of its shares.

It expects to use $45 billion over the next three years.

Earlier this year, Apple’s shares touched a high of $644, surpassing $600 billion in market value and making the company the world’s most valuable firm.

Since then, Apple shares have dropped to $562 each, making the company worth $525 billion.

 

Apple has unveiled its latest version of iPad, armed with a Full HD display with 3.1 million pixels and a supercharged new processor.

Apple said the resolution of the display was 2048 by 1536 pixels. The tablet is also powered by a new A5X chip with improved graphics performance.

Chief executive Tim Cook claimed to be “redefining the category that Apple created”.

Apple dominates the market but is set to face a fresh challenge when devices running the full Windows 8 system are expected to go on sale later this year.

Apple has unveiled its latest version of iPad, armed with a Full HD display with 3.1 million pixels and a supercharged new processor

Apple has unveiled its latest version of iPad, armed with a Full HD display with 3.1 million pixels and a supercharged new processor

The new iPad also features a 5-megapixel camera sensor. It will be able to run on 4G LTE networks where the service is available and can act as a wi-fi hotspot for other devices if carriers allow the function.

It is 9.4 mm deep, slightly thicker than the 8.8 mm profile of the iPad 2.

Apple’s marketing chief Phil Schiller said the tablet has the same 10-hour estimated battery life as the previous model using only wi-fi. That limit shortens by an hour when using 4G.

The device will be available on March 16 and priced from $499-$829 – the same range as the iPad 2, which the technology giant launched a year ago.

The new iPad is due to go on sale on the same day in the UK, US, Canada, Germany, France, Switzerland, Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia and Japan.

Apple also announced an upgraded TV box which can now handle 1080p video.

Films and TV shows will be sold via its iTunes store in the high-definition format.

IMS Research said Apple accounted for 62% of the global tablet market in 2011. Ahead of the press conference it said it expected that share to rise to 70% this year.

Analysts at Gartner said it expects Apple to sell 69 million iPads before the end of 2012. By contrast if forecasts stores will sell 22.8 million tablets running Google’s Android system, and 6.3 million Blackberry Playbook devices.

Gartner research director Michael Gartenberg said: “I’d call the new iPad an evolutionary device with some revolutionary experiences”.