The days of having a junk drawer full of stock iOS apps might finally be coming to an end.
On the way to a surprise appearance at the Fifth Ave Apple Store, BuzzFeed spent 20 minutes with Tim Cook, who revealed some iOS apps will come with a delete option soon. The Apple CEO also talked about the future of computing, 3D Touch, “Hey Siri” privacy concerns and more. Here are the most interesting tidbits from Cook’s drive-by interview:
Apple’s finally going to let you delete stock apps:
“There are some apps that are linked to something else on the iPhone,” Cook told BuzzFeed. “If they were to be removed they might cause issues elsewhere on the phone. There are other apps that aren’t like that. So over time, I think with the ones that aren’t like that, we’ll figure out a way [for you to remove them]…. It’s not that we want to suck up your real estate; we’re not motivated to do that. We want you to be happy. So I recognize that some people want to do this, and it’s something we’re looking at.”
Cook never tells stores when he’s going to drop in:
“I almost always go in unannounced,” Cook says. “It’s rare that I tell anyone that I’m going. But I do try to go to stores every time I’m traveling to a new city. It’s important.”
iPhone 6s is not a mere incremental update:
“This is clearly not an off-year issue,” Cook says. “This is a substantial change.”
Privacy concerns over ‘Hey Siri’ are overblown:
“First you can decide you don’t want Hey Siri,” Cook explains. “But the real answer to that is that the information is held on the device and so it is not going back to Apple. Apple doesn’t have access to it. So there’s not privacy concerns I think, for most people, when the information is held on their device and they can encrypt it with their passcode.”
3D Touch is the iPhone 6s best feature:
“I personally think 3D Touch is a game changer,” Cook says. “I find that my efficiency is way up with 3D touch, because I can go through so many emails so quickly. It really does cut out a number of navigational steps to get where you’re going.”
Apple releases new features as soon as they’re ready:
“There’s no holding back. We’re not going to look at something and say, ‘Let’s keep that one for next time.’ We’d rather ship everything we’ve got, and put pressure on ourselves to do something even greater next time.”
Tim is still bullish on iPad…
“I think that some people will never buy a computer,” Cook says. “Because I think now we’re at the point where the iPad does what some people want to do with their PCs.”
but the Mac is not going away.
“I think there are other people — like myself — that will continue to buy a Mac and that it will continue to be a part of the digital solution for us,” he adds. “I see the Mac being a key part of Apple for the long term and I see growth in the Mac for the long term.”
