At Startup Fest Europe in Amsterdam today, Apple CEO Tim Cook sat down with retired European Commissioner for Digital Agenda Neelie Kroes to speak about various topics such as the Apple Watch, Apple’s carrier plans, and more (via The Next Web).
Apple has been rumoured to be interested in becoming a mobile carrier, as it has been allegedly trialling a mobile virtual network operator service. Today Cook responded to such allegations by denying such plans, citing lack of expertise:
Our expertise doesn’t extend to the network. We’ve worked with AT&T in the US, O2 in the UK, as well as T-Mobile and Orange, and we expanded as we learned more. But generally, the things Apple likes to do, are things we can do globally.
We don’t have the network skill. We’ll do some things along the way with e-SIMs along the way, but in general, I like the things carriers do.
He also shared hopes of diving deeper into health tracking via the Apple Watch, as he foresees a world in which smartwatches will play a much bigger role ensuring users’ health. “Health is a huge problem in the world”, he says, and continues that Apple would like to contribute to that, as it is an area on which Apple is “very focused.”
The holy grail with the watch is being able to monitor more and more of what’s going on in your body. It’s not possible technologically today to do it to the degree that we can imagine, but it will be.
For those of you who own a car: think about when you get in it, drive for a while; if it gets too hot, a light comes on to say, ‘pull over’ or ‘check if you need an oil change’. It has all these things in it that alert you to the need to do something.
What is the equivalent for the body? Well it’s our minds, but unfortunately all too often they convince us not to seek help. And many times, we don’t even know – there’s no symptom.
So, if you could have a device that knew so much about you, it would be pretty incredible. It would extend life and the quality of life. I’m not saying one device will do all of that, but when you solve such a big problem, it takes several such contributions.
That’s surely seems to be the case, as the company has been pushing out various frameworks such as HealthKit, ResearchKit, and more recently CareKit, allowing researchers and developers to create apps for medical research and more.
Apple is rumoured to be working on the second-generation Watch which could hit the shelves later this year. While the rumour mill has kept mum on health-related features of the second-generation Apple wearable, it did suggest that the device will likely pack a better battery, faster processor, and possibly built-in LTE.
Update: added a video of Tim Cook speaking at Startup Fest Europe (via The Loop):
