Transcript of Tim Cook’s Comments During Today’s Analyst Call

Tim Cook, as quoted by Macworld:

I think the Android activation number is a difficult one to get our hands around. Because unlike our numbers, which you can kind of go to our data sheet, and add the iPhones and iPads, and make a reasonable approximation of the iPod touch—which we said is over half of our iPod sales—you can quickly see that in June quarter we sold over 33 million iOS devices. And across time… we’re now over 222 million cumulative iOS devices. So we think this is incredible. So our numbers are very straightforward, they’re transparent, and they’re reported quarterly.

Translation: “We don’t think Google’s ‘activation’ numbers translate directly to ‘devices sold’.”

And if you read between the lines in Cook’s comments on the prepaid market, he seems to be hinting strongly that Apple is going to soon pursue the unlocked market with a lower-priced no-contract iPhone. Maybe the iPod Touch goes away, replaced by a $249 or $299 no-contract iPhone?

★ Tuesday, 19 July 2011