What Tim Cook Said Back in April Regarding ‘New Product Categories’

I’ve been fielding a few questions from readers who seem under the impression that earlier this year Tim Cook promised an entry into a “new product category” by the end of this year, and what I expect that product to be. Here’s the thing though, I don’t think Cook promised any such thing. From Macworld’s transcript of Apple’s April 23 quarterly analyst call, here is what Cook said in his opening remarks:

We will continue to focus on the long term, and we remain very optimistic about our future. We’re participating in large and growing markets. We see great opportunities in front of us, particularly given the long-term prospects of the smartphone and tablet markets, the strength of our incredible ecosystem which we plan to continue to augment with services, our plans for expanded distribution, and the potential of exciting new product categories.

Take the smartphone market, for example. IDC estimates that the smartphone market will double between 2012 and 2016 to an incredible 1.4 billion units annually. And Gartner estimates that the tablet market is growing at an even faster rate, from 125 million units in 2012 to a projected 375 million by 2016.

Our teams are hard at work on some amazing new hardware, software, and services that we can’t wait to introduce this fall and throughout 2014.

Those two phrases I’ve highlighted in bold aren’t necessarily related. Cook said Apple sees opportunities in new product categories, and had new products lined up for introduction in the fall of this year, but it doesn’t follow from his words that Apple has a product in a new category to introduce in the fall of this year.

It’d be great if Apple does have something altogether new to unveil next week, but if they don’t, it won’t contradict what Cook said in April.

★ Thursday, 17 October 2013