The greatest innovator in the world right now is Google—not Apple, said Walter Isaacson, author of the best-selling biography “Steve Jobs.”
iPhones begin selling at China Moblie on Friday
This is a big deal, says Walter Isaacson, Aspen Institute, discussing Apple’s deal with China Mobile and Tim Cook’s next disruptive move. He still needs to bring out the “holy cow” product. Also Isaacson discusses Google’s acquisition of Nest and weighs in on why the greatest innovations right now are coming from Google.
Transcript:
well, one interesting thing is that steve jobs, in his whole life, ver went to china and never wanted to go to china. and obviously, from foxcom to china mobile, there were a lot of reasons to go. tim cook wanted to go to china. and this is one of the big marks that tim is making on this company is this is a big deal. and the fact that he pulled it off is good. so what’s a bigger deal? getting int china or google earlier this week buying nest? i actually think google buying nest because i think this shows an amazingly strong integrated strategy that google has to connect all of our devices, all of our lives from our car to our navigation system to how our garage door is going to open. and you know, the internet of things has already gotten so much hype that we’re about to hear the backlash. but it’s actually real. there are these devices we’re going to want to have. they wrote a piece over the weekend — it was right after the nest deal. i’m sorry, not over the weekend — suggesting between nest, the acquisition of those robots, remember we talked about those a couple of weeks ago between google glass, that that company, from an innovation standpoint, either they’re innovating or they’re buying innovation. when you think about google relative to what apple is doing, how do you think about that right now? absolutely i think dick is right in terms of the fact that the greatest innovation in the world right now today is coming from google. and tony fidel was one of the team that created the ipod. he was very deep into the apple culture. that’s when apple was so innovative. you didn’t expect them to come out with a music player back then. and boom, because of tony fadell and a few others they did. now he’s going to google as part of the nest deal. johnny ives was working on some crazy idea that’s going to make google glass and nest and everything look like child’s play. you got closer to that secret than anybody else, though. well, you know, i think steve jobs would have wanted, as the next disruptive thing, to have wearable like watches or tv, the easy tv you could walk into the room and say put on squawk box, and you didn’t have to worry about all of the complexities, or disrupt the digital camera industry or disrupt textbooks or something. steve jobs was a disrupter. i think that now that tim cook has done this big thing in china which was his first year of play. he’s got two things to do right now, take over the company, whicwill mean in late february, shareholders meeting, they probably have to start thinking about who should be on the board next. this board is all steve jobs people. they aren’t exactly the tim cook fan club. secondly, he’s got to say, what am i going to disrupt? is it going to be wearable? is it going to be a watch? tv? we ought to see in 2014 apple do
Apple’s appealing growth story in China
I think China will hit the target and be bigger than many think, says Daniel Ernst, Hudson Square Research, discussing Apple’s iPhone launch in China and CEO Tim Cook’s vision for the company.
Transcript:
first, at 12 times earning, the market is not giving apple a lot of credit for potential growth whether it’s china or otherwise. to china, i think china will be bigger than you think. it is, however, one arrow in the quiver for this year. but i think it will hit the target, and it will be bigger than you think. you think there will be a pricing problem? that’s been the critique. pricing is absolutely always the biggest critique. however, as you’re probably aware, the fastest growing car company in china in the last two years is audi. that’s a $40,000 car in china at the low end. and that’s the fastest growing car. that’s $40,000, an apple iphone is $1,000 unsubsidized, and they already have 40 million people on china mobile that are already using apple iphones that are disabled. they can use them for calling. then they get home to their wi-fi, they can use it. that’s a natural install base that people will be able to use the network. cook said this morning or overnight that 57% of mobile browsing was on ios. so we know that when apple — and we’re seeing the same numbers here when people actually use the devices. the usage and the metrics for developers, for retailers are much, much better with apple. what does that say — you know, i asked walter in the last hour about innovation. what’s morimportant? apple going to china or google buying nest? i think you chose google buying nest. but then i think back to the fact that apple actually, when it comes to people using the devices, it seems to have a much bigger take-up. that’s correct. i think that they’ll say that with nest. and so, you know, google continues to have great data on what apple users do because even though there’s other search options, there’s other map options people use google devices, google doesn’t need to own devices. they spent $12 billion on motorola for the patents, and they haven’t won a single case. they could have just continued to have android and be the search engine across apple devices or across. it didn’t matter. google is collecting all this data, and they’re able to monetize that. they don’t actually need devices. but i think the nest issue is interesting. i said china is one arrow in the quiver. the other big one is for the last two years, cook continues to hint that there are, in the last earnings call, he said there are things that we do that we have expertise in that would lend itself to other categories that we’re not in. and so the number one thing that i think investors care about today is what is that new category? most analysts will come on here and say our checks tell you they’ll have a two-inch water, an 80-inch television. i don’t know. but i do know they have a history of innovation. they have a history of entering new product categories and leading them.
