Apple chief executive Tim Cook has pitched health as one of the key selling points for his company’s upcoming Apple Watch smartwatch, including its hourly reminders to owners to be more active.
“If I sit for too long, it will actually tap me on the wrist to remind me to get up and move, because a lot of doctors think sitting is the new cancer,” said Cook during an on-stage interview at the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet conference.
“Ten minutes before the hour, it will remind you to move. We have a lot of people using the Apple Watch at Apple, and ten minutes before the hour, suddenly they all get up and move. It took a little to get used to, but it’s great.”
Cook was bullish about the Apple Watch’s prospects when it launches in April, admitting that there are already several competitors in the market but suggesting that “none have changed the way people live their lives… one of the biggest surprises for Apple Watch will be the breadth of what it can do”.
Cook also pressed the privacy credentials of Apple Pay, the company’s recently-launched mobile payments technology, claiming that it runs against that industry’s trend for data collection on shoppers.
“We believe customers have a right to privacy, and the vast majority of customers don’t want people knowing everything about them,” said Cook.
Cook talked up Apple’s growing business in China, and pooh-poohed past suggestions that the company could not succeed there with iPhones that were more expensive to buy than locally-made Android smartphones.
“We had lots of people telling us we needed to do something different in China to compete. That’s a bunch of bull,” he said. “People everywhere want quality. Not everyone can afford one, but there’s a big market there.”
