OUR GOAL IS NOT TO BE MOST BUT TO BE BEST
HISTORICALLY, APPLE IS notorious for not being willing to talk about future products (except for the upcoming Mac Pro...). But interviewing the top executives can be a different story. On the one hand, you can expect them to be right on-message — but on the other hand, you can expect some insights and disclosures that those further down the chain would feel beyond their station.
So it is when we meet face-to-face with Phil Schiller, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing. In our wide-ranging discussion, he not only speaks about Apple’s most recent products but also reveals some of the thinking behind them, hints at where this thinking could lead next, and even maps out some of Apple’s intentions and aspirations for the future. Among other things, we talk about the new iMac Pro, Apple’s move into AR, and the delay to HomePod. We begin with the process to get to iPhone X.
“It’s probably the boldest of the things we’ve done,” Schiller says with characteristic enthusiasm, “thinking back to the start when the teams started working on it and made proposals of some of the things we would ultimately do with the technology.
“At the time, at the beginning, it seemed almost impossible. Not just almost. It seemed impossible. And to pull off what feels impossible and make it possible — and not only that, but just something we love using — is just a great achievement.
“WE KNEW IT WAS NO SMALL THING TO REPLACE THE HOME BUTT ON”
“Clearly there was a point in the process where we had to commit to the fact that it would be a full top-to-bottom screen on the front with no Home button, which means you’re counting on Face ID working as we’d
