Apple CEO Tim Cook spent a solid 81 minutes Tuesday night at AllThingsD's annual New York City conference, discussing the direction of Apple and the tech industry in general. During his interview, Cook covered a wide range of topics, not the least of which was wearable computing.
His thoughts: certainly an area in technology worth exploring, but so long as the device isn't placed on a consumer's head.
And, lo and behold, Cook finds the wrist to be a natural, interesting place for wearable computing devices. While it's not an explicit admission, it is a strong indication that Apple is looking to produce the iWatch, a much-rumored wearable computing device.
"There are lots of gadgets in the space. I would say that the ones that are doing more than one thing, there's nothing great out there that I've seen," Cook said. "Nothing that's going to convince a kid that's never worn glasses or a band or a watch or whatever to wear one. At least I haven't seen it. So there's lots of things to solve in this space."
The Apple CEO said he is intrigued by Google Glass, Google's new wearable computing technology which is out in the wild, but thinks the device will be limited to only a few markets. Cook said he believes that glasses are risky from a mainstream point of view, saying he wears glasses because he has to, not because he wants to.
And he's not alone. ZDNet's Larry Dignan said he believes Glass will be limited to consumers who actually wear glasses. Even then, Dignan said, users will have to contend with overheating on Glass.
Then there's the issue of making the device the jack of all trades. Both Cook and Dignan note that early products try to do everything they possibly can - from phone calls to connect to Facebook to taking photos and videos - at the expense of doing one thing particularly well. That a direction, Cook implies, that Apple doesn't want to go.
"As I said before, for something to work here [pointing at his wrist], you first have to convince people it's so incredible that they want to wear it."
