When pressed by the hosts about the rumors that Apple is building a TV set, Cook tried to give an explanation about how Apple decides whether or not to enter any product category.
"We'd look and ask, can we control the key technology? Can we make a significant contribution far beyond what others have done in this area? Can we make a product that we all want? This is sort of how we think."
Later, when asked by Joshua Topolsky of The Verge about Apple's interest in competing with gaming consoles, Cook indicated that Apple was focused on mobile gaming on iOS devices, while leaving a hint that the company might invade the TV screen as well.
"You have more people playing games on portable devices than on the big screen TV now," Cook said. "Where we might go in the future, you know, we'll see... I'm not interested in being in the console business. But if you view gaming more broadly than that, then I feel we are a pretty big player today and the things we do in the future will only make that bigger." When Topolsky asked if Apple was interested specifically in games that could be played on a TV set, Cook replied: "I think it could be interesting."
Apple's relationship with Facebook has been curious lately. When Apple launched its (largely stillborn) Ping social-networking layer in 2010, Facebook was integrated—but rapidly de-integrated. iOS 5 added deep integration for Twitter, but not Facebook, and Mac OS X Mountain Lion seems to do likewise. But Cook denied that Apple's relationship with Facebook was rocky.
"I think the [Apple-Facebook] relationship is very solid," he said. "We have great respect for them. I think we can do more with them. And so, just stay tuned on this one... We want to provide customers simple, elegant ways to do the things they want to do. And Facebook has hundreds of millions of customers. Anyone with an iPhone or iPad wants to have the best experience with Facebook on any device. So stay tuned."
In general, though, Cook said that while Apple needs to embrace social networking (he cited that Twitter integration as well as social features in Game Center and even iMessage), it doesn't need its own social network.
