Tim Cook confirms Apple is doing a lot with AR 'behind the curtain'

Tim cook

It's rare for Apple to reveal anything about its future plans - understandable when you've got the eyes of every rival tech company peering in - but in a new interview CEO Tim Cook did hint at a couple of things on the horizon.

Speaking in a lengthy interview with The Washington Post, Cook revealed that Apple is doing a "lot of things" in augmented reality right now, just weeks after he confirmed that the company was investing in the area.

"I think AR is extremely interesting and sort of a core technology," said Cook. "So, yes, it's something we're doing a lot of things on behind that curtain we talked about."

However when it came to being poked about the much-rumored Apple Car, Cook remained predictably elusive. "I can't answer a question about something we haven't announced".

Private matters

Cook was more candid about Apple's encryption dispute with the FBI, where the company refused to unlock the iPhone belonging to the San Bernardino shooter.

"The lightbulb went off, and it became clear what was right when we did the first piece of work: Could we create a tool to unlock the phone? After a few days, we had determined yes, we could.

"Then the question was, ethically, should we? We thought, you know, that depends on whether we could contain it or not. Other people were involved in this, too - deep security experts and so forth, and it was apparent from those discussions that we couldn't be assured.

Cook described it as a "clear decision" but a "hard one". "Then it became more of a matter of how do we explain this. Because this is not easy. You can imagine. You just hear: locking phone. Terrorist. People dead. Why aren't you unlocking this?"

Hugh Langley

Hugh Langley is the ex-News Editor of TechRadar. He had written for many magazines and websites including Business Insider, The Telegraph, IGN, Gizmodo, Entrepreneur Magazine, WIRED (UK), TrustedReviews, Business Insider Australia, Business Insider India, Business Insider Singapore, Wareable, The Ambient and more.


Hugh is now a correspondent at Business Insider covering Google and Alphabet, and has the unfortunate distinction of accidentally linking the TechRadar homepage to a rival publication.