10 Questions to Ask Apple’s Tim Cook Over a Cup of Coffee

by Don Reisinger

Foxconn is a huge concern for Apple from a PR perspective. Foxconn has a less-than-stellar reputation, due to some alleged worker suicides on its campuses and findings made by the Fair Labor Association, charging it with poor working conditions. Yet, Apple continues to work with Foxconn. Tim Cook will need to explain how he’ll handle that over the coming years.

You know that television rumor that has been cropping up from time to time since Steve Jobs told his biographer Walter Isaacson that he had “cracked the code” on delivering a new-age set? Well, whatever happened to that thing, Mr. Cook?

Apple and Samsung seem to be at a stalemate with their lawsuits. Although Apple has won a single important ruling, the company has yet to score a decisive legal victory that has any serious affect on Samsung’s ability to sell its phones around the world. Samsung has won a few cases of its own, but has also failed to score the winning shot. At what point will Apple decide a cease-fire is in order and move on?

When Tim Cook took over Apple, comparisons were immediately made between his management style and that of Steve Jobs, his predecessor. It would be interesting to learn whether Cook wonders if he will ever be able to step out of Jobs’ shadow and be judged on his own merits. The answer might surprise some people.

Shareholders are having a really big problem with Apple right now. Over the last year, Apple’s stock has fallen $300, and Tim Cook is trying to reassure investors that things can turn around. But a stock buyback program and a dividend just aren’t doing it yet. Cook will need to answer some questions on exactly what he can do to address shareholder issues.

Before Steve Jobs died, he told his biographer that he would go to “thermonuclear war” with Google over the search giant’s alleged copying of iOS. Tim Cook, however, has remained largely tight-lipped about his company’s battles with Google. Does he still have animosity towards the search giant?

In an e-mail to a customer last year, Cook said that the person should expect to find a new and revolutionary Mac Pro from Apple at some point towards the beginning of this year. And yet, there’s still no new Mac Pro. Where is it?

Although Apple likes to tout its own success, the fact is, Samsung is breathing down its neck. And if all smartphone sales are compared, Samsung is actually doing better than Apple each quarter. Combine that with the Galaxy S 4, which has more features than the iPhone 5, and it wouldn’t be out of the question for Cook to start getting worried about Samsung and its recent successes.

For well over a decade, Apple and Microsoft were intense competitors in the personal computer market. But as time has gone on and Apple has transitioned to mobile technology, the animosity between the companies seems to have subsided. It’s certainly true that Microsoft isn’t a serious challenger in the mobile market. It’d be interesting to see if Microsoft is still viewed as a concern by his company.

Android should scare Tim Cook. The operating system is growing at a rapid rate internationally, and it looks as though it could be just as dominant in mobile as Windows is in the desktop space. Tim Cook should be asked whether that scares him and whether Apple has a business strategy to win back market share from Android.