Cook did talk at great length about his view of the potential growth opportunities for the iPhone, iPad and Mac. But just as important for investors who want a clue as to where the company is going in Steve Jobs’ absence, Cook also opened up a bit on how he plans to make his own mark on Apple. He is very obviously not Steve Jobs, something he’s been repeatedly reminded of by the press and Wall Street since it first became apparent he would likely take the reins from Jobs permanently. And while it’s clear he has learned from Jobs in many ways — peppering his sentences with words like “amazing” and “incredible” and espousing his belief in the supremacy of Apple’s vision and extreme focus — Cook is passionate about Apple in his own way.

One of the things he takes very seriously is his role as the caretaker of Apple and what Jobs created. He said:

Apple is this unique company, unique culture that you can’t replicate. And I’m not going to witness or prevent the slow undoing of it — because I believe in it so deeply. Steve drilled in all of us over many years that the company should revolve around great products and we should stay extremely focused on a few things rather than so many that we did nothing well. And we should only go into markets where we can make  a significant contribution to society, not just sell a lot of products. Along with keeping excellent as an expectation of everything at Apple, these are the things I focus on.

Sure, we all think of Cook as the spreadsheet-and-numbers nerd, but he is becoming a salesman too: During the Q&A session, he recommended at least three times that listeners go buy an Apple TV.

It’s not a secret that the things that made Jobs tick are not the same for his successor. And Cook, who is a notoriously private person, is starting to show what those things are to company outsiders. For him, it seems, rather than inventing the future or ruminating on big ideas, the big reward for him is winning customers and putting products in people’s hands. “There’s no better thrill than to look at an audience and see people using iPods or iPads,” he said. “These are the things that bring a smile to my face, and there is no substitute for that.”

Cook’s view on cash

One of the ways Cook may turn out to be different from Jobs is what happens under his watch with the company’s cash and liquid assets. Jobs was very adamant that no dividend or share buybacks or large acquisitions be made, in order to keep Apple totally out of debt and independent should the company hit rough financial waters. Cook has signaled he’s not nearly as extreme in his position — several times, including on Tuesday, he has reminded investors he is “not religious” about keeping cash or not.

So what is his attitude? He cleared up any ideas that Apple just sits on its pile of cash (or goes swimming in a lake of gold coins like Scrooge McDuck). He noted that the company has spent “billions” on its supply chain, acquisitions, retail operations and company infrastructure:

Yes, we still have a lot. I guess I’m saying we’re judicious. We’re deliberate. We spend our money like it’s our last penny. And I think shareholders want us to do that. They don’t want us to act like we’re rich. We’ve never felt that way — that may sound bizarre, but it’s the truth.

Cook trotted out the same line the company has been using about its cash in the last several years, that the board is “in active discussions” about what to do with it. But this time he admitted that there is more focus than ever “because the balance has risen.” And he made another admission:

We have more cash than we need to run the business on a daily basis. 

With that he asked for patience while the board decides what to do. While it’s not terribly likely he will get it, how he’s handling the issue does demonstrate Cook’s style. He’s very much a product of the Apple/Jobs way, but he’s looking ahead and is not opposed to at least thinking a little differently about the way things have always been done.

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Apple CEO Tim Cook said during his company’s recent earnings call that iPad sales haven’t really been affected by the Amazon Kindle Fire, which is no doubt contributing heavily to the success of Android tablets. It’s also likely the Barnes & Noble Nook Color and Nook Tablet are included in the Android figures. Instead, Cook admitted the iPad has had some cannibalization effect on sales of Macs, and he predicted that one day, the tablet market will be larger in volume than the PC market.

Compared to Android, Apple still has a dominant position in the tablet market, with a 57.6-percent share compared to Android’s 39.1 percent, according to Strategy Analytics’ most recent numbers. In terms of year-over-year growth, the tablet space has grown by 150 percent between the end of 2010 and 2011. In other words, even if shares were more evenly split, the iPad would still be seeing big gains in unit sales.

The PC market, on the other hand, contracted by around six percent in the fourth quarter of 2011, according to research firm Gartner. That’s despite 20 percent growth by Apple’s own Mac line of computers. Kevin Tofel recently pointed out here on GigaOM that half of computing device sales are now mobile. If the trend of growing tablet and smartphone sales continue, and PC sales continue to decline, we’ll soon be in a position where mobiles are considered a primary device by the majority of users.

Apple will continue to sell iPads. A new refresh expected in the coming months might even help it turn the tide of slipping market share, since while the low-cost Kindle Fire may be a success, other Android tablet makers still seem to be having a hard time putting out a product consumers can get genuinely excited about. Kevin wrote last week about how Android 4.0, while it improves the Android tablet experience, still has a lot of glaring pain points. Also, Android’s tablet-specific app library lags considerably behind Apple’s, and isn’t catching up anywhere near as fast as the market on the smartphone side.

The companies putting out Android tablets that fail to achieve the Kindle Fire’s level of success are the same ones being hurt by the slowing PC market, and they’re the ones that stand to lose the most. Amazon’s Kindle fire has reportedly sold as many as 6 million units through the end of 2011, according to estimates, which would make it the world’s best-selling Android tablet.

Apple continues to appeal to a steadily growing audience of tablet users, but Amazon is answering the call of those who were happier buying bargain-priced netbooks for their basic computing needs, rather than spending more on an iPad. That’s the market PC makers should have been trying to retain with their own tablet efforts, and also the one Amazon has positioned itself best to appeal to.

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Cook was making $900,000 a year when he was appointed CEO in August. But in November, Apple gave him a hefty raise that put his base salary (not including bonuses or other compensation) at $1.4 million. Cook wasn’t the only one who got a raise either. According to the proxy filing:

In November 2011, the Compensation Committee determined that it was appropriate to increase the base salary of Mr. Cook to $1,400,000 from $900,000 and to increase the base salaries of the other members of the executive team, including Messrs. [Eddy] Cue, [Peter] Oppenheimer, and [Scott] Forstall, to $800,000 from $700,000.

A salary of $1.4 million is far more than Steve Jobs’ $1 salary. But then again, Jobs was still fabulously wealthy, thanks to his ownership and subsequent sale of Pixar to Disney. He also had plenty of other compensation from the company as well as tons of stock, though he sold none of it after he returned to the company in 1997, according to Apple.

The raise puts Cook’s base salary at the high end of fellow tech CEOs. Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer made $682,500 in base salary in 2011, Oracle’s Larry Ellison makes a Jobs-like $1 a year (again this doesn’t include bonuses or other awards). Former IBM CEO Sam Palmisano’s salary last year was $1.8 million.

It was reported earlier that Apple gave Cook a grant of 1 million shares of stock in August when he assumed the role of CEO when Jobs stepped down.

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The iPhone 4S will then be available in 90 countries in total, making it Apple’s “fastest iPhone rollout ever,” according to Apple CEO Tim Cook. The new countries getting the iPhone on Jan. 13 include Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Bolivia, Botswana, British Virgin Islands, Cameroon, Cayman Islands, Central African Republic, China, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Grenada, Guam, Guinea Conakry, Ivory Coast, Jamaica, Kenya, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritius, Niger, Senegal, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, Turks and Caicos, and Uganda.

The iPhone 4S has already sold very well in Taiwan and Hong Kong, where it debuted in December and November, respectively. Apple’s exclusive carrier partner in China is China Unicom, which boasts 196 million mobile subscribers, according to a recent count from November.

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According to its CEO François Prudent, who spoke to French newspaper Le Figaro (via AppleInsider), eBizcuss saw a 30 percent decline in business during the third quarter of 2011 due to stock shortages of iPad 2 and MacBook Air computers. That wasn’t due only to their popularity, Prudent claims. Apple’s tendency to prefer its own retail outlets when shipping new stock contributed significantly to its inability to meet customer demand. Likewise, the iPhone 4S has been in short supply in the fourth quarter, Prudent says.

EBizcuss has spent around $6.5 million getting its point-of-sale system up to scratch with Apple’s very specific criteria. Also, Apple also has taken away eBizcuss’ business customers by offering them prices that the third-party reseller can’t possibly match, since they undercut what it pays Apple itself for the hardware.

Apple’s practices have been the subject of legal action before. MACadam, an Apple reseller that shuttered its business in 2005, joined together with other third-party Apple partners to file a class-action lawsuit alleging unfair business practices, among other alleged wrongdoings. According to both that suit and this new one, Apple has preferred its own retail operations for available inventory since they began opening around the world.

Almost every time Apple unveils a new product these days, especially in the mobile space, early demand leads to supply shortages. According to Apple executives, these shortages result from Apple’s not being able to make product fast enough to keep up with consumer appetite; but these accusations suggest that when new stock does come in, it goes to Apple’s stores and online customers first. That would indeed harm the business of outside resellers, since customers will go with the retailer most likely to be able to meet their needs in a pinch.

Back in February, Dave Greenbaum talked about how Apple’s approach to dealing with its third-party reseller and service partners is beginning to look like outright hostility. This latest suit suggests that the problem isn’t improving as Apple’s own retail reach expands and its website continues to be a hit with consumers. After all, if Apple can sell direct, it will: It recoups more money and builds a stronger direct relationship with customers than through third-party sales. But is it worth costing the Apple user community the benefits of the local independent Mac shop forever?

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That’s up from 88 percent the last time RichRelevance in April, and it easily beat out Android and other competing mobile platforms. Shoppers on Apple devices were also willing to spend more, with an average order value of $123 vs. Android’s $101, and $87 from those shopping from traditional desktop operating systems. RichRelevance used data from 3.4 billion online shopping sessions between April and December at U.S. retailers ranging from specialty stores to major e-commerce sites.

Mobile shopping is still a relative drop in the bucket compared to its desktop companion, with just 3.74 percent of total online retail dollars spent in the U.S., but that number is growing. Thanks in large part to the success of Apple devices, mobile web shopping has doubled in eight months, and RichRelevance CEO David Selinger says the trend will only accelerate. Key to being a part of that growth for retailers, Selinger suggests, is “ensuring a seamless experience across the interplay of device, context and consumer behavior.”

Mobile devices seem to be most used for shopping at times when users don’t necessarily have immediate access to other types of computing hardware. For example, RichRelevance found that during Thanksgiving, 24 percent of shoppers visiting retail websites were on mobile devices, the highest share between November and December. On weekends traffic spikes, too, up to 17 percent from an average of 14 percent during the period measured.

If there’s any key takeaway here for Apple’s competition, it’s that the browsing experience is key to mobile commerce. Apple’s iPhone still offers the most true-to-web rendering of non-mobile websites of any smartphone, in my opinion, which means that even if online retailers are slow to tailor their experience to small screens, shoppers can still have a relatively painless shopping experience. It might also just be the case that the demographics of Apple mobile device buyers inclines them toward mobile shopping anyway, since they tend to have a lot of disposable income and be more responsive to advertising.

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(Click to enlarge)

Update: This infographic has been updated to fix the errors in the original version.

Infographic courtesy of Column Five Media. This graphic originally appeared at

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• Value of 100 Apple shares: $1,369 in 1997 vs. $150,590 in 2011, for a difference of $149,221.
• Number of times Jobs listed as inventor on Apple patents: 313.
• Number of times Jobs listed as lead inventor on Apple patents: 33 (For perspective: Google founders Larry Page and Sergei Brin appear on around a dozen patents total).
• Apple market capitalization: $2.3 billion in 1997 vs. $342.9 billion in 2011.
• Mac computer shipments: Around 2.6 million in 1997 vs. 13.66 million in 2010. Add in iPads, and estimates for 2011 sales approach 54 million.
• Apple cash reserves: $1.2 billion in 1997 vs. $75.9 billion in 2011.
• Apple retail stores: The first opened in 2001, and by the end of that year, there were 27 vs. 339 in 2011.
• iPhone shipments: 3.7 million in 2007 vs. an estimated 95 million in 2011.
• iTunes Store songs sold: 100 million in 2004 vs. 10 billion in 2010.
• App Store downloads: 10 million in 2008 vs. 15 billion in 2010.

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Jobs has been technically on leave from day-to-day duties at Apple since January 17 of this year, his second major absence related to illness. The departing CEO says in his letter that he has unfortunately reached a point where he can’t continue to “meet [his] duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO,” and “strongly recommend[s]” that Tim Cook take over as CEO of Apple, something he says is part of the company’s succession plan, the details of which have been the subject of some debate.

In closing, Jobs says he believes “Apple’s brightest and most innovative days are ahead of it,” and he hopes to continue to contribute to the company “in a new role.”

In a separate press release, Apple confirms that Jobs will remain as chairman of the board, and Tim Cook will take over CEO duties.

It’s definitely a sad day for Apple fans, but at least Jobs is remaining on board in some capacity, and Tim Cook is an able replacement. We’ll have more for you as this story develops.

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In addition to the 71 percent of iPad users (drawn from TradePub’s 30,000-strong installed base) who were at least managers, 48 percent of were at the level of “Director” or above. While TradePub’s audience may skew toward higher-level employees because of the nature of its content (it offers trade magazine and technical support documentation downloads), this does back up previous reports that the iPad is generally seeing a top-down adoption pattern in general.

TradePub’s report also showed that users consume more content on the iPad than on the iPhone. TradePub.com app users in general request 45 percent more reports and assets from the iPad app than they do from the iPhone app. It makes sense, if you consider that the iPad’s 9.7-inch screen is more conducive to reading than the iPhone’s smaller 3.5-inch display. Longer-form content works best on the iPad, TradePub concludes, which is probably why two-thirds of U.K. iPad owners use it for reading newspapers and magazines, too.

Surprisingly, the top days for accessing content from the TradePub app were on weekends. TradePub attributes this to professionals shifting industry research and catching up with trade trends to the weekend to avoid work-related interruptions. The app’s presence on the iPad might also be a contributing factor, since the device can blur the lines between work and home use. Late evenings and Sundays were the most popular times for app access.

The iPad seems to be getting use as a tool that enables enterprise users to better stay on top of work after hours and during down time — worth considering if you’re a business thinking about deploying iPads as a way to extend productivity.

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