In an interview after the antitrust hearing on Wednesday, Apple CEO Tim Cook says that Apple buys companies to overcome obstacles, and not to limit competition.
After Tim Cook appeared in front of the House Antitrust Subcommittee on Wednesday, the company’s various business practices have been called into question. Cook insisted that Apple was not making purchases to end competition, but to implement new technology or talent to better their platforms.
“If you look at the things behind the investigation, the things are acquisitions, and if you noticed, we didn’t get any questions on acquisitions because our approach on acquisitions has been to buy companies where we have challenges, and IP, and then make them a feature of the phone,” Cook said in an interview with CNBC.
The other companies in question, Facebook, Google, and Amazon, have all been questioned similarly. Acquisitions that appeared to end competition with their companies were all challenged by the subcommittee. Amazon was questioned over its purchase of Diapers.com, and Facebook about its purchase of Instagram.
At Wednesday’s hearing, Cook was not questioned about any of Apple’s major acquisitions. SRI was purchased to bring Siri to the iPhone, and Workflow enabled Shortcuts to become native to the iOS platform.
Apple’s biggest public acquisition was the $3 Billion Beats By Dre takeover in 2014, which lead to the creation of Apple Music. The Beats platform still exists within Apple and competes directly with Apple’s own AirPods brand.
“An example of that was Touch ID,” Cook continued. “We bought a company that accelerated a Touch ID at a point.”
Apple purchases a company every few weeks, and they do not always publicly announce such acquisitions. Dark Sky, the hyper-local weather app, was one such recent purchase. The weather service will be implemented in iOS 14, and its Android app removed from Google Play.
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