Apple executives answered a bunch of questions about the iPhone, the App Store, and the mysterious new device to be unveiled Wednesday during this afternoon's conference call to discuss the company's latest earnings report.
Everyone on the call realized that they weren't going to get any specifics about Wednesday's announcement, which is widely believed to involve the launch of a tablet device. However, one analyst tried to get some answers by focusing on the device's significance for Apple, rather than product details. Will this new device be as big a deal as the iPod and the iPhone, or is that setting expectations too high, he asked? Apple Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook wouldn't give him anything.
"I wouldn't want to take away your joy and surprise when you see our latest creation on Wednesday," he said.
Many questions revolved around the iPhone, including the process of getting an application onto the iPhone/iPod Touch App Store, which has been criticized as too slow and too arbitrary. Cook repeated that the reason for Apple's approval policy is to protect user experience, and he said more than 90 percent of apps are approved within 14 days of submission.
"What you have here is something that the noise on it, occasionally, may be much higher than the reality," he said.
Another analyst asked about Apple's ambitions for mobile advertising, given its recent acquisition of mobile advertising company Quattro. The mobile advertising market is "just in its infancy," Cook said, but Apple is definitely interested in providing ad opportunities to developers.
Cook also discussed the growth in corporate use of the iPhone. While the phone is normally seen as a consumer device when compared to the BlackBerry, Cook said the launch of the iPhone 3GS model and the upgraded 3.0 operating system has convinced more businesses to give it a try, with 70 of the companies in the Fortune 100 either deploying iPhones for corporate use or at least testing them through pilot programs. Will that adoption also help convince companies to use Macintosh computers? It's too early to comment on a potential "halo effect," Cook said.
I previous wrote about Cook's comments on AT&T from earlier in the call.