NEW YORK (BLOOMBERG) – Apple chief executive officer Tim Cook said the company is looking at cryptocurrency features, but did not elaborate on what that might entail.
Mr Cook made the comments Tuesday (Nov 9) at The New York Times DealBook conference. He said while the company had no immediate plans to enable crypto functionality in Apple Pay, “There are other things that we are definitely looking at.”
Mr Cook revealed that he personally invests in cryptocurrency, but that he has no plans to invest Apple’s cash in the asset.
“I don’t think people buy Apple stock to get exposure to crypto,” he said. Nor does Apple have any immediate plans to accept cryptocurrency for its products. He also called NFTs – non-fungible tokens – an “interesting” part of crypto.
In the payments world, Apple is considered by some to be a laggard in implementing cryptocurrency support. Square, PayPal and its popular Venmo service all support various crypto features, while Amazon.com and eBay have both shown willingness to accept the currency in the future. Earlier this year, Tesla briefly accepted crypto as a payment method for its cars.
During the conference, Mr Cook also defended Apple’s App Store commission rate, saying most developers are charged a 15 per cent cut instead of the full 30 per cent. He did say, however, that more changes to the App Store will come in the future.
He also said that users who want to side-load – install apps from the Web or elsewhere instead of via the App Store – can buy an Android device instead of an iPhone.
Asked about Meta Platforms and its metaverse push, Mr Cook said augmented reality remains a core technology for Apple. The company plans to unveil its own mixed reality headset as early as next year, Bloomberg News has reported.