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Apple's Tim Cook: We staggered the release of iPhone X and iPhone 8 so people wouldn't feel cheated
The dual September unveiling of the iPhone 8 and iPhone X, but staggered release dates, was borne out of necessity and not "marketing," Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) CEO Tim Cook told CNBC after reporting blowout quarterly earnings . "If we could do anything we wanted to, we would have obviously shipped 8, 8 Plus and X on the same day," Cook said Thursday evening in an off-camera interview . "But we felt like the most important thing for us to do was to announce them on the same day so we wouldn't have customers buy an 8 and then we announce the X and ship it and they go, 'Oh, you hosed me, I would've bought a X.'" "That's the reason that we did the stagger," Cook said. "It wasn't a marketing thing. It was we weren't ready to ship; we were still working on [the X]. We accelerated the date at which we were initially planning to do iPhone X. And that's how we got here and we're going to learn a lot." The iPhone 8 and the redesigned 10th anniversary iPhone X were both unveiled at Apple's big Sept. 12 event . But the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus were shipped 10 days after the event . The $1,000 iPhone X, with no home button and an edge-to-edge super high-resolution screen, was not available until Friday. Cook also told CNBC on Thursday that the iPhone X was "quickly backlogged" due to strong demand. Asked when supply would catch up, he said there's no telling when. " There's nothing to compare it to is the real answer to that, because it has no predecessor product. It's not replacing something that existed." The popularity of the iPhone X was on display with long lines Friday after September's more muted availability of the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus. Apple shares were sharply higher Friday, so much so that the company's stock market value was approaching $900 billion . Correction: An earlier version of this story said that Apple's market cap hit $900 billion at one point Friday. The company issued a release Friday morning saying it reduced its outstanding shares, so it did not reach $900 billion in valuation. The dual September unveiling of the iPhone 8 and iPhone X, but staggered release dates, was borne out of necessity and not "marketing," Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) CEO Tim Cook told CNBC after reporting blowout quarterly earnings . "If we could do anything we wanted to, we would have obviously shipped 8, 8 Plus and X on the same day," Cook said Thursday evening in an off-camera interview . "But we felt like the most important thing for us to do was to announce them on the same day so we wouldn't have customers buy an 8 and then we announce the X and ship it and they go, 'Oh, you hosed me, I would've bought a X.'" "That's the reason that we did the stagger," Cook said. "It wasn't a marketing thing. It was we weren't ready to ship; we were still working on [the X]. We accelerated the date at which we were initially planning to do iPhone X. And that's how we got here and we're going to learn a lot." The iPhone 8 and the redesigned 10th anniversary iPhone X were both unveiled at Apple's big Sept. 12 event . But the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus were shipped 10 days after the event . The $1,000 iPhone X, with no home button and an edge-to-edge super high-resolution screen, was not available until Friday. Cook also told CNBC on Thursday that the iPhone X was "quickly backlogged" due to strong demand. Asked when supply would catch up, he said there's no telling when. " There's nothing to compare it to is the real answer to that, because it has no predecessor product. It's not replacing something that existed." The popularity of the iPhone X was on display with long lines Friday after September's more muted availability of the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus. Apple shares were sharply higher Friday, so much so that the company's stock market value was approaching $900 billion . Correction: An earlier version of this story said that Apple's market cap hit $900 billion at one point Friday. The company issued a release Friday morning saying it reduced its outstanding shares, so it did not reach $900 billion in valuation.
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