Apple has the 'best product pipeline' in Eddy Cue's 25 years

By Rene Ritchie
last updated

Apple's senior vice president of services, Eddy Cue, said that later this year Apple has the "best product pipeline" coming our way that he's seen in his 25 years with the company. The comment came as part of his and Jimmy Iovine's interview with Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher at Code Conference today.

Following the comment, Iovine said he only gets to see the products tomorrow, and that thus far Apple has thrown tarps over the products when he's been around. (Hey, it doesn't matter what headphones you make or music you produce, if you're not disclosed, you're not disclosed, right?)

While Apple has continued to hype new products and even new product categories for 2014, they've also thus far stuck to their holiday weighted release schedule. With WWDC 2014 and Apple's first keynote of the year only a few days away, there's a chance we'll see a few hardware updates, as well as a preview of iOS 8 and OS X 10.10 but new iPhones, iPads, and product categories will almost certainly still skew towards the fall.

So, any guesses as to what has Cue so excited?

Source and image: Re/code

Rene Ritchie
Rene Ritchie
Contributor

Rene Ritchie is one of the most respected Apple analysts in the business, reaching a combined audience of over 40 million readers a month. His YouTube channel, Vector, has over 90 thousand subscribers and 14 million views and his podcasts, including Debug, have been downloaded over 20 million times. He also regularly co-hosts MacBreak Weekly for the TWiT network and co-hosted CES Live! and Talk Mobile. Based in Montreal, Rene is a former director of product marketing, web developer, and graphic designer. He's authored several books and appeared on numerous television and radio segments to discuss Apple and the technology industry. When not working, he likes to cook, grapple, and spend time with his friends and family.

16 Comments
  • After he dissed Jony's headphones he might not get clearance for the design studio. ;-)
  • Makes you wonder how much longer Cue will be at Apple before Iovine takes his place.
  • You don't know Cue.
  • Do you?? At some point time and freedom becomes more important, especially when money is not an issue.
  • How does that response address the issue. Some people consider retirement a loss. Others care about more than money. Freedom is a state of mind.
  • Which issue, a poster on an internet forum makes a silly statement implying knowing a top exec's motivations at Apple, or another silly remark about feeling retirement being a loss, being a very wealthy guy?? His real joy might be owning a Prancing Horse franchise or a F1 team.
  • We all know Cue as his actions were laid out in the DoJ trial. You really think Iovine will be content in his current role? My guess is Cue will be "retiring" within 6 months.
  • for every NEW product is the BEST product for that particular time. take for example: the new iphone 3GS was the best product at that time. So what Eddy Cue said really means nothing other than for simply marketing purpose only.
  • Considering Eddy oversold the "wow" on the last products he introduced (the iWork suite online) I tend to discount his spin on products to come.
  • "So, any guesses as to what has Cue so excited?" OO!!! OO!!! I KNOW! They're going to fix all their broken services and half-baked software!!!! Instead of coming out with new crap that's only 70% of what it should / could be!!!
  • yup. please fix iTunes synching with my iPhone - please no more 'waiting to sync' indefinitely
  • I had to reboot my mini today just to get iPhoto to import 100 photos. Before the reboot, I plugged in my phone, photos showed up, I clicked import, nothing. Tried again, "Already importing, please wait". Couldn't quit, same message. Reboot helped, but still acted weird, it made it about 1/2 way through, froze. Force quit. Relaunch. Got a popup that there are 60 photos in the database that aren't in the library, import? Yes, finishes. Now I can finally finish what's left on the phone. I'll spare you my list of troubles when I transitioned from my old MacPro to my newer mini. Long story short, OS X does NOT work well with a NAS. Still having problems with iTunes library which lives on the NAS. Loses connection regularly.
  • I really miss the old days when Apple product launches & presentations were spread out over the entire year. This business of one big launch in Sept and not a thing the rest of the year just ain't working. Yes, the "holiday season" is important, but it's becoming evident by the reduced crowds in Apple Stores that the one-release-date strategy isn't keeping people coming to the stores year-round like it used to be. One VERY minor processor update to the Macbook Air being the only Apple product enhancement since October of last year doesn't cut it.
  • I can't say I'm a big fan of this either. One thing bothered me last year was that ipads seem to be afterthoughts for Apple when you consider iOS 7. It was buggy from the start and fixes were slow to come. In fact, there wasn't much Apple did to demo iOS 7 on an ipad. I'd like to see them back to focusing on iphone and moving that launch back to June or so. Start iOS betas in Feb. Let them focus on ipads (which make better sense for the holidays vs phones) in latter part of year with yet another iOS beta in late summer that is more ipad specific. The thing is, Apple is competing against itself with this release at once mentality. Many have trouble enough buying one much less buying both a tablet and a phone. And they cannot market so many new products effectively when released at once. Plus they miss out on other times of the year such as tax refund season, back to school, having a long dark period during year with no buzz, etc.
  • I agree iPads in the Spring and iPhones in the Autumn, or vice-versa. Either way you will get people to spend more on Apple products each year.
  • I have been waiting all year for the new product categories. Apple should just shot up because with all this big talk they better have products that are near flawles and wow people based on the false expectation they putting out there and the pressure they putting on themselves.