Apple COO Tim Cook, Steve Jobs’ right-hand man, recently spoke at the Goldman Sachs Technology Investment Symposium, offering 45 minutes of discussion and Q&A, with a significant portion of the time devoted to the iPhone. Apple has the audio from the event available on their website, but AppleInsider has also transcribed the juiciest iPhone bits.

Now, there aren’t a great deal of technical details offered or anything too earth shattering, with many of the points consisting of essentially saying that Apple can succeed where others have failed because Apple is awesome, but two portions bear repeating:

Q: Could you go through some of the thinking of not putting 3G in the phone given that it is pretty much leading edge technology in every other aspect?

A: Our thinking first and foremost was that we wanted GSM. Because GSM is the world standard and that was one of the factors in selecting Cingular. Secondly, the product, as we announced, has Wi-Fi capabilities. And so many people, like in this room I’m sure there is Wi-Fi in this room as there are hot spots everywhere — at your home, where you have coffee, your place of work, etc., etc. — they’re going to use Wi-Fi. And between these spots we are going to use EDGE because it is widely deployed. And we are confident it will give the user a great experience.

…

Q: Can you talk a bit about — this has been an area of controversy — some of the plus and minuses of using only one carrier, an exclusive carrier, in the US.

A: Sure. Our thinking on selecting Cingular was 1) We looked at the carriers in the US and felt that Cingular was the highest quality. And that was very important to us from a customer experience point of view. 2) They were the most popular. They had 61 million subscribers. 3) Our goal was to use GSM — our decision was to use GSM — and that’s what their network was based on. 4) The deal that we struck allows Apple to do the things that Apple is really good at, and it allows Cingular to do the things that Cingular is really good at. And so I think it is a really great partnership.

Given that the word on the street is Cingular wasn’t the first company Apple approached about the iPhone, Cook was being diplomatic here, but interesting nonetheless.

Filed under: iPhone News