Fast Company’s Complete Interview with Eddy Cue and Craig Federighi

Fast Company published an article on Monday about Apple’s approach to product design. Today, it posted the full text of its interview with Eddy Cue and Craig Federighi that was the basis for much of the article. I enjoyed Rick Tetzeli’s piece, but there’s nothing better than reading the quotes that were pulled for the article in the context of the whole interview.

Tetzeli’s conversation with Cue and Federighi is filled with additional details about how Apple approached the development of Apple Maps after its rocky launch in 2012. Tidbits like this from Cue on how app usage helps Apple improve Maps:

Let me give you a good example: a golf course. How do we know when a new golf course opens up? We’re not exactly driving around looking for golf courses. But we know it’s there, because there are all these golf apps that get used at a golf course. If we see that all these golf apps are being used at a particular location, and we don’t show that as a golf course, we probably have a problem.

Federighi, who didn’t have many quotes in Tetzeli’s article, had this to say about how Apple approaches new features and products:

We think in terms of experiences. We all use these devices every day, and we think about what we’d like them to do for us. Those aspirational experiences lead us down all sorts of roads technologically, to all kinds of problems that we need to solve. So we think, “Oh, we’d like your Watch to unlock your Mac,” because we need to unlock our Macs every day. It doesn’t start with, “Hey, we’ve been doing development in wireless and they want something to use their technology for.”

Finally, Federighi confirmed what I have always felt has had a profound effect on the way Apple has been run since the late 90s:

I think it’s significant that upper management has lived through periods of austerity [1999 to 2001] and appreciates that this hasn’t been a straight ride up. People who look at Apple’s success and think we look at it as “okay, great, we’re done” don’t appreciate what’s really going on here.

That’s just a small sample of the sort of detail contained in the over 4500 word interview with Cue and Federighi, which I highly recommend reading in its entirety.