Tim Cook on Cheaper iPhone: 'We Don't Want To Be For Just The Rich'

According to SAI and Asymco’s tweets (follow!) this morning, Tim Cook in an interview with Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi had some enlightening information on how Apple sees the future of the iPhone.

• Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer said Apple would not let carriers dictate terms, which Sacconaghi says reinforces, “the notion that Apple might be willing to act to disintermediate carriers with a soft-SIM.”
• While Tim stopped short of explicitly stating that Apple would pursue a lower price iPhone, he did state that Apple was working hard to “figure out” the prepaid market and that Apple didn’t want its products to be “just for the rich,” but “for everyone”; he also stated that Apple “understood price is big factor in the prepaid market” and that the company was “not ceding any market.” Cook noted that Apple executives – including himself – had spent “huge energy” in China, noting that it is “a classic prepaid market.” He further noted that the handset distribution model was poorly constructed and that Apple would look to “innovate” and do “clever” things in addressing that market.