Cook says Chinese tastes considered in Apple product designs

Apple Inc. takes Chinese consumer tastes into account when it designs many of its products, Chief Executive Tim Cook said, underscoring the country’s importance to the iPhone maker.
The company considers details including color palettes to suit local tastes, Cook said in an interview in the June 17 Chinese-language version of Bloomberg Businessweek, published under license by Modern Media Holdings.
The decision to offer a gold iPhone last year reflects in part the popularity of that color among Chinese users, he added. Greater China, which includes Taiwan and Hong Kong, is now Apple’s second-largest market and has become a battleground for the company as it vies with Samsung Electronics Co. and Xiaomi Corp. for smartphone supremacy.
Apple’s CEO made his remarks during a tour to China last month that took him to the company’s largest store worldwide, in the eastern city of Hangzhou. In the same interview, Cook said the watch is off to a promising start and has attracted more developer interest than the earliest iPhones and iPads had.
Developers are working on more than 3,500 apps for the gadgets, he said. That’s well ahead of the 500 apps available for the 2008 edition of the iPhone and the 1,000 for the first iPad in 2010, he added.
Greater China accounted for 29 percent of Apple’s revenue in the March quarter, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Edwin Chan and Lulu Yilun Chen