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Tim Cook Is Not Impressed By Amazon's Smartphone

Amazon Fire Phone Jeff Bezos
This doesn't worry Tim COok. Getty / David Ryder

Apple CEO Tim Cook told Charlie Rose in a long interview on Friday that he considers Facebook a partner, Google a competitor, and Amazon, well, neither.

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When Rose asked Cook which companies he thinks rival Apple, Cook said that Google was "much above everyone else" when it comes to competitors. Because Apple has no plans to break into social networking, he said that Facebook and Twitter are both partners and that Apple likes both companies.

When asked about Amazon, Cook was dismissive. 

"Amazon we don't work with that much.  We have little relationship there," he told Rose. "They've come up with a phone.  You don't see it in a lot of places.  They have some tablets.  But they're not a product company.  Apple is a product company.  And so, in the long term, will they become a bigger product company?  I don't know.  You would have to ask [CEO Jeff Bezos] what his plans are.  But when I think of competitor, I would think of Google."

Amazon released its first attempt at a smartphone — the Amazon Fire phone — in July. Since launch, the phone got mostly panned by the press and Amazon just slashed its price from $199 to $0.99 with a two-year AT&T contract. 

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By pointing out that "you don't see [the Fire phone] in a lot of places," Cook subtly burns the smartphone, which, according to market research, has indeed had slow adoption since launch.

On February 28, Axel Springer, Business Insider's parent company, joined 31 other media groups and filed a $2.3 billion suit against Google in Dutch court, alleging losses suffered due to the company's advertising practices.

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