The Late Show with Stephen Colbert continued its run of big-ticket guests Tuesday night as Apple CEO Tim Cook stopped by the Ed Sullivan Theater for a chat.
Cook’s regrettable suede elbow pads aside, he was engaging, interesting and touched on a variety of topics, including the iPhone 6s, driverless cars, and even his sexuality. He was also informed of the possibility that Colbert would stab him in the neck with a fondue fork if he changed the required charger for the iPhone again. Yikes!
That last quip got a big laugh out of Cook, who seemed to get a kick out of Colbert throughout the interview. While the first portion of the conversation felt a bit promotional (look at these new features we packed into the iPhone 6s!), there were plenty of candid moments, including Cook’s thoughts on the man he replaced as CEO (Steve Jobs) and the challenges stemming from his sexual orientation. Cook famously came out as gay last year at age 53, prompting his interviewer to ask him if his newly public sexuality was “an upgrade, or just a feature that had not be turned on yet.”
The possibility of seeing an Apple driverless car on the road in the future came up as well, as Colbert reminded Cook that Uber CEO Travis Kalanick had outed the company’s plans on The Late Show the week before. On that subject, Cook was relatively mum, saying only “we look at a number of things along the way and we decide to really put our energies in a few of those.” If you can make heads or tails of that, be our guest.
Perhaps the best question of all, however, came from Siri, Apple’s automated personal assistant. When Colbert asked the digital oracle what he should ask his guest, she hilariously replied “do me a favor, ask him when I’m going to get a raise.”