Apple's Cook Teases New Products

Apple played up the strength of its ecosystem and teased future new product categories in its otherwise tepid first-quarter earnings call on Tuesday.

On the call, Apple CEO Tim Cook said that there would be exciting new product launches in the Fall, implying that there may not be much new coming from the company in the interim. When asked directly about timing, Cook said he wouldn't go into specifics, but he was excited about the fall pipeline.

The Apple chief also suggested the company has a lot more surprises in the works and is looking at the "potential of exciting new product categories," perhaps hinting at its oft-rumored iWatch or the old favorite rumor, the Apple TV.

In terms of the current competitive landscape, he acknowledged that Samsung, "married to Google," was the toughest competitor, but Apple has "the best products by far."

"We continue to invest in innovative products and feel really confident about our product pipeline in hardware, software and services," Cook said on the call. "We have the best ecosystem by far, and we're just going to keep augmenting it and making it better and better."

Apple did better than many were expecting in the first quarter, but Cook admitted that the growth rate had slowed from the exceptional growth in 2012. The iPhone maker reported a profit of $9.5 billion on revenues of $43.6 billion, down from $11.6 billion in profit on revenues of $32.9 billion this time last year. iPhone sales were flat at 37.4 million and iPad sales grew to 19.5 million from 15.43 million last year.

-- Sarah Reedy, Senior Editor, Light Reading