Tim Cook tells USA TODAY: 'This is epic'

CUPERTINO, Calif. — Tim Cook looks like a man who … well, take your pick. Just ran a marathon. Played Carnegie Hall. Needs a nap.

After unveiling two new, larger iPhones, the Apple Watch, and a new payment system called Apple Pay, the company's CEO sits back in a leather chair and smiles.

"If there was a lot of emotion in my voice today, it's because we've all been waiting for this day for a long time. It felt so great," Cook, 53, told USA TODAY. "The people at this company are doing the best work of their lives, the best work that Apple has ever done."

Cook has been in Apple's catbird seat since taking the reins in 2011 from his late boss and mentor, Steve Jobs. Almost from the get-go, Wall Street and consumers alike began clamoring for new products that displayed that Jobs magic.

Smartphones and tablets were refined. Operating systems were redesigned. But nothing compares to the hardware-and-software one-two punch unveiled at Apple's event Tuesday at the Flint Center for the Performing Arts, a grand affair that featured a custom-built store for media demos and a closing act by the name of U2.

Is Cook relieved to have finally answered his critics?

"I don't think in those terms to be really honest, I think about Apple," Cook says in his soft, Southern drawl.

'HISTORY IS REPEATING ITSELF'

He takes pains to say that what matters to Apple — now and back then — remains the same: getting things right, not getting things first. He says the company had considered a watch for years, and first discussed larger iPhones four years ago.

"We didn't make the first mp3, smartphone or tablet. But you can say we made the first modern mp3, smartphone and tablet," he says. "And I think now we're making the first modern smartwatch. So I think that from that point of view, history is repeating itself. When people look at this (Apple Watch), it's kind of hard to buy anything else. It all of a sudden defines the category."

Apple's new iPhone 6 and 6 Plus both feature larger screens reminiscent of competitors' devices. By design, says Cook. "It's an incredible opportunity for us to switch people from Android to iOS. So yes, this is epic. It is epic," he says.

This moment has been a long time coming, 14 years to be precise.

HIRED AWAY FROM COMPAQ

Cook was hired away from Compaq in 1998, lured by the "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to work for the creative genius" that was Jobs, as the Alabaman told a 2010 commencement crowd at his alma mater, Auburn University.

By 2002, Cook was vice president for worldwide sales. With his profile rising quickly, it was little surprise when, after Jobs' passing in October 2011, the soft-spoken right-hand man took the reins.

From the outset, it was clear this was a different sort of leader.

Despite the Jobs-inspired jeans-and-black-shirt wardrobe, Cook lacked his mentor's onstage sizzle, preferring to quietly focus on everything from social issues (from trying to improve working conditions in its Chinese factories to pushing for greater employee and corporate philanthropy) to product tweaks (Cook was behind the successful iPad Mini and hot-selling iPhone5).

"Tim is of the show-no-chrome school of business," says longtime Silicon Valley futurist Paul Saffo. "But what he does share in common with Steve is that he is his own person, eager to do things his own way."

That includes handing the spotlight at last spring's Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco over to the company's well-coiffed vice president of software engineering, Craig Federighi. Saffo likens Cook to a chef, whose magic happens out of public view.

"The best way to honor Steve is to do something different, and in that sense Tim is doing so by stepping back from the stage," says Saffo. "He's the leader-servant."

And that's likely enough to keep the Apple juggernaut on track, says Walter Isaacson, Steve Jobs' biographer and author of the forthcoming book, The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution.

"Being a great innovator requires linking vision to execution. Steve was an awesome visionary and he made sure the people around him could execute," says Isaacson. "Tim is a genius at execution, and in the next three years he has to show that he and his team can provide new visions that are disruptive."

Pundits and fanboys like to lament that Cook is no Jobs, an accusation that easily could have been leveled at the successors of Walt Disney and Henry Ford. But that's missing the point, says Isaacson. "Despite the pressure, he's done phenomenally well producing some great products and tremendous profits," he says.

So much so that Apple's new problem seems to be managing expectations.

The company's stock has been hitting all-time highs, while many analysts point to staggering growth precedents — in particular, a leap from $65 billion in sales in 2010 to $171 billion in 2013 — as evidence that the company's best days are behind it.

THICK-SKINNED CEO

Cook is having none of that.

"I don't mind taking blows; frankly, my skin is so thick now that I'm a bit of rhinoceros from that point of view," he says. "But the thing to focus on is, who else could have done these products and created Apple Pay? I don't think there's another company that can integrate software, hardware and services like this."

While the spotlight Tuesday is trained mostly on Apple's new hardware products, Cook feels that Apple Pay just might prove the more revolutionary announcement.

Using near-field communications technology, Pay enables consumers to make payments with participating outlets with a swipe of an iPhone or an Apple Watch. He says the system is more secure than credit cards, which have come under increasing attack by hackers in recent months.

"This is something that the merchants believe in, and the banks, because they love fraud plummeting," he says. "There's that moment when your card maybe gets rejected for fraud (by a merchant) and you can't pay for what you're buying. When you combine all that, it's like striking a match. It's going to spread and spread fast."

Cook feels for his wallet, then laughs.

"Apple Pay takes a five-decade-old (credit card) technology and blows it up," he says. "It'll absolutely change the way we pay for things."

If that sounds like a play from the Jobs handbook, it's perhaps because the Zen Master of High Tech — as Bono kiddingly referred to Cook onstage — has learned well.

Cook just smiles. "Steve used to say that Apple stands on the corner of technology and the humanities. I think there's no better example of that than what we've introduced today," he says. "It's not just about making great products, but great products that enrich people's lives."

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