Apple is a services company, too, and Eddy Cue’s vision is very different from Google’s

Apple Music on iOS 10, with Senior VP Eddy Cue. (credit: Andrew Cunningham)

Apple has always been known as a hardware company, and it still is, but services are more important to its strategy and bottom line than ever before. That point was driven home not just by the most recent Apple earnings report-in which CEO Tim Cook identified services as a division ripe for a doubling of revenue by 2020-but also by a talk by Apple SVP Eddy Cue at SXSW this week.

Interviewed by CNN's Dylan Byers, Cue talked about Apple News, the tensions between open and closed platforms, and the company's TV and video strategy. Many of the statements he made seemed carefully crafted to distinguish Apple from other tech giants that have been the subjects of criticism in recent months.

Cue heads Apple's software and services efforts, and he took the stage in Austin moments after Apple announced it would acquire Texture, a magazine distribution app that has been repeatedly called the "Netflix of magazines" by numerous press outlets.

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