Continuing with their high profile interviews, Recode’s Ina Fried and Walt Mossberg brought Apple’s VP of iPhone marketing Greg Joswiak up on stage today at their Code/Mobile event.  The trio discussed a number of topics, including Apple Pay, Apple Watch and Apple’s recent software woes. 

Given the nature of the questions, and Apple’s devotion to PR control, a lot of Joswiak’s answers sound very similar to things we’ve heard Tim Cook say recently.  However, Fried and Mossberg do manage to pry some original, interesting tidbits from the executive during the course of their talk. 

Here are some of the more notable highlights:

On iOS 8.0.1: “It wasn’t the software itself it was the way it was distributed.  We’re very sorry.”  This is perhaps the most interesting bit to me, as Apple took a lot of criticism over the bungled update.  Within an hour of its release, and after thousands of users complained that the new software had crippled their iPhones, Apple pulled the software and announced it was working on a fix.  That fix came a day later in the form of iOS 8.0.2. 

On cheaper iPhones: “It’s funny, backstage we were talking about some of the mistakes Apple made in the 90’s and some of it was trying to do things like making cheap products that were chasing marketshare instead of chasing better experience.  You make that mistake once in your life, you’re not going to make it twice.  I’m saying we’re going to create products with the best experience and I think that’s always going to have a healthy market.” 

On Apple Watch: “It got off to a pretty good start, as far as the reception we’ve gotten from it as a revolutionary computing device, because that’s what it is.  But also health, fitness, fashion all embraced it—even without a round face.”  Joswiak added that it’s square so you don’t have trim content off the edges, and when Mossberg suggested that the high end model could cost as much as $10,000, he said “I’m not saying that’s the price, but you don’t have to buy the Rose Gold model of it.  I mean part of that is to make sure that there were options for people, because fashion is a big part of this.” 

Joswiak’s interview comes a day after Apple CEO Tim Cook spoke with The Wall Street Journal at the WSJ.D Live conference, and just a few weeks after Jony Ive’s big Vanity Fair talk.  These appearances underscore how much more open the company has become in recent years under Cook’s leadership. 

Recode has posted a short clip of the Joswiak interview here, and is expected to upload the full discussion at a later time.