Cook said that the growth of tablets "will be good” for innovation in the PC industry, but does expect tablets to be stronger in terms of unit sales, a belief he has carried with him since the launch of the first iPad.

"From the first day the iPad shipped, we thought that the tablet market would become larger than the PC market and it was just a matter of time,” said Cook, who is now convinced that the iPad is cannibalizing some Mac but more PC sales.

Cook went on to praise rivals Amazon, by saying that the firm, the brand behind the Kindle Fire tablet, offers something different to the rest of Apple's Android rivals. “Everybody that was in the PC industry and everybody in the phone industry decided they had to do a tablet", said Cook, when referring to the beginnings of the tablet boom in 2010. "There were 100 tablets put on the market last year. They aimed at iPad 1 and by the time they came out with something we were on iPad 2."

“Amazon is a different competitor. They have different strengths. They'll sell a lot of units." Cook did, however, add that "price is rarely the most important things" for tablets, which could be seen as a cheap dig at the $199 Kindle Fire. "A cheap product might sell some units. Somebody gets it home and they feel great when they pay the money, but then they get it home and use it, and the joy is gone".

Cook also tackled working conditions in China and the rise of iCloud at the technology conference. Apple has long been quizzed on working conditions at the Chinese factories of Foxconn, the OEM which manufactures most iPhone and iPads.  The factory has been subject to numerous reports on poor working conditions and employee suicides over the past 18 months but Cook stressed that working conditions are taking 'very seriously' by Apple and said that an audit of the facility is currently being carried out by the Fair Labor Association.

In somewhat more positive news for the company, the Apple CEO revealed that iCloud now has 100 million registered users, an impressive feat given the cloud service only launched in October. "I view iCloud not as something with a year or two product life – it's a strategy for the next decade or more. It's truly profound."