Apple CEO Tim Cook said he is "encouraged" by President Donald Trump's discussions with Democrats to protect the status of Dreamers, the thousands of young unauthorized immigrants brought to the U.S. as children.
"I think it's really important for everybody to understand, these folks came to the country when they were very young," Cook said on "Good Morning America." "These kids, if you talk to them, they deeply love this country. They have great jobs. They pay taxes. These guys are our neighbors. They're our coworkers."
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Cook spoke out in support of Dreamers, 250 of whom are Apple employees, earlier this month when the Trump administration announced its decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.
He said today that Apple will do "everything we can" to encourage Congress to make the bipartisan Dream Act — legislation that would offer a path to citizenship for hundreds of thousands of young unauthorized immigrants brought to the U.S. as children if they graduated from high school or obtained a GED — permanent.
"We feel it's essential that we not only allow them to stay in our country, but we welcome them, that we desire that they be here," Cook said. "I hope everyone reaches out and meets some of the Dreamers, because it will really warm your heart in meeting them."
'Profound day'
Apple will today allow iPhone users to update their devices to iOS 11, a development that will bring an augmented reality feature to hundreds of millions of Apple devices.
"This is huge because it's the first time that hundreds of millions of customers will be able to use AR for the first time," Cook said. "We're bringing it to mainstream."
The AR feature will allow users to overlay the virtual world on the physical world. For instance, according to Cook, someone in the market for a new car could go inside the car using AR from home rather than visit a car dealership showroom.
"It's a fantastic way to shop. It's a fantastic way to learn," he said. "We're taking the complex and making it simple. We want everybody to be able to use AR."
Cook called the deployment today of AR to Apple users a "profound day."
"The thing that's very different about Apple is that in one day we can make AR available to hundreds of millions of people," he said. "This is a day to remember."
Cook made history last week when, 10 years after the first iPhone was introduced, he announced the release of iPhone X. Cook called the phone at its launch a "new generation of the iPhone and a huge step forward."
Face ID will be used to unlock the iPhone X, which features an edge-to-edge screen and glass on both the front and back. Users will simply have to look at the phone to unlock it.
Cook reassured potential users that they do not need to be concerned about privacy with Face ID technology.
"Once you place your face in the phone, it's in the phone. Apple doesn't have it," he said. "We've encrypted it on your device. You make the decisions about who has it, not us."
"We believe that privacy is very important in this world that there are hackers everywhere trying to steal your information," he continued. "We want it to be yours. It is not ours."
The iPhone X, which has a case made of stainless steel, is priced at $999. Cook called it a "value price" for the amount of technology included in the phone.
"When you look at it, the iPhone in particular has become so essential in our daily lives, people want it do more and more and more," he said. "So we've built more and more technologies into it to be able to do that."
The iPhone 8 and iPhone X launch was held at the new Steve Jobs Theater at Apple's campus in Cupertino, California.
Cook said he "could feel" Jobs, the late co-founder of Apple, in the theater with him during the launch because Jobs' DNA is still the DNA of Apple.
"We don't sit and think about 'What would Steve do?' But we think about the principles that Apple is based on," he said. "A values-based company that is making insanely great products that are simple to use, where the technology takes the back seat, not the front seat."
"The user experience is top for us," he said. "We want users to be happy."
