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In only his second public interview since arriving in the Apple hot seat, new CEO Tim Cook offered a candid insight into the future at Cupertino when he was interviewed at the All Things D conference earlier today.

While the successor to Steve Jobs stopped short of being drawn into any wholesale revelations, he did make a number of comments that will arouse the interest of Apple enthusiasts.

Chief among these, he hinted that TV remained an area of "intense interest" for the company and that its present offering of a set-top box could be complimented - or, indeed, supplanted - by an iTV device in the future provided that Apple could control the core technology.

"We are going to keep pulling the string and see where it takes us," Mr Cook said cryptically.

The new sheriff of Infinite Loop also commented on his company's attempt to build social networking into the central iTunes set-up, admitting that the Ping music sharing offshoot had been a failure.

"We tried [it] and I think the customer voted and said this isn't something I want," he added.

This left some kind of collaboration with Facebook on the cards, with Mr Cook indicating a great deal of respect for Mark Zuckerberg's company and hinting that some kind of partnership could be developed in the future.

Still, the fan boy's new messiah refused to commit too readily to anything at D10.

"That's a great question. I'm not going to answer it," he remarked to one query.

It looks like interested consumers and product enthusiasts will just have to wait until the WWDC in a month's time for more detailed reveals about one of the world's most iconic tech brands, though until then obsessives can feast on potential glimpses of the iPhone 5 and the new iOS 6 Maps app right here on ITProPortal.