Hard to believe but Apple may end up like Nokia

Apple’s rivals are rapidly seeking new opportunities in the AI domain while Eddie Cue, Apple ‘s head of services has admitted that with such pace, AI could make the flagship iPhone obsolete in the upcoming decade.

In 2025, Apple’s developer conference is to start at June. And yet, the company has surprisingly fallen short in making any waves in the AI revolution. No matter how elegant Apple portrays itself or how its devices cause never ending ques in stores, it has not badly but miserably failed in riding the AI tech bandwagon.

What’s its plan? Last year, the company’s value soared to more than $200 billion after the announcing of Apple intelligence (its own version of AI). Tim Cook promising words created hopes for the future where there would be an iPhone that would act as an AI assistant.

This will make Siri much smarter than ChatGPT. Optimism was prevalent at a time when the company was grappling with declining global iPhone sales.

It’s been a year and there seems to be not a minutia of progress or update about it.

Currently the iPhone maker has lost one fifth of its shares, a number relatively higher than its big-tech competitors.

Google, Meta, Amazon and Xaomi on the other hand have massively invested in tech hardware and AI ranging from glasses to hyper smart AI assistant and even generative LLMS and LRMs.

Open AI has brought a firm of Jony Ive, (Apple’s former chief designer) for $6.4 billion to come up with its own AI device.

All this is happening while Apple is seeming to slack in its own AI revolution. Instead, it has made an astonishing announcement of introducing a foldable phone next year.

Apple will have a lot to think about. It’s once hailed trademarks: its hardcore focus on user privacy and the raised wall around its product family have serious drawbacks in the AI world.

In a world where advance chatbots can evolve at a higher speed with cloud models, Apple’s high privacy barriers have confined its own chatbots to the limits of individual devices.

Large model LLMS like Chat GPT and Google Gemini rely on data to portray accurate results to its users which requires an open connection to the outside and third-party world, something Apple has strictly denied. Not only does this isolates Apple products from deep AI research capabilities, it reduces the opportunity that could be availed from an interconnected world of information and data, relying heavily on Apple itself to provide for everything.

To resolve these challenges, Apple can buy LLMs and ease its privacy walls for a better integration. But its CEO Tim Cook is less likely to go that way in the near future. Since his ascendency to CEO in 2011, no major moves have been made by the company, mostly in order to keep its financials in profitability.

Tim Cook’s reluctance to adapt AI and innovation could cost Apple big time in the long term. It’s services business, that helped Apple fill the gap for lagging IPhone sales also hangs in jeopardy as it faces restrictions in the EU.

Currently Google pays Apple $20 billion annually to keep its search engine the default browser on Apple devices. This could change as Goole itself is under heavy scrutiny regarding its operation as a market monopoly. What if the Judge puts a ban on Google that prevents it from paying apple this sum?

What if orders are passed against this relationship? According to David Vogt of UBS Investment Bank, this would cause Google $10 billion and Apple- double the amount for Apple.

Another looming threat is the 2020 antitrust allegation case against Apple made my Epic, the company behind Fortnite. The gaming enterprise has accused Apple of maintaining a monopoly in its app-store, charging 15%-30% hefty commissions on in-app purchases ($31 billion annual revenue) , and not allowing the app developing to direct customers to any other mode of payment.

Failures to adopt to emerging technologies has devasted large scale companies like Nokia, Kodak and General Electric (GE).

The history of those to who stay the same presents all the stronger case for Apple to prioritize its attention in AI and innovation.

It’s only if Tim Cook could rethink his strategy and approach. And move forward instead of relying on his decades-old rule book.