With the VisionPro hype already dead (maybe forever?), bad or tasteless iPad ads, purposeless updates to iPad, Apple dropping their car project, and reaching out to OpenAI or Google for AI services … it certainly feels like it to me. They’ve at least run into their limitations recently however much they want to find the “next iPhone”.
With the VisionPro, I always thought it’d flop and so predicted that it’d be the end for Cook. I’m still holding onto that prediction.
I think that’s a strong point, especially when you look at devices like smart speakers with voice assistants or TV steaming sticks. Those devices should not be $30. If you consider a 3x markup over the cost of parts to be a pretty standard rule of thumb to remain profitable for a consumer electronic product those devices should be a lot closer to $100. When they’re not it should be raising red flags about the company using information gathered from you to make their profits.
I suppose there’s no guarantee that Apple isn’t also collecting that data, but the pricing on those devices in a competitive market seems a lot more consistent with a company that needs a product to make a profit in a more traditional manner. Of course, they take a cut on subscriptions sold through the device, but I suspect that’s not as reliable per-device as a game console collecting a license fee for every device sold.
This nicely describes the way I think of Apple - they’re not an advertising company first like google is, their business model is selling overpriced hardware and hustling devs on the App Store, so they “don’t need” to sell my data too. But then there’s like a big asterisk on the whole thing that says remember they are a trillion dollar company which means they’re almost certainly doing it anyway.