What Apple really needs, according to Wall Street, is something far more mundane: Growth in sales of its all-important iPhone. Nearly three years of largely stagnant revenue from the device is weighing on the tech giant’s shares.
Apple CEO Tim Cook is racing to come up with a fix for his company’s predicament. But those efforts have been far from successful.
In a call with analysts earlier this month, Cook stressed the positive when it comes to the iPhone and artificial intelligence —or Apple Intelligence, under the company’s branding. He said sales during of the latest quarter of the most recent iPhone family, iPhone 16, was higher in countries where Apple Intelligence was offered than in countries where it wasn’t. Still, Apple is currently dependent on partners like OpenAI for bringing the most advanced AI features to the iPhone, which accounts for roughly half of Apple’s revenue.
Last year, Apple had another chance to lift its business when it started selling its Vision Pro augmented reality goggles. The device lets people wearing it seemingly project a movie onto the real world or make them seem like they’re watching an NBA game from the front row. Many reviewers praised Apple’s innovative design, which included letting users see people around them, unlike some goggles from rival companies. But ultimately, the device hasn’t appealed to a broad public because it looks awkward—like something you’d see people wearing on a ski slope—and costs a pricey $3,500.
Apple’s announcement on Tuesday about making its devices potentially compatible for people who have a disease like ALS or spinal cord injuries is another highly innovative effort. With the project, Apple hopes to partner with companies working on so-called brain computer interfaces, or brain implants, that can understand brain signals. Apple has worked with one of those companies, Synchron, to develop a standard that would let patients control Apple devices without any physical movement.
For now, only a relative handful of patients have brain computer implants. It’s unclear when any patients will be able to use Apple devices through the new standard.
For now, Apple’s iPhone sales growth problem is still waiting to be solved.
