> What Apple does best lies at the combination of hardware, software, physical materials, and human-computer interface design.
This was true maybe a decade ago, but not so now (under the watch of Tim Cook).
You listed Mac hardware becoming popular in the age of AI as examples of "unexpected wins". Maybe that's true (I don't know if it is) - but Macs were only 8% of Apple's 2025 revenue. Apple has become an iPhone company (50% of revenue) that sells services (26% of revenue).
And AI can eat away at both. If Siri sucks so hard that people switch away, that would also reduce Services revenue from lost App Store revenue cuts. If Google bundles Gemini with YouTube and Google Photos storage, people might cancel their iCloud subscriptions.
I think the parent comment was making the point that Tim Cook's Apple has missed the boat and it doesn't show signs that it's going to catch the next wave.
I have an iPhone 16 and I'm locked in because of all my photos being on my iCloud subscription. But in 2030, if my colleague can use their Pixel phone to record a work meeting, have it diarized, send out minutes, grab relevant info and surface it before the next relevant meeting, and Siri can still only set a timer for 5 minutes, then I might actually switch.
If the Mac were its own standalone business, it would rank at no. 134 on the Fortune 500 with $33.7 billion in revenue. Also, that's a 12% increase in revenue compared to 2024.
If anything, AI has brought more attention to the Mac. Just about every major AI app is released for the Mac first. I've seen complaints about it on HN.
The latest is Claude Cowork. It was released for macOS on January 12th; it didn't ship for Windows until February 10th; it's still not available for Windows running on ARM.
It's been nearly a year since Dia launched [1], the first AI browser, and it's still not available for Windows.
We just had the frenzy over OpenClaw [2] with AI enthusiasts lining up at Apple Stores to buy a Mac mini just to run it!
The most popular AI channels on YouTube are almost exclusively using Macs. Apple seems to have enough runway until they get their act together.
Outside US, most people that buy Macs do so because they are developers targeting iDevices, or can afford Apple and want the ecosystem that comes with their iDevice.
An independent Mac business that doesn't have such tie-ins, would sell much less.
Where you live, maybe. It really depends on the country even outside the US. A lot of it is, to this day, because of things like Final Cut and Logic. Either because they dabble in it as a hobby or professionally.
A lot of the recent growth is developers in general, there's really been a huge shift there. 2010 developers using Macs vs 2026 developers using Macs, if you look at personal devices or workplaces that give them a choice. Biggest driver being Apple Silicon.
I live in one of those 70% market share Windows world region, where Apple gear is taken from a devices pool when required for project delivery, or bundled with cable TV subscriptions with credit payment scattered across several years.
> An independent Mac business that doesn't have such tie-ins, would sell much less.
For businesses and pro users, it isn't the Apple ecosystem that's the main driver.
Since Apple silicon a lot of laptops are just so far behind in battery life, speed and usability that you wouldn't get it. Often Apple ecosystem was a net negative since most things worked better on Windows but that has shifted.
Until the Apple tax goes away, most folks will put up with Windows flaws, unless Apple changes their pricing policy for countries that cannot afford G8 level salaries.
> No, as in the entire PC market for the past two decades
Is this why AI is winning? People aren't doing better. You pick a random stat and somehow make it support what you're arguing.
The link says DESKTOP. I said LAPTOP. Laptop after M1. Why are we going back 2 decades? They have >15% registered as unknown. Sure, "accurate". Cough cough. It doesn't differentiate new or old and IF (the original discussion) that Apple is gaining market share and NEW sales.
> and they're not gaining very quickly
This is just as bad as speculative stock trading e.g. with software stocks. They're losing to AI. Oh no. Dump. Oh they're actually not too bad. Buy it back. Apple doesn't have AI. Sell. Apple doesn't have AI. Buy. Are you ok?
Laptops are desktops in 2026, and without needing Apple style dongles to make out of missing ports, yet another Apple "improvement" in expensive hardware.
Tried an android phone given by my company. Gemini is at your fingertips, with a single button press.
That’s INCREDIBLE!
[everything Siri never delivered].
Put that into a headphone or headphone-enabled glasses. Plus a ring.
And the need for an advanced UI-based phone fades away for many usages.
I have a Pixel besides my iPhone (for reasons). When I got a Pixel 9 about a year ago, my feeling was the same (Gemini as at your fingertips. INCREDIBLE!). A few months later after the novelty wore off, I just found the push of AI everywhere in Pixel OS and Google apps just annoying. I now use GrapheneOS on my Pixel. One of the many reasons is that it does not try to push AI anywhere.
Now I just have a single LLM (Le Chat) isolated in its own little app sandbox, never getting in my face unless I choose to open it myself.
I’m not sure how to say it without sounding like an Apple fanboy, but Tim Cook has been the CEO for the past 15 years. Every single year people have been whining how “he’s not visionary and etc.”, but at some point you have to give him some credit. Apple of 2026 has completely different landscape versus apple of 2010/earlier. Scaling from millions to billions of sales is incredibly hard, and he’s been able to accomplish it.
Would you feel the same if in 2030, all the actions you describe, work most of the time but still produce questionable output requiring time to verify and fact check due to the probabilistic nature of the LLM engine? This is unsolvable with LLMs. I don't want an embedded or agentic AI but do give me the option to pick a model of my choice and accept the risks when I want to. I don't want tainted generated summaries, replies or code in certain critical areas.
Also, since AI will mean most are just let go, why would they need meeting minutes? AI would be so crucial as to be the make or break phone/laptop feature, but people would still have meetings?
At best they will use it to tell them for special offers that they can buy with food coupons.
I agree with you and I definitely noticed the “it’s not just X, it’s Y” pattern.
But I find your comment funny because it ironically has the same “not that, this” pattern in a more verbose and less polished & less formulaic pattern.
It doesn't work on mobile, and unless you played it back in the day the feedback from my friends who I've introduced it too, is that it's got quite the learning curve.
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There was a big step change in my experience, enabled by the adoption of Teams for remote work and the resulting ease of scheduling meetings. Previously meetings had always required the organiser to book a room.
That would be a bad design for an A/B study (and NYC congestion pricing is not a “study” anyway), because cities are few and not alike and have an enormous list of other things that are different. What NYC equivalent would you pick?
In any case, not every policy change needs to be an academic exercise.
Yup, that is indeed a part of the problem. You'll notice I did say, "Obviously not feasible in practice."
I've got a textbook on field experiments that refers to these kinds of questions as FUQ - acronym for "Fundamentally Unanswerable Questions". You can collect suggestive evidence, but firmly establishing cause and effect is something you've just got to let go of.
This was true maybe a decade ago, but not so now (under the watch of Tim Cook).
You listed Mac hardware becoming popular in the age of AI as examples of "unexpected wins". Maybe that's true (I don't know if it is) - but Macs were only 8% of Apple's 2025 revenue. Apple has become an iPhone company (50% of revenue) that sells services (26% of revenue).
And AI can eat away at both. If Siri sucks so hard that people switch away, that would also reduce Services revenue from lost App Store revenue cuts. If Google bundles Gemini with YouTube and Google Photos storage, people might cancel their iCloud subscriptions.
I think the parent comment was making the point that Tim Cook's Apple has missed the boat and it doesn't show signs that it's going to catch the next wave.
I have an iPhone 16 and I'm locked in because of all my photos being on my iCloud subscription. But in 2030, if my colleague can use their Pixel phone to record a work meeting, have it diarized, send out minutes, grab relevant info and surface it before the next relevant meeting, and Siri can still only set a timer for 5 minutes, then I might actually switch.
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