Everybody has cottoned on to the fact that Apple has no AI know how. Nada. Zilch. I told you two years ago, it was obvious. They will have to buy a way in. But this is nothing new. Apple doesn’t innovate. They never did.
Back in the day I wrote how Apple was a decoy for Microsoft. After Bill Gates bailed them out financially they pretended to be an alternative OS. They never were really. Outside of the US their market share was a joke. But they dominated the media and it worked. Microsoft was not a monopoly because, well, Apple.
Same with Google. The iPhone only sells in the US and a handful of other countries. Globally it’s market share is inconsequential. As of Q2 2024, Apple’s global smartphone share was only 17.7%, routinely second to Samsung, and far behind in regions like Africa, Latin America, and parts of Asia where Android absolutely dominates. If you want your Air Tag to be tracked you have to be in a country with iPhones. Anywhere outside the US good luck with that! Apple simply copies features from Android and makes a big fuss about them. Everybody is happy. No matter that no serious company runs an Apple based server. Or that they have failed to enter any market they set their sights on since the days of DTP.
Apple has a history of taking a technology that exists in a clunky, unusable state and making it sleek, intuitive, and accessible to a mass market. Instead of inventing new product categories, Apple used to excel at building a seamless and integrated ecosystem. They often wait for a technology to mature before implementing it. This patient approach theoretically allows Apple to learn from the mistakes of others and deliver a more polished, user-friendly version. Only it doesn’t anymore, does it? When your friends have the Meta AI sunglasses and they are sooo cool, you can put up with that if Apple did theirs a year later. Not three.
Apple’s real problem is the laziness born from too many years of doing well. It is institutionalized, baked into its DNA. They feel they will always be able to build walled gardens for users. But more and more they are too little too late. The Apple watch is a great example. Not enough innovation on any level. 19% declining sales and market share, down to 17.4% share of the broader wearables. It’s just not different enough and the market wants more options. Apple can’t do options. They have three models of phone. No small phone, no rugged phone, no folding phone, no massive battery phone. And they still think that works. This “one size fits all” mentality fails to address diverse market needs and signals a company more interested in defending its margins than genuinely innovating or taking risks.
But they live in the bubble. US media continues to talk about Apple as if they are one of the big boys. The closed nature of the “walled garden” traps consumers and stifles competition, creating high switching penalties and limiting the availability of competing goods or innovative approaches. It’s not just the EU that has cottoned on to this problem. It is customers too. Apple bets on user loyalty and brand inertia, rather than delivering authentic technological leaps.
Apple does not deserve to be in the same breath as Google, Amazon or Meta. They are not influencing anything other than the gadgets fewer and fewer people are playing with.
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