The “Magnificent Seven” tech stocks have led the market’s recent boom. But as Big Tech motors into the AI future, Apple is dangerously behind and, so far, looks to have little hope of catching up any time soon.
While the others — Google parent Alphabet, Amazon, Facebook parent Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Tesla— race ahead thanks to leaps in AI and demand for data centers, Apple is stuck in reverse. Its share price is down about 18% so far this year, making it the worst-performing member of the Mag 7 — and a drag on the very tech rally it once helped drive. Once the most valuable company in the world, Apple’s market cap is now in third place, behind Microsoft and Nvidia. The message from Wall Street? Apple still matters, but it’s not setting the tone anymore.
Apple’s Mag 7 peers have blazed new paths with AI in recent years. Microsoft has embedded generative AI into Office, Windows, and Azure — and is working on the next frontier, agentic AI. Google has rolled out Gemini across just about all of its products. Meta is pivoting from the metaverse to machine learning. Amazon has gone deep on infrastructure and developer tools through AWS to position itself as the AI enabler. Tesla has staked out a position at the forefront of embodied AI, from cars to robots. And Nvidia’s chips have become synonymous with the infrastructure powering the industry.
Meanwhile, Apple, late last year, finally unveiled Apple Intelligence, a suite of AI-driven features and a Siri revamp powered by ChatGPT. But Apple was late to the party, largely relied on a partner rather than a breakthrough, and has barely made a dent since. Rollout has been sluggish, features are still limited and easily found elsewhere, and Apple hasn’t announced much else.
While Apple’s Mag 7 peers seem to be building the future, Apple is updating the present. It makes cyclical hardware updates, but they’re evolutionary, not revolutionary.
MacDailyNews Take: Again, as we’ve been saying for many years now, Apple is suffering a crisis of leadership and is paying the price for having visionless caretaker Tim Cook at the helm for far too long.
Apple pays and has been paying John Giannandrea, Senior Vice President of Machine Learning and AI Strategy, millions upon millions of dollars for years. WTF of any import does he really do? WTF of any import has he really delivered? Have you used Siri lately? Yup, it’s still a steaming pile of dogshit.
Where’s Apple’s generative AI, John? “Too hard; too late; look for partners; gimme my paycheck and stock options.”
AAPL shareholders need to start asking real questions of these executives, especially those who are supposedly in charge of Apple’s “AI Strategy,” when the company clearly has none. How about some accountability for once? – MacDailyNews, March 18, 2024
Apple was caught flat-footed, due to a lack of vision on the part of leadership… So, the only solution is to partner with a [Google, OpenAI, Baidu, etc.] for the real GenAI stuff while pretending (marketing) really hard that some on-device AI Apple has whipped up in a few months is “insanely great Apple innovation” that’s at the heart of Apple’s 2024’s AI announcements when it’s really just an adjunct… Watch Apple make a big show of its on-device AI at WWDC and run many ads touting it from June onwards.
Apple hopes to buy time for the data center buildouts and investments that will be required for them to someday own their own AI technology and not have to license it from the likes of [Google, OpenAI, Baidu, etc.].
This is what happens after a decade plus with a caretaker CEO at the helm after he hits the last page of his iteration playbook, yet attempts to stay in the game for too long. – MacDailyNews, April 1, 2024
Clearly, Apple is not as innovative as it was under Steve Jobs who even started the company’s work on Apple Silicon, Apple Watch, and Apple Vision Pro, but, thanks to Jobs and Cook’s subsequent management of iterations of products and services conceived during Jobs’ tenure, including the retail store buildout which is responsible for a significant portion of Apple’s growth, the company now has more than enough money to make up for Cook’s lack of vision. – MacDailyNews, April 23, 2024
The new “AI features” for iOS, iPadOS, and MacOS to be revealed at WWDC is mainly a marketing exercise. The pressure is on Apple’s marketing team to position the company as an innovator in the space (“only Apple does so much on-device AI which enhances users’ privacy to ‘stunning’ effect,” etc.) that also makes “smart partnerships” with other AI companies (OpenAI, for example; even though it’s currently forced to partner if they want to offer any real GenAI features). Now, more than ever, finding themselves so far behind, Apple needs to sell, sell, sell! – MacDailyNews, May 28, 2024
When you’re caught flat-footed like Tim Cook’s Apple, you pop into scramble mode to try to catch up. Early on, you hit it with a big marketing flourish (WWDC24) in order to buy some more time. Then you dribble out features as they get finished and actually exist. Classic vaporware. – MadDailyNews, July 31, 2024
Executing a vaporware strategy is an unfortunate necessity without a visionary CEO and it takes time to actually realize (code, test, build out datacenter infrastructure, etc.) a grand marketing vision. – MacDailyNews, September 10, 2024
You know, some people get upset when we point out that Tim Cook is a boring, reactive caretaker who’s not really the best person to be running Apple today or for at least the past several years.
Operations manager Cook should have been a 3-5 year stopgap after Steve Jobs’ untimely passing, running the iteration playbook, providing continuity for the company while it found a real CEO. Instead, he hung on — and keeps hanging on — well past his sell-by date.
Sigh.
You can be upset with us for having the temerity to call it like we see it, but the fact remains that Apple would be doing significantly better today with a visionary who’d have seen AI on the horizon, who’d have recognized the intrinsic importance of Siri and therefore invested in it instead of criminally neglecting it, and who wouldn’t have squandered the company’s gigantic leads in things like personal assistants and podcasting. – MacDailyNews, August 22, 2024
Until it gets another visionary leader (fingers crossed; Apple’s history has shown – cough, Sculley, Spindler, cough – that the next CEO could be far, far worse than the very competent caretaker Cook), Apple can afford to miss things like generative AI – which they clearly did – and then use its huge war chest to catch up – which they’re doing right now (fun times and 80-hour weeks inside Apple Park!) – and, hopefully, [someday] surpass rivals (or at least be as good). Apple will very likely unveil their catch-up work within months (this June at WWDC 2024) in iPhones (and iPads, Apple Watches, etc.) with built-in on-device generative AI and other new AI-driven features. – MacDailyNews, February 14, 2024
Apple needed new blood years ago, but the old blood simply won’t let go. – MacDailyNews, January 22, 2025
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[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]
Time to differentiate with really emotional & dynamic emojis. Another sign of strength; show solid concern for the planet by announcing the company-wide carbon neutrality date will be moved up a year to 2029 (even if December).
Maybe some banjo playing by some of the C’s during June’s WWDC?
Here’s my guess: Apple is developing their own AI GPU to rival, replace, or mitigate the need for NVIDIA. It’ll take 3-5 years to get there and everyone is holding their breath hoping they can get there before AI goes post singularity and the race is lost.
You make a good point there, Jobs always wanted apple to make the whole widget hence the migration from intel to their own version of the ARM architecture and their acquisition of Intel’s modem project. I also think that the importance of AI is overrated.
I remember when I would try to keep track of all the stupid answers Siri gave me. That was five years ago, and it hasn’t changed yet.
And it hasn’t changed yet.
The jury is still out on how much of a money maker AI will be. For now it’s an add-on to most of these products, from the MS Office suite, to Google/Android/Samsung, to X to Meta Ray Bans, all of which I own, subscribe to or have tried.
Do we have any hard numbers on AI subscriptions or how much it has boosted device sales? As far as I can tell NVIDIA has been the only clear winner as the seller of hardware that enables AI that POTENTIALLY will be a big deal but so far is still Silicon Valley hype. Super Grok is amazing and I’ve used it for research but it was already part of my X subscription. I don’t see average consumers flocking to this stuff aside from the free versions.
Apple is of course way behind but they also aren’t only building commodified AI like its competitors. The main appeal of Apple is a Siri that can work within Apple’s ecosystem, no one else’s AI will ever have access to the coveted Apple user data and no one else has premium consumer hardware to sell the AI on like Apple does. Even this OpenAI, Jony Ive device is going to be tied to a smartphone (iPhone above all) and it will never be allowed to tell you what is coming up on your calendar or make plans based on your data no matter how sophisticated ChatGPT becomes.
Apple could be the new Intel. Had it all and missed the next big thing. I do think a potential devise by Jony Ive for Open AI is a real threat to Apple. The fact that Apple can simply delay updates for a year and not think they could ultimately destroy the company is insane.
The IO Device from Ives and Open Ai is NOT standalone … it relies on cellphones to be the core for their operation!