Apple last week nixed its long-held “net cash neutral” target, a move analysts see as giving the company more flexibility to make massive infrastructure investments or acquisitions. Naturally, as AI is the only thing that seems to matter in tech these days, commentators rushed to speculate on potential acquisition targets in the AI space.
The thing is, this may not be about AI.
Now that Apple has confirmed John Ternus as its next CEO, the market can stop treating the company’s cash shift as speculative and start treating it as strategic. Ternus, a hardware‑first leader by background, understands the value of services and has pledged to expand Apple’s services business.
Services, services, services
The great thing about services is that they provide the company with a solid and predictable revenue stream to insulate it from fluctuations in product-driven business. We’ve seen this in the last few years, with Apple’s dramatically climbing services income acting as a cushion against slow
Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) takes place in just a few weeks. Everyone expects the company to explain its approach to AI deployment on its platforms. With that in mind, here’s what several months of speculation suggest Apple will announce, though the details remain to be disclosed.
Apple is investing billions of dollars in these plans; R&D spending reached 10.3% of revenue in the second quarter, up from 7.6% in Q1. Given Apple’s accelerating revenue, on a dollar basis this means the company’s R&D spend is up 34% from a year ago.
“We believe AI is a really important investment area for Apple, and we’re going to be doing that incrementally on top of what we normally invest in our product roadmap,” said Apple CFO Kevan Parekh during Apple’s latest fiscal call. (AI isn’t Apple’s only spending target, either.)
While the billions Apple is investing are dwarfed by the huge infrastructure investments made by pure AI players, Apple’s infrastructure already exists — in the form
Apple has agreed to pay $250 million to settle a class action lawsuit alleging it misled consumers about the AI capabilities of the iPhone 15 and 16. The complaint claimed Apple exaggerated the readiness and functionality of Apple Intelligence features, particularly an upgraded Siri, influencing purchase decisions with capabilities that were incomplete or delayed. Without […]
The mishaps around Apple Intelligence have gone beyond denting Apple’s reputation – they have also cost the company $250 million in damages over smarter Siri delays.
Think back to the original introduction of Apple Intelligence and you might recall a promotional video that explained how a new and smarter Siri would act as your contextually-smart AI companion, helping you get things done. Almost two years later, that smarter Siri still hasn’t shipped — and while Apple has made major changes in management, AI strategy, and approach, this contextual companion isn’t now expected until later this year.
Hopefully.
Apple Intelligence can be seen as a Maps-launch style debacle on the part of the company. (Apple even had to deny that the video presentation for those features shown at WWDC 2024 (no longer officially available) was made up.)
Apple Intelligence’s $250M punishment
The entire affair left some iPhone users unhappy, so they launched a class action lawsuit against the company for dela
Settlement, which includes no admission of wrongdoing, covers roughly 36m eligible devices in class-action lawsuit
Apple on Tuesday agreed to pay $250m to settle a class-action lawsuit accusing it of misleading millions of iPhone buyers by falsely touting artificial intelligence capabilities for its Siri voice assistant in late 2024.
Plaintiffs accused the California tech giant of having “promoted AI capabilities that did not exist at the time, do not exist now, and will not exist for two or more years” in order to boost iPhone sales, according to the suit. Apple’s more “personalized” version of Siri still has not been fully released despite its announcement nearly two years ago.
Continue reading...
Apple has agreed to pay $250 million to settle a class action lawsuit that accused it of misleading customers about the availability of its Apple Intelligence features. The proposed settlement would apply to people in the US who purchased all models of the iPhone 16 and the iPhone 15 Pro between June 10th, 2024 and March 29th, 2025.
The settlement will resolve a 2025 lawsuit, alleging Apple's advertisements created a "clear and reasonable consumer expectation" that Apple Intelligence features would be available with the launch of the iPhone 16. The lawsuit claimed Apple's products "offered a significantly limited or entirely absent version …
Read the full story at The Verge.
