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Tuesday, June 10, 2025

The Slow Descent of Apple: Missing the AI Wave Like Microsoft Missed Mobile



The Slow Descent of Apple: Missing the AI Wave Like Microsoft Missed Mobile

In 2025, Apple Still Thinks It Has Time.

Tim Cook walks on stage, smile controlled, shirt immaculately tucked, and talks about "Apple Intelligence" — a term that feels less like the future and more like carefully measured nostalgia. Meanwhile, ChatGPT is already booking flights, summarizing meetings, handling customer service, and editing podcasts. Meta’s open-source Llama is integrated into half the enterprise tools of the Fortune 500. Perplexity AI is now a verb. Elon Musk’s Grok is rewriting Twitter (sorry, X) in real-time. And Microsoft? It owns work.

Apple has been here before — the smug incumbent. The innovator-turned-operator. In 2010, it destroyed Nokia. In 2030, it risks becoming Nokia.

The Trajectory: Apple's Five-Year AI Freefall

2025 – The PR AI Year

Apple launches “Apple Intelligence” with GPT-4o-like capabilities… two years too late. It’s sandboxed, locked down, with privacy walls so thick even Siri can’t hear you. Developers yawn. Consumers applaud — for about five minutes. AI enthusiasts keep using ChatGPT. Businesses keep using Copilot.

Stock price holds steady — for now.

2026 – AI Workflows Eat the Ecosystem

AI agents are now automating entire workflows. Gmail replies before you read. Notion writes your blog. Midjourney is built into Canva. Slack bots summarize Zoom meetings and generate project plans. But Apple’s walled garden remains beautiful and dumb. Siri can set a timer. Barely.

Apple announces a $5B acquisition of a boutique AI company. The market shrugs. The iPhone 16 Pro Max still has the best camera — but that’s not where the war is anymore.

Valuation slips below $2.5T.

2027 – Developer Exodus

The App Store becomes irrelevant as developers move to AI-native platforms. Instead of "apps," users interact with fluid AI agents. Mobile interfaces are replaced by conversational and gesture-based models. Apple's old-school OS paradigm feels like an IBM mainframe in the age of Google Docs.

The AI-first browsers (Rabbit, Arc, xAI’s Osmind) make Safari look like Internet Explorer. Apple doubles down on Vision Pro… but the AI layer isn’t there. No one builds for it.

Valuation falls under $2T. Microsoft surpasses Apple — permanently.

2028 – Education and Emerging Markets Pass Apple By

India and Africa leapfrog with $200 AI-native phones from Chinese competitors, powered by open-source LLMs. These devices come with built-in tutors, doctors, farmers’ assistants — all things Apple’s ecosystem doesn’t do, or won’t allow.

Meanwhile, every teenager in the West prefers Meta’s multi-agent creator stack or uses decentralized AI tools that Apple can’t control. The iPhone becomes the Blackberry: corporate, slow, boring.

Valuation hits $1.3T. Samsung, Huawei, and startups like Humane and Rabbit take over global hardware buzz.

2029 – The AI Operating System Era Begins

Open-source AI OS models like RedPajama OS or xAI OS dominate. People talk to their computers now. The device disappears; the agent takes over. Apple’s obsession with hardware margins leaves it with the best physical box and the worst brain.

iPhone sales plateau. Mac sales nosedive. AirPods are still good — but nobody cares. The AI layer runs on top, and Apple’s isn’t invited.

Valuation falls to $900B. It’s officially no longer in the top 5.

2030 – Apple Becomes the New Nokia

By now, AI-native hardware and software is everywhere. “Where were you when it shifted?” becomes a question like “Where were you when the iPhone launched?”

Tim Cook retires. Apple announces a strategic rebrand toward services and privacy infrastructure. The iPhone 18 launches to mild applause.

It’s still elegant. But irrelevant.

Market cap: $600B. It’s 2012 again. But this time, Apple is on the wrong side of history.

The Lesson

Apple’s fall won’t come from bad products. It’ll come from good products in a world that no longer wants products. When intelligence becomes ambient, and computing becomes liquid, ecosystems built on control crumble.

Like Microsoft missed mobile by betting on Windows, Apple may miss AI by betting on iOS.

The future doesn’t run on devices. It runs on intelligence.

And if Apple doesn’t get that — someone else will.

Author’s Note:
The irony? Apple seeded this world. It made computing human. But in clinging to its old playbook — beauty, control, and secrecy — it risks becoming the very relic it once replaced.

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