Apple failed to realize results with its artificial intelligence (AI) and prolonged reality (XR) headset ‘Vision Pro’, which it invested heavily in last 12 months, resulting in expectations that it’s going to face an uphill battle this 12 months.
Business Insider identified on the thirty first (local time) that Apple has not achieved significant ends in two future technology investments and that greater efforts shall be needed to realize a turnaround in 2025.
“2024 shall be one other 12 months wherein Apple fails to launch a killer recent product line,” said Jamie MacEwan, senior media analyst at research firm Enders Evaluation. It was also analyzed that if such a futuristic platform shouldn’t be established, the repercussions could last for quite a while.
After all, Apple’s stock price rose greater than 35% last 12 months, and its market capitalization reached an all-time high of $3.81 trillion, competing with Microsoft and Nvidia for the title of the world’s most precious company. But what matters for the long-term future may rely on our success in turning recent technologies into products.
Initially, the evaluation is that AI, which Apple has put essentially the most effort into, still has a protracted approach to go. Apple is already able to go all-in on AI from the second half of 2023 and proudly unveiled it on the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in June last 12 months.
Nevertheless, this might not be applied when the iPhone 16 was launched in September, and after two major updates, ‘ChatGPT’ was integrated and a few functions were only distributed to the US and other countries.
It is claimed that there aren’t any impressive features yet. Last November, famous technology reviewer Marques Brownlee pointed this out. “Many of the features are almost useless,” he wrote in his Apple Intelligence review. “Apple’s big promise to shake up its products with AI is beginning to fade.”
“If you happen to take apart Apple’s Intelligence features, you won’t find anything unique or unique,” said Deepanjan Chatterjee, vp and principal analyst at Forrester.
Moreover, Apple is having difficulty introducing AI features to China, a vital overseas market. We are trying to cooperate with Baidu, ByteDance, and Tencent, but there are successive reports that there are problems.
Ultimately, because of this it’s going to take quite a while to achieve Open AI or Google-level services. The 2 firms are planning to launch agents based on AI voice assistants this 12 months, and are reported to be introducing them into smart glasses, etc. Samsung Electronics also announced the launch of the XR headset armed with Google’s AI functions. If this continues, the gap may widen further.
Regarding the failure of Vision Pro, Apple CEO Tim Cook recently excused himself by saying, “This product is for early adopters.” It is a marked change in tone from when it was launched in February, when it emphasized that it could be “essentially the most advanced consumer electronic device ever made” and that it could “open the longer term of spatial computing.”
The explanation for the failure is easy. In comparison with the value of $3,500 (roughly 5.15 million won), it had little use and there have been not enough apps released.
Meta’s ‘Quest Pro’ starts at $999 (about 1.47 million won). Apple’s XR market share fell from 16% in the primary quarter of 2024 to three% within the second quarter, based on data firm Counterpoint. Also, based on AppFigure, only 10 apps were added to the Vision Pro app store throughout the month of September.
“Vision Pro is simply too expensive for what it may well do,” MacEwan said. “It isn’t yet high enough quality to do things like spreadsheets, and the density of apps and experiences is not that top.”
Apple can be showing a cautious attitude in regards to the way forward for its recent products. In its most up-to-date annual report back to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), it warned that “recent products, services and technologies may displace existing products, which could end in lower sales and profit margins.”
After all, there are some who view Apple’s future positively. Specifically, Dan Ives, a senior analyst at Wedbush who is understood for his expertise in Apple, recently emphasized that “the continued release of Apple Intelligence will open a brand new era for Apple.”
Then again, Vice President Chatterjee identified, “Even when Apple Intelligence succeeds within the short term, much of it’s prone to be resulting from iPhone substitute.” In other words, we do not expect AI features to trigger an iPhone upgrade ‘super cycle’.
While the discharge of a follow-up version of AI or Vision Pro is predicted to be released this 12 months, the conclusion is that it’s unclear whether Apple will actually achieve as much success because the hype surrounding it. Naturally, it is predicted that Apple and CEO Cook’s mission shall be focused on making this successful.
Reporter Lim Da-jun ydj@aitimes.com
