Apple SVP of Providers Eddy Cue. Picture credit score: Re/Code
Throughout court docket testimony over Apple’s search cope with Google, Apple govt Eddy Cue threw in a curveball, mainly saying we should not assume there will probably be an iPhone 30 sometime.
One strongly doable end result of the Division of Justice’s antitrust case towards Google is that it might be compelled to cease paying Apple to be the default search engine on iOS. That may imply Apple dropping out on round $20 billion a yr, so naturally the agency’s senior vp of companies, Eddy Cue, is eager to maintain the deal.
However in testimony that meant to disclose Apple is anyway wanting into providing search through AI companies, Cue additionally gave Apple’s first-ever point out of a day when iPhones might be no extra.
“It’s possible you’ll not want an iPhone 10 years from now as loopy because it sounds,” Cue mentioned, as first noticed by Bloomberg. “The one approach you actually have true competitors is when you could have know-how shifts.”
“Expertise shifts create these alternatives,” he continued. “AI is a brand new know-how shift, and it is creating new alternatives for brand spanking new entrants.”
That second a part of the quote is regular stuff from a person who additionally says he would not see how common search will not now get replaced by AI. But it surely’s the primary half that is a bit extra surprising.
There does need to be a restrict, there does need to be an finish. We’re absolutely not going to ever be listening to rumors of the iPhone 118 in a century’s time, however it’s nonetheless uncommon for Apple to say it.
It is not, although, uncommon for Apple to do one thing about it. As an illustration, you won’t be capable of pin down the day that the iPod began and stopped being ubiquitous and international, however you understand it occurred.
You additionally know that this world-dominating music participant was destroyed in a flash, not by a rival, however by its personal creator. Apple made the iPod, and Apple took it away.
In its time, the iPod was as commonplace a sight because the iPhone is now. However right now, it’s completely absent from the world, minus some fans maintaining it alive with flash reminiscence and so forth.
The iPod is successfully gone, the iPhone will go the identical route. It is only a query of time, however you’d have wager it could be longer than one other decade.
Until the entire of Apple is simply ready for Tim Cook dinner to announce his retirement earlier than they ditch the iPhone and change it with an AI-powered Apple Automobile.
