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Apple's innovation lull: Is it really going to take Philips and IBM into account?

The opinion is growing in the technological community of Kazakhstan and around the world: Apple, once an indisputable beacon of innovation, is losing its magic. The era of Steve Jobs' revolutions has been replaced by the era of Tim Cook's predictable evolutions. The new iPhones command respect, but not awe. Competitors have taken the lead in the artificial intelligence race. The question hung in the air: is Apple turning into a new IBM or Philips, a giant living off its former glory?

This view, while understandable, overlooks a fundamental shift in the company's strategy. Apple is not far behind. She is deliberately losing show battles to win the war for the next era of personal technology.

Criticism of Apple is based on three obvious facts. First, iterative updates. Since the release of the iPhone X, the fundamental paradigm of the smartphone has not changed. Cameras are improving, processors are getting faster, but there is no sense of "jumping into the future" as it used to be.

Secondly, being late to the AI party. While Microsoft, Google, and OpenAI were reshaping the world with large language models, Siri remained a functional but limited assistant. Apple has clearly found itself in the role of catching up in the most promising market of the decade.

Third, there is a shift in focus to financial efficiency. Apple became the first company with a capitalization of three trillion dollars not through risky innovations, but through virtuoso ecosystem management and maximizing profits from each user.

These facts are indisputable. But they only describe the visible part of the iceberg.

While competitors were fighting over the number of parameters in neural networks, Apple was waging a war on its territory, strengthening the foundation for future dominance.

1. Vertical integration on steroids: Apple Silicon. The transition to proprietary M-series chips is the most underrated revolution of the last decade. It's not just a "fast processor". This is full control over the hardware-software stack, allowing you to achieve unprecedented performance and energy efficiency synergies. By creating Apple Silicon, the company has built an impregnable fortress that no competitor dependent on third-party chip suppliers can enter.

2. Ecosystem as the main product. Apple's strength has long been not in a single device, but in the seamless interaction between them. The way you start on a Mac, continue on an iPad, and finish on an iPhone, complementing it all with data from an Apple Watch, is a unique experience that has so far failed to be replicated. This is a complex engineering innovation that holds users back more than any technical specifications.

Realizing the lag in cloud AI, Apple did not get involved in someone else's game. She decided to create her own, relying not on "omniscient", but on deeply personal and private AI.

Its strategy is based on three principles:

  • On-Device AI. Thanks to the power of Apple's Silicon chips, most AI operations will take place locally, on your iPhone or Mac. This solves three key problems: it ensures maximum privacy (your photos, emails and messages are not sent anywhere), guarantees instant response speed and, most importantly, gives AI access to your personal context. He knows who your wife is, when your next meeting is, and what your favorite playlist is, and uses this to help you in a real way.
  • A hybrid model with a "private cloud". For the most difficult tasks that are beyond the power of a local chip, Apple has created a special secure cloud that processes the request in a "black box" and does not store data. This is an elegant solution to the dilemma of "power versus privacy".
  • Pragmatic partnerships. Instead of spending years building a competitor to ChatGPT, Apple has simply integrated it into its OS. This allows her to instantly close the gap in "global knowledge" and focus on what she does best—the personal user experience.

While the entire industry is racing to create the largest cloud brain, Apple is building something else. She creates the world's first truly personal digital assistant, which is not just a window into a global network of knowledge, but an extension of the user himself.

Therefore, answering the question about "stagnation", we can say this: Apple has really stopped hosting its annual fireworks. Instead, it is laying tectonic plates for the next paradigm shift — the transition from the era of cloud intelligence to the era of personal, contextual and private AI.

And in this new game, she starts from the position of the absolute leader.

What do you think about this?

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Daulet Baimurza

Aug. 26, 2025 17:53

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