Just my opinion:
Apple doesn't need to solve AI. It's not core to their business in the same way that search engines aren't core to their business.
What Apple does best lies at the combination of hardware, software, physical materials, and human-computer interface design. This is why they're spending so much more on mixed reality than AI, even knowing that a product like the Vision Pro today isn't going to be a big seller. It's why they're investing in their own silicon. This strategy tends to yield unexpected wins, like the Mac Mini suddenly becoming one of the hottest computers in the world because it turns out it's amazing for sandboxing agents if you don't want to use the cloud, or the Mac Studio becoming arguably the best way to run local AI models (a nascent space that is on the cusp of becoming genuinely relevant), or the MacBook Pro becoming by far the best laptop in the world for productivity in the AI age (and it's not even close).
Your conclusion is that they're going to be left behind, but the evidence is that they're already well ahead in the areas that are core to their business. They can trivially pay Google a billion a year for Gemini. Nobody else can do what they can in the fusion of hardware, software, and materials as long as they stay focused.
Where they genuinely slipped up was their marketing -- an unusual mistake for Apple. And that does indeed lie with the CEO.
Apple doesn't need to solve AI. It's not core to their business in the same way that search engines aren't core to their business.
What Apple does best lies at the combination of hardware, software, physical materials, and human-computer interface design. This is why they're spending so much more on mixed reality than AI, even knowing that a product like the Vision Pro today isn't going to be a big seller. It's why they're investing in their own silicon. This strategy tends to yield unexpected wins, like the Mac Mini suddenly becoming one of the hottest computers in the world because it turns out it's amazing for sandboxing agents if you don't want to use the cloud, or the Mac Studio becoming arguably the best way to run local AI models (a nascent space that is on the cusp of becoming genuinely relevant), or the MacBook Pro becoming by far the best laptop in the world for productivity in the AI age (and it's not even close).
Your conclusion is that they're going to be left behind, but the evidence is that they're already well ahead in the areas that are core to their business. They can trivially pay Google a billion a year for Gemini. Nobody else can do what they can in the fusion of hardware, software, and materials as long as they stay focused.
Where they genuinely slipped up was their marketing -- an unusual mistake for Apple. And that does indeed lie with the CEO.