The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 258 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 20 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Ives: 20% of consumers will access AI through Apple within 18 months
“The second is that it's our view, regardless of timing, next 1218 months, 20% of the world ultimately is going to access AI, especially as more developers build apps through an Apple device.”
Ives: Current fiscal year will be Apple's strongest iPhone unit year ever
“So regardless of what you want to say about Apple intelligence, if it's going to be rolled out in October, November, January, February, in the next, for this fiscal year, this will, unless some black swan event happens, be the strongest iPhone unit year ever h…”
Ives: Apple upgrade cycle will drive stock regardless of AI
“This upgrade cycle in itself without AI, the stock's going to work. The AI piece is ultimately the start of how most consumers in the world are going to eventually interact with AI.”
Ives: Apple-Baidu AI deal is Apple's biggest potential catalyst
“Does Baidu and Apple strike a deal where Baidu becomes ultimately the AI partner? If that, like if you said to me the biggest catalyst that could happen on the name, it's that.”
Ives: Apple's China sales will grow 15% to 20% next year
“But Alex, if you look at comps, the next year, China's gonna be up 15, 20%, and that's why, like, the bears, when they come out of hibernation mood with iPhone mathematical gymnastics trying to scare people, the reason the stock's not doing anything, because i…”
Ives: Apple's services business will reach a $2 trillion valuation
“That services piece that at one point was valued, five hundred billion, I think it's going to be closer to two trillion in terms of the valuation as that reaches 125 hundred fifty billion per year.”
Bosworth: Meta has meaningful tech lead in AR over Apple
“I think we've been investing longer. I think we've believed in it more. And as a consequence of frankly, Mark Zuckerberg's faith and tremendous execution by a team of Thousands of people over a long period of years. I think we have a meaningful lead in a bunch…”
Bosworth: Apple will block third-party AI agents from intermediating iPhone apps
“That is not something that Apple wants some other developer to be able to do, because that would disintermediate their position, their privileged position on the phone.”
Roy: Agentic Siri and ChatGPT Voice Parity Aren't Coming Anytime Soon
“And the things that we've been promised around agentic AI running across various apps and taking actions and being able to use Siri in a meaningful way on par with ChatGPT audio or ChatGPT voice. None of that is coming anytime soon.”
Roy: System-level AI integration threatens Apple's 30% App Store revenue cut
“Otherwise they're basically eliminating apps or the need for apps. To enhance their products, and they're not gonna get that 30% cut anymore.”
Roy: Apple's Services revenue will eventually surpass its iPhone revenue
“I think it's gonna happen. I mean, after the announcement of the 16, I think I think it's probably gonna be sooner rather than later”
Swisher says Apple needs AI partners because it doesn't steal data
“Why they have to partner with someone. They don't collect information the way the others do. They're not information thieves the way the others are.”
Luckey: Apple will make VR cool through celebrity adoption
“I think Apple's gonna have a really big impact on that, because in addition to the hardware advancements that they've been making, I think they're going to make VR headsets cool simply by making sure that all the rich and famous people are wearing one.”
Luckey: Reprojected AR is the only path to superhuman vision
“The Apple headset, it's a, you know, it's a re-projected virtual, it's a re-projected augmented reality headset, which by the way, I believe is the future. Without a doubt, it is the only path to better than human vision.”
Luckey: Apple headset software will take two years, but hardware will impress
“The Apple one, it, because so few people have them, it, I think it's going to take a year or two before people feel like the software side is really there. But the hardware is gonna impress people.”
Luckey says unreleased Apple headset prototype hardware is going to be great
“I've used things that are, I've used things that are not quite what it will be, but are better than what it was. And so you know, I can't say I've used the final device, but based on everything that I have seen, it's going to be great.”
Luckey: Microsoft, Apple, or Google would have ruined or canceled Oculus
“VR wasn't on their roadmap, certainly not their ten-year or, you know, long-term roadmap. It was just an interesting thing going on. So even if they would have bought us, it would have been to, you know, use us as a gimmick to sell game consoles, or as an inte…”
Siegler: Cook takes Apple executive chairman role with CEO-level pay
“Even though he's taking the step back out of the CEO role as executive chairman. He's getting paid CEO-level money”
Kantrowitz: Cook and Ternus comp packages look more like co-CEOs
“That feels more like co-CEOs to me than it does. Like one person's the CEO and the other person's the executive chairman.”
Siegler: Apple will undoubtedly face class action lawsuits over foldable iPhones
“There will be, of course, people who bend it the other way to prove that it could bend, you know, it's not invincible and there'll be all sorts of fun class action lawsuits undoubtedly that, that arise as these new form factors come into play.”
Siegler: Apple's foldable iPhone will be a huge hit despite high price
“Like, I think that Apple set this up well. I think it's going to be a huge hit for them, even though, as you noted, it's insane. It's going to be insanely expensive.”
Albergati: Bearish on Apple Because New Siri Fails to Create Ecosystem Lock-In
“I don't think the new Siri is going to be that. So I'm just like not a believer in Apple for that reason.”
Kantrowitz: An OpenAI failure would harm tech industry momentum
“I think it would be bad for them to fail, right? If you think about all the energy in AI, a lot of it has been sparked by open AI, right? Like, Google, Google missed you know, the chat bot moment, and only entered because of You know, ChatGPT, and sort of, you…”
Kantrowitz: Apple sent document preservation letters to dozens of OpenAI employees
“So the latest is that Apple has now sent dozens of OpenAI employees legal letters asking them to preserve their documents, and Apple has also said that this, they only found the tip of the iceberg.”
Memory Cost Increases Do Not Justify Apple's 20% Device Price Hikes
“The increase in DRAM price does not account for a 20% increase in the entire device price. It's crazy. Like, they're gonna make margin off that.”
Kantrowitz: Meta is the biggest loser if Apple's Siri AI succeeds
“And it really is like biggest loser. If this thing works is meta, right? Because their personal super intelligence becomes that much harder for people to access. If they have a working intelligence on their phone, even if it's not super just intelligence”
Kantrowitz: Apple remains safe from AI shortcomings until dedicated AI devices matter
“AI doesn't matter as much to Apple as, you know, the narrative makes it seems like, at least in the short term. We're really gonna have to wait for a AI device to really matter for Apple. To start to say that their failures on AI are gonna really stack up and …”
Kantrowitz: Apple's rigid Jobs-era culture prevents it from trying new AI models
“The culture of Apple is very high on its own supply and they believe that the culture that they've built is responsible for the creation of the iPhone and While it was, that also came from Steve Jobs, and so they've remained this refined jobs idea culture, eve…”
Roy: Apple will fail to execute its Siri AI vision
“I just hope, I want them to, I don't think they can.”
Siegler: Annual keynote release cycles do not work in AI
“In the age of AI, it just seems like these announcements don't roll with that cadence, right? Everyone sort of followed the Apple model of, you know, always doing these big yearly events and having something and holding something back for a little bit to be re…”
Costolo: Small AI startups like Granola vastly outperform Apple Siri
“It's surprising how Siri for, Siri or iMessage, for example, have been so impossibly slow to keep pace with what appear to be things that AI startups with 10 or 12 people have been extraordinarily successful at, like text to speech or speech to text. Granola, …”
Roy: Apple's ChatGPT Siri integration was an embarrassingly bad product experience
“The ChatGPT integration into Siri was one of the single worst product experiences I have ever seen. It was so clunky bad that, like, if a Series A startup put out something like that, I would be ashamed of it.”
Shevelenko: Hardware will matter more as software faces commoditization pressure
“Apple's always been an incredible hardware company, and I think, ah, this is, you know, an era where hardware will matter even more because software is gonna face waves of commoditization pressure.”
Shevelenko: Perplexity has a blossoming partnership with Apple using Mac minis
“We have a great blossoming partnership with Apple. They actually are really excited about what we're doing with personal computer and how it uses Mac minis.”
Siegler: Apple Made the Right Bet Partnering on Search Over Building Bing
“Apple decided they didn't need to build a search engine, and that's worked out great for them, right?
Microsoft famously has spent billions and billions building up Bing, and what have they gotten out of it?
I mean, it makes money now, but it's not Google, and…”
Kantrowitz: Apple currently has a terrible AI product
“Right now, we're saying maybe Apple's making the right move but even still, they have a terrible AI product.”
Siegler: Apple will likely increase CapEx spending for AI inference
“I think that it's a reasonable assumption to make that they're going to start spending more on capex too. Even if they're not going to train models, they're not going to train an LLM inference and doing other things that you need to do.”
Roy: Apple is no longer an exciting company users love
“Apple today and any regular listener will know that as someone fully locked into the Apple ecosystem, it's just not been an exciting company you love any longer. It's a company that you're stuck with, and it's just felt like that for a long time”
Roy: Robots do not need humanoid form factors and should be purpose-built
“I don't understand why robots need a human form factor. I want purpose-built and whatever this tabletop robot is doing on that table, I'm sure it's something very helpful.”
Kantrowitz: Tim Cook steps down as Apple CEO, John Ternus succeeds him
“Tim Cook has stepped down as the CEO of Apple and John Ternus is going to replace him as of September first.”
Stern: Apple under Tim Cook became an operations company driven by deputies
“Since Cook took over is really an operations company, right? That's how he steered the company post jobs, and he left all of the other hardware and the software stuff to his deputies, right?”
Stern: Apple's incremental product strategy succeeded by driving record iPhone sales
“Every couple years sell more iPhones than they've sold in years past. This strategy worked.”
Kantrowitz: Apple shifted under Cook into a company that regularly leaks
“The one thing that's been interesting under Cook recently is that Apple's been very leaky. I mean, it went from a company that never leaked to like a company where like you kind of knew what was coming all the time.”
Stern: Tim Cook's Apple Silicon Bet Fundamentally Changed Computing
“I don't think enough credit goes to the investment in Silicon and, you know, whatever M chip you have in your laptop right now was a massive shift. I mean, it's like what they're now able to do in laptops and computing because they own that full stack. That's …”
Kantrowitz: Vision Pro failed and Apple's AI story has been bumpy
“They took a half-hearted swing at the metaverse with Vision Pro that didn't work out and their AI story has obviously been bumpy.”
Sorkin: AI presents Google's best chance to take share from Apple
“I would imagine that this should be the greatest opportunity for Google and Alphabet Effect or Alphabet to truly take share because Gemini, if built the way I think it should be built, should be able to move you around their phone in shocking ways, right? It s…”
Roy: Running AI models locally undermines centralized data center capex narratives
“Small models are gonna run locally on device. And that's actually gonna be how infrastructure gets built out. That throws such a wrench into any of these stories that we've been talking about for the last 30 minutes, like that completely destroys those stories…”