Apple SVP of Services Eddy Cue. Photo credit: Re/Code
During court testimony over Apple’s search deal with Google, Apple executive Eddy Cue threw in a curveball, basically saying we shouldn’t assume there will be an iPhone 30 someday.
One strongly possible outcome of the Department of Justice’s antitrust case against Google is that it may be forced to stop paying Apple to be the default search engine on iOS. That would mean Apple losing out on around $20 billion a year, so naturally the firm’s senior vice president of services, Eddy Cue, is keen to keep the deal.
But in testimony that intended to reveal Apple is anyway looking into offering search via AI services, Cue also gave Apple’s first-ever mention of a day when iPhones could be no more.
“You may not need an iPhone 10 years from now as crazy as it sounds,” Cue said, as first spotted by Bloomberg. “The only way you truly have true competition is when you have technology shifts.”
“Technology shifts create these opportunities,” he continued. “AI is a new technology shift, and it’s creating new opportunities for new entrants.”
That second part of the quote is normal stuff from a man who also says he doesn’t see how regular search won’t now be replaced by AI. But it’s the first part that’s a bit more unexpected.
There does have to be a limit, there does have to be an end. We’re surely not going to ever be hearing rumors of the iPhone 118 in a century’s time, but it’s still unusual for Apple to say it.
It’s not, though, unusual for Apple to do something about it. For instance, you might not be able to pin down the day that the iPod started and stopped being ubiquitous and global, but you know it happened.
You also know that this world-dominating music player was destroyed in a flash, not by a rival, but by its own creator. Apple made the iPod, and Apple took it away.
In its time, the iPod was as commonplace a sight as the iPhone is now. But today, it is totally absent from the world, minus some enthusiasts keeping it alive with flash memory and so forth.
The iPod is effectively gone, the iPhone will go the same route. It’s just a question of time, but you’d have bet it would be longer than another decade.
Unless the whole of Apple is just waiting for Tim Cook to announce his retirement before they ditch the iPhone and replace it with an AI-powered Apple Car.
