Eddy Cue, Apple SVP of Services. Photo credit: Re/Code
In a recent court hearing regarding Apple’s agreement with Google, Eddy Cue, Apple’s SVP of Services, posed a surprising possibility: the future absence of the iPhone 30.
One potential outcome of the Department of Justice’s antitrust lawsuit against Google could force the tech giant to cease payments to Apple for being the default search engine on iOS. This scenario threatens to cost Apple approximately $20 billion annually, making Cue eager to maintain the deal.
While addressing the court, which aimed to highlight Apple’s interest in AI-driven search capabilities, Cue made his first notable remark about a future without iPhones. “You may not need an iPhone 10 years from now, as crazy as it sounds,” Cue stated, a point noted by Bloomberg. “True competition occurs with technology shifts.”
He elaborated, “Technology shifts create new opportunities. AI represents a significant technological change, opening doors for new participants in the market.”
Although Cue’s comments about AI are standard, his mention of a post-iPhone world is less common. There’s surely a limit; we won’t be hearing whispers of an iPhone 118 a century from now, yet it’s unusual for Apple to address this.
Apple has historically taken significant actions, and while the exact timing of the iPod’s rise and fall might be hard to pinpoint, it undoubtedly happened. The iPod, once a dominant global music player, was eliminated not by competitors but by Apple itself.
At its peak, the iPod was as ubiquitous as the iPhone today, yet it has now almost entirely vanished from the scene, surviving only through the efforts of enthusiasts retrofitting it with modern tech.
Just as the iPod has faded, the iPhone may follow, though one might expect the transition to take longer than a decade. Perhaps the only thing lingering is speculation about whether Apple is waiting for Tim Cook’s retirement to pivot away from the iPhone toward an AI-enhanced Apple Car.