Overnight, the attitude of the capital market towards Apple's artificial intelligence strategy underwent a 180 degree turn. On June 11th (local time June 10th), it was still voting with its feet, causing its market value to evaporate by $58 billion. On June 12th, it caused its market value to soar by $210 billion overnight, with a total market value of $3.18 trillion at the close, allowing Apple to surpass Nvidia and return to the second place in global market value.
On the early morning of June 11th, Apple announced its artificial intelligence strategy at the highly anticipated World Developers Conference (WWDC 2024), but did not wait for its self-developed big model, but instead received news of cooperation with OpenAI. Although from a commercial perspective, this aligns with Apple CEO Cook's consistent conservative strategy and helps preserve Apple's "one acre, three tenths" of land in the mobile phone market, industry insiders have also bluntly stated that this means Apple's technology research and development capabilities are already stretched thin. Although not on the same track, its position in the field of artificial intelligence cannot be compared to companies such as Microsoft and Nvidia.
What will be the next generation of supporting industries for Apple? This has been a hot topic in the technology industry in recent years. From electric vehicles to MR and artificial intelligence, Apple has not made much progress so far, and the possibility of either becoming a new "pillar" is very slim. Recently, there have been reports that Apple will make efforts in the field of robotics, but this field is still in the early stage of technological accumulation, and the commercialization path is not yet clear.
From a technology leader to a follower
As a consumer electronics company that has emerged with innovative capabilities, the industry always evaluates Apple based on innovation. However, in the past decade, Apple's innovative genes seem to have disappeared, and every press conference can always see the shadow of Android phones, transitioning from being a technology leader to a follower.
Due to the previous speeches of several executives on generative AI, the industry is eagerly anticipating the upcoming artificial intelligence strategy to be announced at WWDC this year, and many are looking forward to the debut of Apple's self-developed large model.
However, although the artificial intelligence strategy arrived as promised, it fell far short of everyone's expectations. The Apple Intelligence, abbreviated as AI, launched by Apple at the spring press conference this time is completely different from the true artificial intelligence - Artistic Intelligence, although it is only one word away.
It is reported that Apple Intelligence can utilize the capabilities of Apple chips to understand and create language and images, and take action across applications. At the same time, Apple Intelligence has officially merged with Apple Voice Assistant Siri, making Siri more intelligent, capable of conducting more complex conversations, answering questions about Apple features and settings, and Siri can perform operations within and across applications.
However, this is not a big model. In the words of Li Mingshun, founder of Shunfu Capital, Apple Intelligence is a strong application of Apple. "The combination of Apple Intelligence and Apple's products is actually AI mobile phone, AI tablet and AI PC, which is very similar to what other mobile phone manufacturers and PC manufacturers are doing. The technical principle is also very similar, which is edge computing plus cloud computing."
AI phones and AI PCs are no longer new concepts, and other mainstream manufacturers have already launched multiple related products in the first half of this year. It seems that Apple's artificial intelligence strategy is still following in the footsteps of Android manufacturers and Windows PC manufacturers. In addition to Apple Intelligence, some of the system features that Apple has updated this time, such as call recording, are also features that other mobile phone manufacturers have been releasing for ten years.
"The current Apple company is a pragmatic enterprise," Li Mingshun told Huaxia Times reporters. Cook is the CEO who runs the company more from a commercial perspective. He did not have the foresight and product innovation ability of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs at the time, which has been criticized by the industry. However, it must be admitted that in terms of commercial returns, Apple led by Cook has always done well, and this press conference still continues this characteristic. If the brand's AI phone cannot be launched soon, its market share may be affected.
At the beginning, the capital market was not optimistic about Apple's artificial intelligence strategy, and on the day of the press conference, they voted directly with their feet, causing Apple's stock price to drop by 1.91%. But on June 11th local time, Apple surged by over 7%, with a total market value of $3.18 trillion, surpassing Nvidia and returning to second place in the world.
The reason for the change in attitude may be that the capital market believes that the enhancement of AI features will drive sales of iPhone and other products in the second half of this year. Market research firm IDC pointed out that with the widespread application of Apple Intelligence, the demand for hardware components optimized specifically for AI, such as terminal AI specific chips, may increase. The advancement of such hardware can not only optimize user experience, but also lead a new wave of hardware for smartphones and wearable technology.
Weak technological advantages in the field of AI
It is worth mentioning that although this conference did not bring Rocket products, it brought the shocking news of Rocket, which blew up Tesla CEO Musk next door.
As mentioned earlier, in the field of generative AI, Apple has already laid a lot of groundwork. According to a report released by market research firm Stocklytics, as of 2023, Apple has acquired a total of 32 AI companies, making it the technology company with the highest number of acquisitions; In April of this year, the company showcased its open-source "small model" family, OpenELM.
But in the end, at this globally anticipated press conference, Apple was still unable to bring its own large model product and instead announced the news of cooperation with OpenAI.
In the future, Apple users can call Siri and call ChatGPT in the writing tool of the whole system to realize functions such as chat robot and image generation. Apple users can also access GPT-4o for free without creating accounts. ChatGPT subscribers can connect their accounts and directly access the payment function in the Apple system.
This result is naturally welcomed by OpenAI, as for ChatGPT, the collaboration with Apple is equivalent to adding a large traffic entry point.
So what about apples? A reporter from Huaxia Times interviewed Apple about the reasons behind it, but as of press release, the other party has not provided a response.
With the blessing of ChatGPT, sales of Apple's smartphones, tablets, and PCs may be boosted, but in one of Apple's important markets - China, this blessing is meaningless.
More importantly, this collaboration between Apple and OpenAI has also exposed its current difficulties in the field of AI. "In the field of AI, the gap between Apple and other companies is very obvious: on the one hand, Apple's investment in artificial intelligence is much lower than other giants, including Microsoft and Google; and in terms of talent reserves, it is rare to see Apple's AI scientists have a high reputation and popularity, while companies like Meta, Google, and Microsoft have a large number of active AI scientists in the industry," said Li Mingshun.
Communication industry expert Xiang Ligang bluntly stated that Apple's research and development capabilities are already stretched thin, and the company's future development in the field of artificial intelligence may face huge challenges.
At present, the top three companies in the global market value rankings are Microsoft, Apple, and Nvidia. In the field of artificial intelligence, these three happen to be the market entities in the three tracks. However, with OpenAI, Microsoft itself is also doing well in the big model field, while Nvidia is undoubtedly in a "monopoly" position in the AI chip field. Compared to Apple, which only empowers AI to the terminal, it is much inferior. The only highlight is the support of ChatGPT, but other mobile phone manufacturers and PC manufacturers can also achieve this.
In addition, it is also a question whether Apple's data security advantages can continue to exist in the future due to the introduction of ChatGPT. It should be noted that Apple has always endorsed data security with closed systems, and Apple's Senior Vice President of Software Engineering, Craig Fedrighi, has also confirmed plans to collaborate with other third-party models.
Despite Apple's promises and some objections, Musk, who lives next door, is not satisfied with this. He posted, "If Apple integrates OpenAI at the operating system level, Apple devices will be banned by my company. This is an unacceptable security violation."
Musk believes, "Apple is not smart enough to develop its own AI, but it is absurd to believe that OpenAI can protect your security and privacy! Once you hand over your data to OpenAI, Apple has no idea what exactly happened. They are selling you out."
The next generation of pillar industries remains a mystery
This press conference has also made the industry's speculation about Apple's next generation pillar industry even more unpredictable. After being exposed for abandoning its car manufacturing business, Apple's series of preparations in the field of artificial intelligence have led the industry to place the company's hope in artificial intelligence after the iPhone. However, the operation of this press conference has clearly caused many people to fall back into confusion.
So this extends to another question, since there is no hope in artificial intelligence, what will be Apple's next generation of supporting industries?
After the press conference, some industry insiders pointed out that Apple should not give up car manufacturing and choose AI. As a leading terminal manufacturer, Apple's car manufacturing will be better than researching AI.
Regarding this, Li Mingshun pointed out that Apple may have abandoned car manufacturing because the company saw that its innovation in this field was not particularly unique, and the investment cost of car manufacturing was high. It was also difficult to have a significant advantage in the short term compared to Chinese companies, so it chose a more lightweight artificial intelligence. "Although there hasn't been a real big model like Google, Apple at least needs to hold onto its traditional smartphone market."
The MR headset Vision Pro launched by Apple last year was once considered a successor to the iPhone, but based on the market performance after launch this year, it seems not as optimistic. At the WWDC24 Developer Conference, Apple finally announced that Vision Pro will start pre-sales in the Chinese market and several other countries this month, starting at 29999 yuan in China.
However, the reporter noticed that on a second-hand platform in China, the purchasing price of Vision Pro is only around 20000 yuan, and some almost brand new second-hand Vision Pro can be purchased for around 15000 yuan, which is in sharp contrast to the "boom" where this product often skyrocketed to 100000 yuan during pre-sales in the US market.
Regarding the next generation of devices, it is reported that Apple is using a big language model to help drive two secret robot devices under development, including a desktop robot arm with a display screen similar to a large iPad, and a mobile robot that can follow users to handle household chores. However, this field is still in the early stage of technological accumulation, and the commercialization path is not yet clear.