Posting Through It: Climate Change Is Fueling Social Media Use
Welcome to Tech In Depth, our revamped daily newsletter with reporting and analysis about the business of tech from Bloomberg's journalists around the world. Today, Drake Bennett writes about an unusual way climate change affects our behavior.
Apple's Siri issues: The iPhone maker's long-promised overhaul of the Siri digital assistant is facing engineering problems and software bugs, threatening to postpone or limit its release.
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Yahoo
30 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Apple's two biggest problem areas ahead of its WWDC 2025
Ahead of Apple's (AAPL) 2025 Worldwide Developers Conference kicking off this Monday, June 9, Needham analysts downgraded the iPhone maker from a Buy rating to Hold while removing its price target on the tech stock. Needham & Company senior media and internet analyst Laura Martin — the analyst behind the call — examines several of Apple's biggest problems as it faces pressures in China's consumer market and the team-up between OpenAI and former Apple designer Jony Ive. Here's a look at what to expect from the 2025 WWDC event. To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Morning Brief here. Let's take a look at Apple here. It's down 19% year to date, the lowest performing member of the magnificent seven and trailing the S&P 500, which is now up for the year. Ahead of Apple's company, uh, Worldwide Developers Conference, Needham and company cut its Apple rating from buy to hold and removed its $225 price target for the stock. We've got the person behind that call, Laura Martin, Needham and Company senior media and internet analyst joining us now. Really appreciate you making the time to break this down for us, Laura. What was the single biggest driver behind this call on Apple? So I think, I think we're focusing on two things. There's like an urgent problem for Apple and then an important problem for Apple. The urgent problem is, a, it's really expensive today at 26 times next year's earnings, which is twice its normal multiple over the last 10 years, and about a 25% premium to the S&P 500. So it's too expensive. Second, there are real risks to their fundamentals over the next 12 months. Not only tariffs, but, um, but also like the Chinese demand, which used to be 19% of their total iPhone sales, went to 17% last year. We expect it to go to 15% of total sales this year. So there, um, there really is issues with the rising nationalism in China and Chinese, uh, consumers buying competitive products and not Apple products. Um, also, we have risk of fundamentals services revenue because you may have seen that epic, uh, the epic court decision, which allows all these apps to actually get direct payment and not pay the Apple 30% tithe on, on these app payments. So that actually threatens services revenue. Anyway, lots of fundamental risks, um, coming from the outside world in the near term, again, to their fundamental earnings per share, a risk in addition to just tariffs. And the important problem here that isn't as urgent, but it is really important is competition. So what's happening is generative AI is opening up the possibility of replacing the smartphone with, if you think meta and Google are right, glasses, like these Ray-Ban glasses that Meta's already sold a million units of. Or, more importantly, um, Jony Ive, who used to was actually the designer behind every major Apple product on the market today, he was at Apple for 27 years, has recently, his company's been bought by Sam Altman's OpenAI, and they're talking about a new form factor that isn't a smartphone and it isn't glasses, but it's going to compete and replace, I mean, I think over the long term replace the iPhone because Jony Ive, who invented the iPhone as a design fact, uh, hardware, said he doesn't like screens. He wants to move consumers away from screens, which would be lovely if you could have a conversation with a 15-year-old where they weren't looking at their screens. So I'm completely supportive, but all of this is a competitive is a competitive threat to the largest iPhone maker, you know, the largest smartphone maker in the world. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
CNET
an hour ago
- CNET
At WWDC, How Will Apple Address Its Lackluster First Year of Apple Intelligence?
At WWDC 2025, how is Apple going to spin what can be objectively seen as a year of AI promises unkept? Leading up to WWDC 2024, AI had broken into the mainstream, capturing the imagination of early adopters and the general public. Services like Google's Gemini and OpenAI's ChatGPT showcased features that used large language models and generative AI to write, search the internet and create near-photorealistic artwork in a way that only books and movies had imagined before. AI was the future, and all the major tech companies needed to be pointed in that direction. But Apple, being secretive by nature, kept its AI plans closely guarded. By the time Tim Cook, Apple's CEO, took the stage during last year's WWDC keynote presentation, analysts and financial experts thought the company had fallen way behind on AI, especially after Google featured nothing but AI at its Google I/O event. When Cook introduced Apple Intelligence at WWDC, the collection of features was a more modest approach to incorporating AI into the iPhone and Mac. Far from seeming like a straggler, Apple had us praising a measured, practical rollout. Instead of throwing more slop against the wall, Apple Intelligence promised to focus on practical features like notification summaries and removing distractions from photos. Siri was going to be the loom that wove together various threads of your personal information and become a true virtual assistant. But after a slow rollout of Apple Intelligence features, we learned about Siri's internal struggles, and Apple acknowledged that progress was "going to take us longer than we thought." Now it's unclear whether Siri will advance significantly at all this year. So how will Apple deal with this AI-generated elephant in the room? Will the presenters hype what's been accomplished so far? Or maybe ignore the issue altogether and focus on whatever is coming next? That seems like the most likely -- the most Apple -- way for this to go. However, let's not forget that WWDC as a whole is still primarily an event for developers, treating them like members of an exclusive club even as the keynote event serves to showcase technologies that will dominate the rest of the year for everyone else. Apple's senior vice president of software engineering, Craig Federighi, has consistently delivered news with a light touch. As just one example, the fabulously coiffed exec, sometimes referred to as "Hair Force One," even donned a silver hair-shaped helmet during the introduction to WWDC 2024 in the guise of parachuting over Apple's Cupertino, California, campus. "Hair Force One," Craig Federighi, prepares to skydive into last year's WWDC keynote presentation. Apple/Screenshot by Jeff Carlson/CNET And even though tech giants like Apple and Google are laser-focused on competing to own the AI future, they're not always so serious that they don't poke fun at each other, as Rohan Shah, senior product manager, Android platform, did during this year's Google I/O Android Show when he mentioned that Gemini "isn't just an app," and continued out of the side of his mouth, "like on some other phones." I'm guessing Federighi will have a few clever lines acknowledging that Apple's aspirations were higher than the state of the art, give the audience a "we all know what I mean" knowing wink, and then push through to what's new in the next versions. Because honestly, we'll all be wondering how Apple is going to move forward to make up the ground it's lost so far. We'll know for sure during the WWDC 2025 keynote presentation on Monday, June 9, which Apple will stream live starting at 10 a.m. PT. Members of the CNET team are attending the event to report on developments as they drop -- hopefully not from the sky by parachute this year.
Engadget
an hour ago
- Engadget
The head of Tesla's Optimus humanoid robot program leaves the company
Milan Kovac, who leads Tesla's Optimus humanoid robotics program, is leaving the automaker. In a post on X, Milan talked about how he joined Tesla as an engineer for the core Autopilot team in 2016 and how he started leading the Optimus group in 2022. He explained that he's leaving his position, because he's "been far away from home for too long and will need to spend more time with family abroad." Kovac stressed that it was the only reason he's leaving and that his support for Elon Musk and the Tesla team was "ironclad," perhaps insinuating that his decision had nothing to do with Musk's politics or recent fallout with the president. Tesla first announced that it was working on a humanoid robot in 2021, though it wasn't able to debut an actual prototype until a year a later in 2022. Musk said back then Optimus will be able to move at 5 mph and carry loads up to 45 pounds. He also said that he expects it to sell for $20,000 each when built at volume and claimed that the machines can give the company a $25 trillion market cap. Since then, Tesla has demonstrated Optimus' ability to handle an egg, cook meals, fold the laundry and throw the trash. The robot doesn't have a solid release date yet. Musk said back in April that the robot's production had been affected by China's export restrictions of rare earth magnets, so it's most likely not going to be anytime soon. Bloomberg , which reported Kovac's departure first, said he's leaving the company immediately. Ashok Elluswamy, who's leading the company's Autopilot group, is taking over his responsibilities. If you buy something through a link in this article, we may earn commission.
