Formula 1 F1 – United States Grand Prix – Circuit of the Americas, Austin, Texas, States
Mike Segar | Reuters
Apple had two major launches last month. They could not have been more different.
Firstly, Apple revealed some of the progress of artificial intelligence on which he had worked in the past year when he published developer versions of his operating systems to mute applause during his annual conference of the developer, WWDC. Then, at the end of the month, Apple struck the red carpet as its first real successful film, “F1”, made its debut more than $ 155 million – and glowing critics – in its first weekend.
While “F1” was a victory tour for Apple, highlighting the strength of its long -term prospects, the growth of its service business and its ability to exploit culture, Wall Street’s reaction to the IA ads from the company to WWDC suggest that there are problems under the hood.
“F1” has shown Apple to its best – in particular, its ability to invest in new long -term projects. When Apple TV + was launched in 2019, it had only one handful of original programs and a film, a darling from the film festival called “Hala” which did not even share its income from the box office.
Despite Apple TV + be removed as an expensive side projectApple has remained with its plan over the years, expanding its staff and its operation to Culver City, California. This allowed the company to create Hollywood connections, in particular for television programs, and to build an entertainment report. Now, an Apple original can lead the box office a summer weekend, the first season for successful films.
The success of “F1” also highlights the important Apple marketing machine and the ability to reveal renowned talents with its leadership. Apple released all stops to market the film, including Using its portfolio application To send a push notification with a discount for tickets for the film. To promote “F1”, cook appeared With the film star Brad Pitt in an Apple store in New York and posted a video With the real runner F1 Lewis Hamilton, who was one of the film’s producers.
(LR) Brad Pitt, Lewis Hamilton, Tim Cook and Damson Idris attend the world premiere of “F1: The Movie” in Times Square on June 16, 2025 in New York.
Jamie McCarthy | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty images
Although the head of the Apple Eddy Cue services said in A recent interview That Apple needs that the trade in his cinema will be profitable to “continue to do great things”, “F1” is not only the bottom line of the company.
Apple Hollywood productions are perhaps the most important face of the company’s service company, an engine to profit that has been an investor favorite since the iPhone manufacturer began to highlight the division in 2016.
Films will never be a small fraction of the service unit, which also includes payments, iCloud subscriptions, magazine bundles, Apple music, game packages, guarantees, costs related to digital payments and sales sales. In addition, even the largest SMASHS at the box office would be low on the Apple scale – the company achieves an average of more than a billion dollars in sales.
But films are the only component of services that can reveal celebrities like Pitt or George Clooney alongside an Apple logo – and the success of “F1” means that Apple could make more great popcorn films in the future.
“Nothing to generate success or inspires future investments as a current success,” said Paul Dergarabedian, analyst of the Senior media in Comscore.
But if “F1” is a sign that Apple’s activities are booming, the difficulties of the company’s AI are a light of “control engine” that does not go out.
Siri engine replacement
At WWDC last month, Wall Street was impatient to hear about the company’s plans for Apple Intelligence, its AI functionalities that it revealed in 2024. Apple Intelligence, which is a key principle of the company’s material products, had A deployment was spoiled by delays and disappointing characteristics.
Apple has passed most of WWDC to review smaller automatic learning features, but has not revealed what investors and consumers want more and more: a sophisticated Siri who can converse with fluid and do things, like doing a restaurant reservation. In the era of the Openai Chatpt, the Claude d’Anthropic and Google Gemini, the expectation of AI assistants among consumers exceeds “Siri, how is he?”
The company had previewed a SIRI considerably improved in the summer of 2024, but earlier this year, these features were delayed at 2026. At WWDC, Apple did not offer any update on SIRI improved beyond what the company “continued its work to offer” the functionalities of “the coming year”. Some observers have reduced their expectations for Apple AI after the conference.
“The current expectations for the Apple Intelligence to launch a super upgrade cycle are too high, in our opinion,” wrote Jefferies analysts this week.
Siri should be an example of Apple’s ability to improve long -term products and projects, it is difficult to compete.
He beat almost all other vocal assistants on the market when he made his debut for the first time on Iphones in 2011. Fourteen years later, Siri remains essentially the same unique system, rigid, of questions and answers which fights with questions and open dates, even after the invention of the last years of sophisticated vocal robots based on the generative technology of AI which can hold a conversation.
The strongest rivals of Apple, including Android Parent Google, have done much more to integrate the assistants of sophisticated AI in their devices than Apple. And Google does not have the same reflex against data collection and the processing of the cloud as Apple obsessed with confidentiality.
Some analysts said they believe Apple has a few years before the lack of features of the company’s competitive AI will begin to appear in the sales of devices, given the large installed base of the company and the high loyalty of customers. But Apple cannot be attached before entering the race, and its former design guru Jony IV is now working on new hardware stores with Openai, increasing the pressure in Cupertino.
“The three -year problem, which is within an investment period, is that Android takes place in advance,” said Laura Martin, Internet analyst of Needham, on CNBC this week.
The success of Apple’s services with projects like “F1” is an example of what the company can do when it defines clear objectives in public, then performs them on prolonged deadlines.
Its AI strategy could use a similar long -term plan because customers and investors wonder when Apple fully adopts the technology that has captivated Silicon Valley.
The anxiety of Wall Street on the struggles of Apple’s AI was obvious this week after Bloomberg reported that Apple was planning to replace the Siri engine with anthropogenic or Openai technology, as opposed to its own foundation models.
This decision, if it were to happen, would contradict one of the most important strategies of Apple in the Cook era: Apple wants Have its basic technologiesLike the touch screen, the processor, the modem and card software, not buy them from suppliers.
The use of external technology would be the intake that the Apple Foundation models are not yet good enough for what the company wants to do with Siri.
“They fell further and further, and they need to overeat their generative AI efforts,” said Martin. “They cannot do this internally.”
Apple could even pay billions for the use of AI from Anthropic software, according to the Bloomberg report. If Apple was to pay for AI, it would be a reversal of current service offers, such as the research agreement with alphabet where Cupertino is paid $ 20 billion per year to push iPhone traffic to Google Search.
The company did not confirm the report and refused to comment, but Wall Street praised the report and Apple actions increased.
In the world of AI in Silicon Valley, the signing of bonuses for the types of engineers that can develop new models can go up to $ 100 million OPENAI CEO Sam Altman.
“I can’t see Apple doing this,” said Martin.
Earlier this week, the meta-PDG Mark Zuckerberg sent a service note that boasts to hire 11 IA experts from companies such as Openai, Anthropic and Deepmind de Google. This came after Zuckerberg hired the CEO of the AI scale, Alexandr Wang, to lead a new Division of AI as part of an agreement of $ 14.3 billion.
Meta is not the only company to spend hundreds of millions for AI celebrities to bring them into the building. Google spent big to hire the character founders. Ai, Microsoft obtained its head of AI by concluding an agreement with the inflection and Amazon hiring The management team of the follower to put on their AI list.
Apple, however, has not announced any big hiring of AI in recent years. While Cook rubs the shoulders with Pitt, the real race can pass the apple.
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