Apple lacks strategic vision

Overall view of Apple’s position

• Many argue Apple is still executing well: extremely valuable, strong consumer preference, dominant profits in its niches, and huge cash gives it years of room to experiment or wait.
• Others see stagnation: few new product categories, heavy focus on extracting services revenue and polishing existing lines, with leadership characterized as operational rather than visionary.

Innovation vs polish

• Recurring claim: Apple is primarily an iterator/polisher, not a first-mover inventor. Its strength is taking existing ideas (smartphones, laptops, wireless earbuds) and making the definitive, mass-market version.
• Counterpoint: that is innovation in practice; almost all modern products are incremental, and Apple repeatedly redefines category norms so others follow.
• Disagreement over whether Apple Silicon and AirPods were “expected from any well-run company” or genuinely bold, hard-to-copy bets.

AI strategy and Siri

• Critics: Apple’s AI push (especially Siri and “Apple Intelligence”) is late, underwhelming, and in some cases misleadingly marketed; Siri looks embarrassing next to ChatGPT/Claude.
• Supporters: generative AI is unreliable; Apple is right to avoid “maximal integration” and focus on narrow, useful, privacy-preserving, mostly on-device features (Photos search, local LLMs).
• Strategic worry: AI agents could become the primary interface, commoditizing apps and hardware and bypassing Apple’s control. Others suspect AI will settle into a niche and not upend everything.
• Some argue not chasing the AI hype too hard could become an advantage if/when an “AI winter” or bubble pop arrives.

Hardware, Apple Silicon, and ecosystem

• Broad agreement that Apple Silicon was a huge perf/watt and battery leap that enabled fanless, quiet, long-lasting laptops and strong local ML/LLM potential.
• Debate whether this was true strategic vision versus riding a new process node and copying prior ARM/SoC trends; disagreement over whether competitors have now “caught up.”
• Some see software and UX quality slipping (visual design like “liquid glass,” iOS-ification of macOS, tighter walled garden), undermining otherwise excellent hardware.

Markets, cars, and strategic scope

• Some think canceling the EV/self‑driving car was Cook’s biggest strategic mistake and a lost chance at a new growth market.
• Others argue autos are low-margin, operationally brutal, and misaligned with Apple’s strengths; better to deepen personal-device and “personal AI machine” roles instead.