Apple still thinks different at 50

TL;DR: Today is Apple’s 50th birthday. The nearly $4 trillion consumer hardware giant got its humble start in a Bay Area garage on April Fools’ Day a half-century ago. Now, as AI reshapes Silicon Valley, Apple is still “thinking differently” from its Big Tech rivals—including when it comes to its eyebrow-raising AI strategy.

What happened: Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak—and lesser known co-founder Ronald Wayne—signed a document establishing the Apple Computer Company on April 1, 1976. Fast-forward 50 years, and the suburban garage has given way to a massive ring-shaped office in Cupertino, California, with 166,000 employees.

The company reinvented itself several times in those decades—perhaps most famously when Jobs returned in 1997 to pull the company back from the brink. That led to a string of hits: the iMac, the iPod, and eventually the iPhone, the 2007 release of which redefined the tech industry for years to come.

Watch and wait: Apple notably wasn’t first to any of these categories. But its products became synonymous with each, thanks to a focus on sleek, intuitive design and mass-market appeal. Apple’s strategy has long been to let the initial tech frenzy play out, then arrive later with a more polished mainstream-ready device.

A new wave of transformative technology is now putting that tack to the test. Companies like Microsoft, Alphabet, Meta, and Amazon are collectively pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into new generative AI infrastructure, racing to roll out new chatbots, and folding AI into every nook and cranny of their products.

Apple is pushing into AI, too, but its moves have been much more restrained. Apple only spent $12.7 billion in capital expenditures—i.e., data centers for AI—in its fiscal year that ended last September. (By comparison, Meta spent $72 billion, and Alphabet spent $91 billion, with both numbers set to climb this year.)

While these companies are building giant cloud-based models, Apple is focused on smaller systems that can run on-device, leaning into its custom silicon and hardware strengths. And its Siri assistant remains somewhat quaint in an era where AI chatbots are standing in as people’s best friends, coworkers, and doctors.

Last laugh?: Apple Intelligence was widely seen as somewhat underwhelming when it first rolled out in late 2024—nearly two years after ChatGPT. Even today, Apple’s AI offerings are nowhere near as prominent as those of its rivals.

And yet Apple’s share price has grown more than Microsoft, Meta, and Amazon in the past year. The company still reaps rewards—at least $1 billion in AI revenue, per one estimate—from subscriptions within AI apps on its App Store.

Apple is now reportedly planning to allow more third-party models to integrate with Siri, positioning it as a hub for different AI models.

In memoriam: In honor of its birthday, here’s a look back at some Apple devices we lost over the years.

• The iPod shuffle (2005-2017): The tiniest screenless member of the iPod family was a great workout companion.

• The iBook (1999-2006): A more colorful clamshell precursor to the Macbook.

• The AirPort (1999-2018): Apple’s bulbous wireless routers and network cards were sleeker than your average connective device.

Bottom line: As Apple turns 50, the question is whether its covetous position in the device market—one that some AI companies are chasing—allows it the luxury to lag behind in the AI race. So far, Apple’s pinpoint focus on its consumer hardware strengths hasn’t seemed to hurt it much financially. Will Apple be able to successfully apply its iPhone formula to AI? —PK