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Chris Welch is a reviewer specializing in personal audio and home theater. Since 2011, he has published nearly 6,000 articles, from breaking news and reviews to useful how-tos.
As has become an annual tradition, Apple just reported blockbuster earnings for the company’s most recent holiday quarter. “Today Apple is reporting our best quarter ever, with revenue of $124.3 billion, up four percent from a year ago,” CEO Tim Cook said in a press release. Revenue was up nearly across the board for the company’s Mac, iPad, and services divisions.
But the numbers show a slight dip in year-over-year iPhone revenue, seemingly confirming that Apple Intelligence isn’t doing much to drive iPhone sales. The same goes for that new Camera Control button, I suppose. Cook tried to dismiss the notion that Apple Intelligence isn’t compelling people to upgrade in an interview with CNBC. “During the December quarter, we saw that in markets where we had rolled out Apple intelligence, that the year-over-year performance on the iPhone 16 family was stronger than those markets where we had not rolled out Apple intelligence,” he said.
The standard iPhone 16 models are a particularly excellent value this year, which isn’t always the case. So that could also factor into the slightly lower revenue if fewer people are opting for the Pro variants.
Apple has taken a cautious approach in rolling out its AI-powered features, having only just turned them on by default with this week’s release of iOS 18.3. Cook again confirmed that Apple Intelligence will become available in more languages in April. So far, the tools are convenient and helpful, but not game changing. And those promised improvements to Siri can’t come soon enough.
This tends to be Apple’s most crucial quarter of the year for two reasons. It includes the all-important holiday shopping season, and since the iPhone 16 lineup was on sale for the entire three-month duration, this is our best indication yet of demand for Apple’s latest phones. The company also released several new Macs near the end of last year including a redesigned, much smaller Mac Mini and refreshed MacBook Pros. Revenue for Apple’s wearables business, which includes the Apple Watch and AirPods, was also slightly down compared to the year-ago quarter.
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