Apple's week April 4: going down with the market
I didn't get into writing about technology and Apple to report on political nonsense and regulations. I definitely didn't do it to talk about tariffs, but here we are.
Apple is a giant company in the United States, so of course when the market goes down, so does Apple. It's not a great situation to be in, but I'll try not to delve into the political side of all this. Not because I'm shy from it or don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, but because I'm likely as exhausted as the rest of you.
DOOM ™
The stock market is the worst way to determine how a company is actually doing beyond stockholder sentiment. That's even more true given the outside forces affecting stock prices this week.
Apple's stock is valued less than it was nearly a year ago, but the company is actually holding up pretty well given the situation.
I expect Tim Cook's supply chain-focus will give way to a really strong few months as everyone raises prices. Apple can hold out the longest because of its vast supply chain inventory.
That said, iPhone 17 Pro could cost over $2,000 if tariffs remain in place, which would be incredible. As much as an Apple fan as I am, I'm not sure I could pay such a price, especially since I generally get the Pro Max model with 1TB of storage.
Apple could technically eat some of the cost and try to earn some customer love on this, but the company isn't a charity. While its prices are part of its brand, it can't lose money at such a scale in the name of good optics.
There's another angle here too. Those that want to avoid the pain of tariff inflation can buy existing goods already in the United States. That means preowned, refurbished, and older devices could see a boost in sales as long as tariffs are in place.
iOS 18.4 is here
There's really not much to say about Apple's operating system updates this time around. The Food section of Apple News is excellent, but otherwise the updates are mostly ignorable.
Well, except for Apple Vision Pro owners. For whatever reason, Apple finally added Apple Intelligence to the platform.
For me, this is a big win since my workflow relies on Writing Tools. Previously, I'd either have to take off Apple Vision Pro to edit text on iPad or use the virtual display feature to access the Mac. Either way, not really convenient.
Thankfully, Writing Tools works great on Apple Vision Pro. I just wish apps like Drafts could provide an in-app diff feature.
Apple Health AI doctor
Perhaps the most interesting news of the week outside of Armageddon is potential plans for the future of Apple Intelligence. Rumors suggest Apple might integrate an AI agent with Apple Health that might be a kind of "doctor."
Now, I'm not really buying the doctor part, at least in name. Apple isn't likely to subject itself to the inevitable regulation and lawsuits if it calls this feature a "doctor," but I can see it being more of a "coach."
There is a lot of data in Apple Health, and not all of it is easily human-parsable. Trend analysis helps, but it still isn't that great at helping users unless you're super plugged into the app.
There are people out there, like the ever-chaotic Merlin Mann, that have taken their Health data export and fed it to ChatGPT to ask questions. I expect Apple's new feature will be like this, but all on-device and private.
That's something I can get behind.
Another week
In case you missed it, Ghost has started federating blogs in a kind of beta test. I've already federated mine, though the account name is awful (and will change when it can).
Feel free to follow the account via Mastodon. I'm excited for how this might evolve and if it'll integrate with Bluesky too. At least it'll take a step out of the process of publishing and sharing.
As always, listen to the latest AppleInsider Podcast for more commentary from William and me. It's another fun week, even with all the controversy.
If you're a happy listener, please make it known via a review in Apple Podcasts. We've had several reviews from MAGA hat weirdos complaining that we're not bowing to King Trump, and it's just not representative of our show.
As always, thanks for reading this weekly summary. I know it's not the most exciting piece of work, and it could involve more from me, but life keeps me busy. Get more of me from AppleInsider itself for now, and hopefully I'll be able to publish more here too.
