Apple made history on Tuesday by becoming just the second publicly traded company ever to hit a market capitalization of $5 trillion. The Cupertino based tech giant had hit $4 trillion last year in October. This fresh high makes Apple the most valuable company in the world, as AI doubts cast a shadow over NVIDIA.
What’s fuelling Apple’s rise?
Apple stock went up by 24 percent over the year and nearly 60 percent in the last 12 months, largely driven by robust iPhone sales and lower AI spending. While the iPhone maker has been criticized by users and investors alike for falling behind in the AI race, especially compared to Google, it has gained in revenue by avoiding huge spending toward AI.
In 2024, Apple had launched its Apple Intelligence platform, but has largely delayed upgrading key features, including an improved version of its voice assistant, Siri.
AI: From bane to boon
Apple’s withdrawal from plans to ramp up its AI infrastructure and products led to massive executive shakeups which led to the company signing a partnership with tech rival, Google. The deal allowed Apple to use Google’s Gemini AI models to boost its voice assistant features.
Apple has now, once again, promised to upgrade Siri with features more in line with users’ expectations and at par with its competitors. Reports suggest Apple is set to unveil the redesigned Siri as a beta alongside its eagerly awaited foldable iPhone and the iPhone 18 later this year.
Apple’s partnership with OpenAI also soured as the AI company decided to move away from the deal as it felt the collaboration had not given the expected results.
Apart from Siri upgrades, AI has also hit Apple in the memory and storage shortage
AI, however, has hit Apple in another way forcing it to deal with the global memory and supply-shortage crisis forcing the company to raise prices on its Mac and iPad range of models. All this comes at a time when CEO Tim Cook prepares to hand over the reins to newly appointed top executive John Ternus, who is set to take over on September 1.
Lawsuit over crypto wallet app on its App Store
Apple is facing a complaint over a fake Bitcoin wallet on its App Store which has been active on the platform for over a week despite a customer reporting having lost $875,000 due to a scam.
The case alleges that another user lost $840,000 mainly due to delay by Apple in removing the fake Bitcoin wallet from its App Store. In the lawsuit, three users say they collectively lost $1.84 million after downloading what turned out to be a fake Sparrow Wallet and entering their Bitcoin seed phrases.
These phrases are unique combinations which allow users to control and transact in digital assets from a crypto wallet. These users claim Apple’s marketing and terms misled them into believing the apps on its store were vetted and verified.
The suit accuses Apple of misrepresentation, negligence, fraud, and of violating consumer-protection laws. It alleges that Apple failed to warn consumers of risks and did not have sufficient guardrails in place to prevent scams targeting users on its platform.
Apple has faced similar allegations earlier too. In 2021, users had taken the consumer tech company to court but the case was dismissed by a federal judge.
In the present case, Apple is said to have put the fake app in a ranked curated cryptocurrency app collection along with genuine Bitcoin wallets.
Complainants have sought reimbursement of the lost digital assets, compensatory and punitive damages, and even cumulative damages.
Apple says it has removed the fake app and banned the developer accounts associated with it.
