00:00 Speaker A
Apple, turning 50 today. A company that started in a garage and went on to redefine everything from personal computing to smartphones. But as we mark that milestone, the focus now is less about the past and more about what comes next, with AI reshaping the tech landscape and Apple seen by some as playing catchup here, key question for investors is whether or not the company can reinvent itself once again. Joining me now is Yahoo Finance Tech editor, Dan Howley. Dan, maybe start here. Apple turns 50. Big day down in Cupertino, right? You you’ve been you’ve been thinking about this company for a long time, writing about it, analyzing it. As you think about this milestone, how do you frame it? What does it mean to you?
00:46 Speaker B
I mean, to me it’s it’s incredible to see a company that went from, you know, the high, the highest of highs to near
00:58 Speaker A
Mhm.
00:58 Speaker B
total collapse,
01:00 Speaker A
Mhm.
01:00 Speaker B
now become one of the biggest companies on the planet. Most recognizable. Also, by the way, you know, not for nothing, but as far as brands go, they’re one of the most loved brands.
01:13 Speaker A
As as far as quality goes, right?
01:15 Speaker B
So, I mean, it’s to me it’s just wild to see that, you know, I I I wrote a piece on this on yahoofinance.com about how uh this is a company that is so good at changing. Right? It’s it’s never holding on to a constant. when it does, that’s when it it’s it’s not succeeding. right? Like when it had those dark periods in the the the ’90s, the late ’90s, it really wasn’t doing anything transformative. But as you see them change through the years, that’s when they’re doing their best. when they’re going from personal computing to audio and to consumer electronics, dropping Apple computers and just becoming Apple, going on to the iPhone, iPad, trying all of these different types of of of of categories, that’s when you see Apple at its best.
02:11 Speaker A
Would you consider the iPhone the most successful consumer product of all time?
02:17 Speaker B
Ooh, that’s interesting, right? I I think so. I mean individually as a product, yeah, you know, there have been other smartphones, there’s other smartphone manufacturers. Apple isn’t the largest smartphone maker in the world. They’re among the largest smartphone makers in the world. But you look what they did and they essentially created an entire economy.
02:44 Speaker A
It’s not only what you can do with the iPhone. How many imitators did it spawn?
02:48 Speaker B
Well, that’s the other thing, right? I mean, you look at the companies that they also put out of business. Nokia, right? I mean, Microsoft tried to buy them. Let’s not talk about that. Uh Blackberry just, you know, went the way of the dinosaur as well. And they’ve seen these companies, you know, uh I think it was it was um uh Google was about to launch an an Android phone and uh uh uh they had seen what it was going to what the iPhone was, what what Steve Jobs had rolled out. And they said, all right, well we got to scrap this. We got to go back to to the drawing board because this just annihilates what we were going to do. And so, you know, you have seen all of these types of changes over time.
03:36 Speaker B
what’s that next product going to be has been the big question for Tim Cook. And I think that that’s part of the question that will, you know, his legacy will lead on. but we we were just talking, you know, uh uh before we came on about how people just kind of dismiss services. That’s the second largest…
03:56 Speaker A
Well, I was going to I was going to get the Dan Howley take, and there of course you see Cook and Jobs. Um your take on Cook who has led this company for a long time now. What grade would you give him?
04:12 Speaker B
I would give him an A+. I mean, look look at what what the market cap is for this company. And also, by the way, the quality has not dropped.
