[fairenough42]

Are they moving into ads as the hardware business dries up for them? In my personal experience, many people don't replace their phones as often as they did, say, 10 years ago. A similar story played out earlier with laptops. There's no obvious new hardware category for Apple to pivot into so maybe software is their next play.

[yellow_postit]

They tried before from 2010-2016 [1]. I do think this is their long term play — getting credit card transaction data and shutting others out.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IAd

[scarface74]

They don’t have any way to access credit card data unless you have an Apple credit card. Even then, I don’t think Goldman Sachs share the data with them.

[jodrellblank]

>There's no obvious new hardware category for Apple to pivot into

Was it obvious that AirPods would become a $4Bn revenue stream, or that Watch would take the lion’s share of the watch market despite having battery life of <1 day, or that Apple computer would move into regulator approved consumer heart monitoring?

Rumours of Apple TV and Apple Car and an Apple AR gadget have been around a long time.

[copp]

Yes they are. Ads in Apstore and News.

[jackjeff]

They’re selling watches, they just released the iPhone SE which competes with mid-range Android phones, and they have new revenues from their rent seeking activities on App Store and Apple Pay. In addition, their new line of Mac ARM will remove the Intel tax. I think they’ll do just fine without becoming another advertisement company.

[spideymans]

>There's no obvious new hardware category for Apple to pivot into so maybe software is their next play.

Lets revisit this comment in a year or two when they release their AR and VR products.

[scarface74]

You have looked at their latest earnings haven’t you?

[saagarjha]

Not software but services.

[throwaway2048]

saying their hardware business is "drying up" is some pretty extreme hyperbole