But they already have a billion devices with NPUs doing essentially nothing. I don't see any strategy at all, other than outsourcing a potentially core function to Google.
If you think your competitors are committing financial suicide by borrowing money they don’t have to fund a project with a dubious rate of return, you wait and see.
Fine, but then why put specialized silicon in a billion devices, and then leave it totally unused by outsourcing their intended functionality to a competitor? And what do you do when that competitor (and others) release agents to manage users' personal while Siri is still a laughingstock? And then when that competitors (and others) are starting to build super-apps, how long would you continue to block super-apps and sue their makers to protect your App Store moat?
To me, the "wait and see" approach looks more like "we have no strategy for the hottest technology revolution in decades that threatens a bunch of our moats." Maybe they're hoping that the bubble pops and then they can pick up a suitable AI company on the cheap -- thankfully they have buttloads of cash -- but you know what they say about hope and strategies...
Personally I'm hoping for strong on-device AI capabilities to reduce dependency on the clouds / AI labs, but I'm losing hope that it'll be from Apple.