Apple’s string of 2025 setbacks is a blessing in disguise. Here’s why

In last week’s column, I managed to find the cloud (looming financial and political uncertainty) floating around the silver lining that was Apple’s record-breaking quarterly results. But this week I thought I’d look at the situation from a more optimistic point of view. There are problems for Apple, almost everywhere you look. But if the company responds to them in the right spirit, this represents a golden opportunity for beneficial change.

In contrast with startups, which love to move fast and break things, established corporations tend to be slow and reluctant to change direction. If Tim Cook woke up tomorrow and decided that Apple should pivot from consumer tech to, I don’t know, cupcakes, he would need to run that decision by advisors and VPs and the board of directors, face a huge shareholder revolt, and likely give up on the whole thing (or lose his job). He’s in charge, but the corporate structure has been designed to make it as hard as possible for a rogue CEO to rock the boat with radical ideas.

This approach has its benefits because it means a single hare-brained executive can’t easily cause sudden disaster. But it can leave big companies vulnerable to slow decline when solutions seem scary in the short term. And in such situations, it can be oddly beneficial to hit rock bottom.

Let me give you a sporting analogy. In 2015, the England cricket team crashed out of the World Cup in humiliating fashion, clueless about modern innovations and the way the game had evolved. But this debacle meant it was impossible to ignore the fundamental problems afflicting the hidebound institutions and cautious mentality of English cricket, and the new captain was given a mandate for change. He brought in new ideas, new players, and told the team to play in the right spirit and without fear. And four years later, that team of no-hopers was (just barely) crowned champions of the world.

Apple may not have lost by 15 runs to Bangladesh. But it’s had more than its fair share of defeats in 2025.

There have been legal thrashings. Late last month, a judge accused the company of insubordination and imposed harsh (but hardly undeserved) penalties. A week before that, the EU levied a €500M fine for violating the Digital Markets Act. And only last week, news broke that a successful class-action suit over Siri listening is now proceeding to the payout stage.

What about product releases? This normally secure part of Apple’s strategy looks troubled, too. Aside from Vision Pro (so niche as to be effectively irrelevant) and Apple Intelligence (not fit for purpose), the Apple Watch’s lamentable numbers are becoming increasingly hard to ignore, with the device now wallowing in measurable global decline for a full two years. And the iPhone, so crucial to Cupertino’s hopes, may not be as healthy as the slight growth recorded in the Q2 report might suggest: data now hints that it only managed that figure because of tariff-related panic buying, bringing purchases forward from later in the year and storing up trouble for the future.

Talking of tariffs, Apple faces political uncertainty as well. As I discussed last week, the company’s relationship with President Trump is a double-edged sword: the days of walking a neutrality tightrope and managing not to offend anyone are behind us, and the demographics that traditionally support Apple are far less likely to favor Trump. Veer one way politically, and Apple risks enraging its core user base; veer the other, and it could lose that vital tariff exemption. And price hikes loom either way.

Apple always presents a brave and unperturbed face to the world, but rest assured that this sequence of reversals and failures has registered at C-suite, board, and shareholder level. Which can be a positive. Now, if Tim Cook goes to the board with a radical proposal, he might actually get a fair hearing.

How could Apple change in response to its horrible start to 2025? It could finally reimagine its relationship with developers, switching from tyrannical platform owner to genuine partner: lower fees, relax rules, put more resources into curation and vetting to reduce the number of scammers and cloners, and foster real innovation. This would all cut into the bottom line, of course, but it would get regulators and lawyers off Apple’s back and ultimately benefit the user. And the way things are going in the Epic case, Apple might have to do quite a lot of this anyway; why not lean into the verdict, cancel the appeal, and do more than the judge demands? Now more than ever, Apple needs goodwill and positive PR.

On the product front, Apple has long adopted a minimum-innovation policy, where devices are exactly as much of an upgrade on the previous generation as they need to be, and no more. That’s why the Apple Watch is suffering. That’s why so few people are excited about the prospect of the iPhone 17. But having stored up iterative releases for years, the company is in a great position to announce big upgrades in 2025 and 2026. Make a folding phone. Make a phone with no ports. Push the specs and play with the designs. Act as if you’ve just been knocked out of the metaphorical World Cup—this is no time to be fearful.

Rather than tinkering with specific plans, Apple needs a complete change in mindset. It needs to stop being a company that focuses on profit and go back to just making great products and trusting that the profits will follow. For a giant company, a change of that magnitude is generally possible only when it faces an existential threat, such as the imminent bankruptcy that brought Steve Jobs back to the company in 1997. Today’s threat is more subtle, and the dangers more distant, but it offers a second opportunity to reset and find a better path.

Foundry

Welcome to our weekly Apple Breakfast column, which includes all the Apple news you missed last week in a handy bite-sized roundup. We call it Apple Breakfast because we think it goes great with a Monday morning cup of coffee or tea, but it’s cool if you want to give it a read during lunch or dinner hours too.

Trending: Top stories

Nearly three decades later, Apple owes everything to the iMac.

Give up the App Store purchase fight, Apple, says the Macalope. It’s just not worth it.

Apple Arcade is the best Apple service you’re not using.

Filipe Esposito made his 64GB iPhone usable again without spending a single cent.

Here are 9 Android features iOS 19 desperately needs.

Alex Blake sideloaded a Reddit client onto his iPhone. He never wants to do it again.

Apple admits it may need to raise prices to deal with tariffs.

Halyna Kubiv tested every Apple Watch feature for battery drain. The usual advice is wrong.

Got an iPhone? Here are 11 features you’re probably not using–but should.

Podcast of the week

iCloud, Apple TV+, Apple Music, these are just some of the parts to Apple’s Services, which have become a bigger and bigger part of the Apple ecosystem. In the latest episode of the Macworld Podcast, we discuss the state of these services—what they mean to Apple, but most importantly, what they mean to you.

You can catch every episode of the Macworld Podcast on YouTube, Spotify, Soundcloud, the Podcasts app, or our own site.

Reviews corner

• Carbonite Safe review: Doing what iCloud can’t.
• Lexar Professional Go Portable SSD with Hub (SL400) review: A good option for mobile film-makers.
• Torras Ostand OAir iPhone Case review: Come for the color, stay for the buttons.

The rumor mill

Apple’s solution to the iPhone 17 Air’s poor battery life? A chunky battery pack.

Apple might not release the iPhone 18 until 2027, in a massive change to its launch strategy.

It sure looks like AI-powered search is coming to Safari.

Interested in iPadOS 19? Here’s everything you need to know.

Software updates, bugs, and problems

iOS 18.5 RC is out now—here are the release notes.

And with that, we’re done for this week’s Apple Breakfast. If you’d like to get regular roundups, sign up for our newsletters, including our new email from The Macalope–an irreverent, humorous take on the latest news and rumors from a half-man, half-mythical Mac beast. You can also follow us on Facebook, Threads, Bluesky, or X for discussion of breaking Apple news stories. See you next Monday, and stay Appley.