Here’s how Apple is betting on developers, privacy, and patience to reinvent itself again in the age of AI

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On April 1, 1976, three people signed paperwork in a garage in Los Altos and officially founded Apple $AAPL Computer. One of them was gone in 12 days. The other two stuck around long enough to change the world.

That bumpy start eventually produced the most valuable company on earth, the computer in your back pocket, and a culture that turned a half-eaten fruit logo into a personality. But half a century in, Apple is, weirdly, an underdog again.

As the world has become obsessed with AI, Apple has faltered. The AI overhaul of Siri that Apple promised its users has slipped, with no firm timeline. Its stock spent much of 2025 in the Magnificent Seven's basement. The company that once made the future look inevitable has spent the last couple of years looking like it's chasing it.

Still. Almost two decades of App Store economics built a billion loyal users and a developer ecosystem that might now........

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