Apple quarterly earnings reviews are usually not normally fodder for client curiosity. It is loads of gross sales numbers and explanations about why the falling greenback, rising yen, or China headwinds are impacting gross sales and earnings outcomes.
With out the advantage of product introductions, it may be a snoozefest, however this time needs to be completely different, and largely due to Apple’s not-so-great 12 months.
Put merely, Apple has loads of explaining to do. So whereas Apple CFO Kevan Parekh and CEO Tim Prepare dinner will spend the primary half of the earnings name that’s set for Thursday, July 31 at 5PM ET (2PM PT / 10PM BST), droning by way of income, working bills, capital, and even inventory splits, it is the open name with analysts that needs to be most illuminating, vital, and, presumably, even entertaining a part of the occasion.
Analysts needs to be quizzing Prepare dinner and firm on these juicy subjects:
AI and Apple Intelligence
As I famous above, Apple has fallen far behind within the all-important AI race, and guarantees that the up to date Siri will present up “within the coming 12 months” are lower than comforting, particularly since that could be subsequent 12 months.
Analysts will rightly demand specifics. And whereas I don’t anticipate Prepare dinner to get pinned down, he may supply some assurance {that a} Siri that may compete with, say, Gemini or ChatGPT, will arrive by the top of this 12 months, versus slipping into 2026.
I might like to see analysts press Prepare dinner on Apple’s total AI technique, one which I imagine is flawed for being too cautious. The competitors is flying down AI Freeway with abandon, and with Superintelligence or Common Synthetic Intelligence on the horizon, Apple can’t afford to take the sluggish method. Any extra delays and Apple will lose extra than simply this AI race.
New Merchandise
Throughout each earnings name, analysts make determined makes an attempt to get Prepare dinner to say upcoming merchandise. He by no means does, however Prepare dinner will discuss vaguely about “the perfect lineup ever” of upcoming applied sciences. His enthusiasm can typically communicate volumes about what to anticipate and if any of it should transfer the needle.
Imaginative and prescient Professional pump up
Despite the fact that Imaginative and prescient Professional fails to dazzle on the gross sales facet, it stays essentially the most highly effective and maybe the perfect client know-how Apple has ever produced. I anticipate Prepare dinner to focus on client and enterprise curiosity, in addition to current content material successes, such because the Bono Documentary.
It is the analysts’ job, although, to press Prepare dinner right here and see if they will get him to confess that Imaginative and prescient Professional won’t ever be a client product, no less than not at its present value.
AR embrace (iGlasses, anybody?)
A great segue right here can be a return for Prepare dinner to mentions of an AR future. Apple’s wearable recreation can’t stay confined to watches and earbuds, not when Meta is making hay with all these Meta Good Glasses from Ray-Ban and Oakley.
If we solely think about AR glasses, Apple nonetheless has a while since Google, Samsung, and Meta are all nonetheless making an attempt to determine how one can make high-quality lenses that don’t want the majority of bigger frames to assist them.
Might analysts goad Prepare dinner into mentioning future “iGlasses”?
Ethereal or flexible telephone prospects
Most individuals anticipate Apple to ship its thinnest iPhone ever this September within the type of an iPhone 17 Air. Prepare dinner won’t title this product, however he may point out “new type elements,” which may very well be referring to the thinner Air and, possibly, a folding iPhone.
In each areas, although, Apple is behind Samsung, which now has the perfect and thinnest foldable design within the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 and an admirably skinny, if uninspiring, Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge.
Analysts will need no less than a touch that Apple has a solution for all this.
Tariffs and US-based manufacturing
Prepare dinner won’t wish to discuss US-based manufacturing, tariffs, or the man who calls him a buddy, President Trump. However analysts will ask and press for projections on how tariffs may influence iPhone and different Apple gadget pricing.
Right here, I anticipate Prepare dinner to supply no less than some shade, if not concrete projections. He’ll discuss once more about how Apple is ready for provide chain fluctuations, which embody part pricing strain. He’ll guarantee everybody that Apple has a plan for this unsure future.
Prepare dinner may remind folks about how Apple has already diversified manufacturing in order that it is not all in China and level to the $500 billion funding within the US, which most not too long ago has included manufacturing coaching applications for upcoming businesspeople and their companies.
I do not know if that may fulfill everybody, particularly not Trump, who has constantly demanded that Apple construct the iPhone within the US.
At the very least Prepare dinner will get to tout the ocean modifications coming to all of Apple’s main platforms and the influence of Liquid Glass on, for example, the iPhone. iOS 26, iPadOS 26, and macOS 26 are huge updates and ones that, whether or not or not folks love them, do promise to alter how they use these platforms.
General, this may very well be one very thrilling and even contentious earnings report, and I will have my popcorn prepared.
