Apple's Recent Leadership Changes Suggest Transition From iPhone Reliance to Focus on Services

A new report out today by The Wall Street Journal takes a look at the recent shake ups to Apple leadership, and how the changes could be an indicator that the company is transitioning from relying on iPhone sales to prioritizing its services business and other divisions.

johngiannandrea

Newly appointed executive John Giannandrea also heads Siri development

Specifically, the report claims that recent hires, departures, promotions, and restructurings have led to several projects being put on hold while the new managers reassess priorities. This has left many existing Apple employees "rattled" as they have become unaccustomed to such frequent changes in leadership prior to the shake up at the company.

The primary reasons for the shifts vary by division. But collectively, they reflect Apple’s efforts to transition from an iPhone-driven company into one where growth flows from services and potentially transformative technologies.

These changes include the promotion of John Giannandrea to senior vice president, from a machine learning and AI role. After his promotion, Giannandrea decided to move Bill Stasior, head of ‌Siri‌, to a lower role at the company. In terms of high-profile departures, retail chief Angela Ahrendts recently left Apple after spending five years with the company. These three major changes happened within the past two-and-a-half months.

Along with the staffing updates, Apple has trimmed around 200 employees from its autonomous vehicle project, and continues to redirect much of its engineering resources into its streaming TV service ahead of the planned 2019 launch.

“This is a sign the company is trying to get the formula right for the next decade,” said Gene Munster, a longtime Apple analyst and managing partner at venture-capital firm Loup Ventures. “Technology is evolving, and they need to continue to tweak their structure to be sure they’re on the right curve.”

Now, Apple is focusing on building its services catalog and enhancing artificial intelligence features, which should in turn encourage more hardware sales. Replacing Stasior as the head of ‌Siri‌, Giannandrea is said to be "looking to improve ‌Siri‌'s accuracy and performance."

‌iPhone‌ sales dipped over the 2018 holiday season, leading to many reports about Apple's new plans to combat stagnating smartphone sales. The company is said to have cut back on new hires, and in January Apple lowered its revenue guidance for the first quarter of the 2019 fiscal year by up to $9 billion due to fewer ‌iPhone‌ upgrades than it anticipated.

appleservices
At the same time, Apple's services business hit an all-time high in Q1 2019, up 19 percent year-on-year. During the first fiscal quarter of 2019, Apple's services business brought in $10.9 billion in revenue, including platforms like iTunes, the App Store, the Mac App Store, Apple Music, Apple Pay, and AppleCare. Thanks to their success in the wake of flagging ‌iPhone‌ sales, these services are expected to be a growing focus for the company over the next few years.

Top Rated Comments

Pepe4life Avatar
67 months ago
How about focusing on hardware? The entire Mac line is a joke at this point.
Score: 44 Votes (Like | Disagree)
tevion5 Avatar
67 months ago
Could they focus on pricing Macs and iPhones at levels that don't push even die-hard Apple zealots like me to near breaking point.
Score: 20 Votes (Like | Disagree)
az431 Avatar
67 months ago
I know a lot of commenters here will bemoan this but Apple will not survive if they do not increase their services. They will still be heavily involved in hardware but services are the growing future of the tech industry.
Apple has never demonstrated much competency in delivering services, so if Apple does not survive, it will because they shifted their focus to something they suck at.
Score: 20 Votes (Like | Disagree)
snowboarder Avatar
67 months ago
there is no Apple "services" without the iPhone
Score: 18 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Acidsplat Avatar
67 months ago
The iPhone bubble was going to burst eventually; phones have reached the point that year over year improvements aren’t enough for people to upgrade. Consumers’ current phones are just good enough.

With the news of shifting away from relying on iPhone sales and the rumors of a redesigned MacBook Pro in the works and the Mac Pro coming, I hope they get back to their roots and become way more well rounded with their products like they used to be.
Score: 16 Votes (Like | Disagree)
mi7chy Avatar
67 months ago
What they don't realize is the service industry doesn't work if they force people to buy their hardware. It needs to be cross-platform to work like Amazon, Google, Netflix, Spotify, etc. so pretty much all non-Apple services.
Score: 15 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Popular Stories

reset password request iphone

Warning: Apple Users Targeted in Phishing Attack Involving Rapid Password Reset Requests

Tuesday March 26, 2024 4:34 pm PDT by
Phishing attacks taking advantage of Apple's password reset feature have become increasingly common, according to a report from KrebsOnSecurity. Multiple Apple users have been targeted in an attack that bombards them with an endless stream of notifications or multi-factor authentication (MFA) messages in an attempt to cause panic so they'll respond favorably to social engineering. An...
iPhone Home Screen Gradient Blank Spaces 1

Sources: iOS 18 Lets Apps Be Placed Anywhere on Home Screen Grid

Sunday March 24, 2024 1:33 pm PDT by
iOS 18 will give iPhone users greater control over Home Screen app icon arrangement, according to sources familiar with the matter. While app icons will likely remain locked to an invisible grid system on the Home Screen, to ensure there is some uniformity, our sources say that users will be able to arrange icons more freely on iOS 18. For example, we expect that the update will introduce...
Generic iOS 18 Feature Purple

iOS 18: What to Expect From 'Biggest' Update in iPhone's History

Wednesday March 27, 2024 11:10 am PDT by
At least some Apple software engineers continue to believe that iOS 18 will be the "biggest" update in the iPhone's history, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Below, we recap rumored features and changes for the iPhone. "The iOS 18 update is expected to be the most ambitious overhaul of the iPhone's software in its history, according to people working on the upgrade," wrote Gurman, in a r...
maxresdefault

Apple Announces WWDC 2024 Event for June 10 to 14

Tuesday March 26, 2024 10:02 am PDT by
Apple today announced that its 35th annual Worldwide Developers Conference is set to take place from Monday, June 10 to Friday, June 14. As with WWDC events since 2020, WWDC 2024 will be an online event that is open to all developers at no cost. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos. WWDC 2024 will include online sessions and labs so that developers can learn about new...
apple maps 3d feature

Apple Maps May Gain Custom Routes With iOS 18

Tuesday March 26, 2024 3:10 pm PDT by
Apple may be planning to add support for "custom routes" in Apple Maps in iOS 18, according to code reviewed by MacRumors. Apple Maps does not currently offer a way to input self-selected routes, with Maps users limited to Apple's pre-selected options, but that may change in iOS 18. Apple has pushed an iOS 18 file to its maps backend labeled "CustomRouteCreation." While not much is revealed...
iPad Pro 2024 Landscape Camera Feature

New iPad Pro Again Rumored to Feature Landscape Front-Facing Camera

Monday March 25, 2024 5:43 am PDT by
The next-generation iPad Pro will feature a landscape-oriented front-facing camera for the first time, according to the Apple leaker known as "Instant Digital." Instant Digital reiterated the design change earlier today on Weibo with a simple accompanying 2D image. The post reveals that the entire TrueDepth camera array will move to the right side of the device, while the microphone will...
sonoma desktop wwdc

Apple Releases macOS Sonoma 14.4.1 With Fix for USB Hub Bug

Monday March 25, 2024 10:10 am PDT by
Apple today released macOS Sonoma 14.4.1, a minor update for the macOS Sonoma operating system that launched last September. macOS Sonoma 14.4.1 comes three weeks after macOS Sonoma 14.4. The ‌‌‌‌macOS Sonoma‌‌ 14.4‌.1 update can be downloaded for free on all eligible Macs using the Software Update section of System Settings. There's also a macOS 13.6.6 release for those who...