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The million-dollar question in Cupertino is whether Apple can continue being Apple without Tim Cook: Crossover 1×45

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Tim Cook will stop being CEO of Apple after almost 15 years at the head of the company. It will do so next September 1, the date on which will pass the baton to John Ternusa man of the house with a different career. While Cook has proven to be a genius of logistics and efficiency, Ternus is a man of product and not so much of numbers. This makes us think about the impact that this movement can have from an Apple that in recent years many have criticized for having lost its innovative spirit. The company has shown great success in making the iPhone the absolute center of its strategy, but will that continue to be enough?

TSMC is focusing on the lucrative AI industry, so Apple is looking for a new girlfriend. Found it at Intel

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In 2023, Apple completed its transition and made all Macs in its catalog work with its Apple M-series chips. It was the end of a relationship that began in 2005, when Steve Jobs announced the transition from IBM PowerPCs to Intel chips. Then things went wrong and Apple ended up separating itself from Intel in its products, but once again there has been an interesting twist of the events. Intel does not know how to be a foundry. The integration of the Apple M1 in 2020 was the real beginning of a logical strategy: Apple wanted to design its own chips for its Macs as it had already done in its iPhone or iPad, and the result was extraordinary. The curious thing is that Apple negotiated with Intel to manufacture the iPhone chips, but Intel rejected the opportunity. When Morris Chang, founder of TSMC, asked Cook why he hadn’t chosen Intel to make those chips, responded “Intel just doesn’t know how to be a foundry (chip factory)”. TSMC turns to AI. The relationship between Apple and TSMC has been one of the most important in the semiconductor industry. TSMC makes virtually all of Apple’s advanced chips, from iPhone processors to Mac M chips. That dependence, however, has become uncomfortable for two reasons: Chip shortage: The rise of AI has made the demand for this type of chips extraordinary. TSMC is prioritizing customers with the highest volume and margin in the most advanced nodes, and there Apple competes with NvidiaAMD and other manufacturers looking for 2 and 3 nm chips. Geopolitics: 90% of the world’s advanced chip production is in Taiwanand any escalation of existing tensions with China could paralyze the supply chains of Apple and the vast majority of technology firms on the planet. Diversifying manufacturers is therefore a strategic necessity. Intel gets interesting. It is true that Intel is not the only alternative that Apple was exploring, and Samsung was another candidate to work closely with the Cupertino firm. However Intel has a first important advantage with the 18A nodeits next-generation manufacturing process that experts consider comparable to TSMC’s 2nm process. Apple has been considering this node for entry-level M chips for months. Intel will not be manufacturing Apple’s most advanced chips at the moment, but this is a potential first step so that it can be verified that Intel can indeed accomplish the task and then also manufacture its most ambitious designs. Lip-Bu Tan turns the tables. Intel’s new CEO took over in early 2025and since then the company has taken promising steps when it was in a situation really worrying. has reached agreements with Nvidia to develop x86 chip sets with RTX graphics, for example. It also collaborates with Tesla to manufacture chips with an even more advanced node14A, for Elon Musk’s future TeraFab. Preliminary agreement. Official details of the deal are not yet known, but in The Wall Street Journal they claim that said agreement exists although it describes it as preliminary. It is not currently clear which chip or chips Intel will manufacture or in which photolithographic process. It is expected that the 18A node will be used for those entry-level M chips, but it is not ruled out that the 14A will not be part of this new commercial relationship. Be that as it may, if the agreement is closed as it seems, we would be facing a definitive boost to this new strategy of foundry traditional approach—manufacturing chips for third parties—that Intel is adopting. The circle closes. Intel lost the contract for iPhone chips because it refused to manufacture them for not having enough marginand thus passed up the opportunity to be a de facto partner in probably the most lucrative product in the history of technology. He then tried correct the errorbut he didn’t succeed. Then Intel would lose the Mac chip business, which would be another major setback. Now it seems to be taking flight again, and its promising future—along with other factors—have made Apple want to work with it again. It seems that Intel, after all, is learning to be a foundry. Image | Fortune CEO Initiative In Xataka | The US’s problem in the AI ​​and humanoid race is not China: it is all of Asia and it is greatly disadvantaged

Google and Apple have been wanting to kill SMS for years. So they have signed peace between their messaging apps

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Apple and Google have been betting on their own protocols for years RCS messaging. Relevant solutions in territories like the United States, but that do not fully penetrate the rest of the world. Despite this, both companies have closed an important agreement, so that when chatting from an Android to an iPhone the communication is encrypted. The novelty. Google has announced an agreement with Apple to implement end-to-end encryption for RCSensuring that chats between Android and iOS are secure by default. Although both systems had encrypted device-to-device communication (Android to Android and iPhone to iPhone), this security measure did not apply when we communicated with a different operating system. Why is it important. From now on, if you are looking for a safe way to communicate without going through applications like WhatsApp or Telegram, use the native Messages app (have an iPhone or have an Android) is an excellent option. There is no need to download anything, files can be shared, and the information does not pass through the hands of anyone other than Apple or Google. It is not the perfect solution for those looking for absolute anonymity, but it is a great plan to do without giants like Meta. What is RCS?. RCS stands for “Rich Communication Service”. It is a protocol that came to succeed SMS, and allows communication to be carried out in an encrypted and fast way. Being a protocol and not an app, developers need to create them to use RCS. In the case of Google it is the Messages app and, on iOS, too. When you send a message via RCS, it goes through our operator’s server, and from there to a server certified by the GSMA. It allows you to send images and videos of up to 10 MB and, most importantly, it does not require an internet connection to work. SMS vibes. Why it fails. Apple and Google’s efforts with RCS have to do with a phenomenon that has been happening for years in the US: the overwhelming success of the iPhone and iMessage. In the United States, iMessage is used more than WhatsAppsomething unthinkable in our country. Spain is the country of absolute dominance of WhatsApp, with Apple representing just over 10% of the market share and making it impossible for iMessage to be a rival for the Meta app. Why will he still be alive?. Google, despite controlling 70% of the mobile market with Android, needs a direct way for its users to communicate. And that way is RCS. Apple was forced to adopt it due to European pressure and, although it may not be a massive protocol, it is a key alternative to rival services. Be that as it may, good news for those who want alternatives to WhatsApp or Telegram when communicating from one mobile phone to another without the need for a network connection. In Xataka | Meta will pay $1.4 billion to Texas for violating the privacy of its users. Used facial recognition without permission

Apple has let a wonderful product be on assisted breathing

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Those who have (have) tried the Apple Vision Prothey are clear: it is one of the most impressive technological products in all of history. The ‘wow’ effect is inevitable, and in those first minutes when you wear them it seems impossible not to believe that a product like this should have a brilliant future. That this sensation fades is equally inevitable, and just over two years after its launch it is worth asking what could have gone wrong in a product as amazing as this one. Price, of course, is one of the factors. But not the only one. The Vision Pro as an engineering tragedy. Apple has gone from trying to revolutionize the way we entertain and work to leaving the project in the second (or third) plane. The hardware is impeccable, but the high price and lack of native content and applications have turned these $3,500 glasses into a niche product. Dangerously modest sales. It is estimated that Apple has sold about 600,000 units in total of the Vision Pro, a ridiculous figure when compared to traditional iPhone sales and which is also very far from the sales of the iPad or the Apple Watch. Initial projections were optimistic, but demand ended up plummeting and Apple actually ended slowing down in production and changing the product roadmap. He hasn’t completely retired, of course, but everything he’s done sounds like the Vision Pros are on life support… or so it seems. The updates keep coming. Although there are criticisms in other sections, something that is undeniable is the attention that Apple continues to put into solving existing problems and adding new features through the new versions of your visionOS operating system. It is true that in many cases the new features are modest, but they certainly show that Apple is not neglecting that part of its product’s life cycle. The future is not Pro, but (maybe) Air. Apple ended up renewing the original model that was presented in February 2024, but the Vision Pro (2025) They were a modest update. In fact, the revision seemed more intended to clean up the inventory of components than to propose an ambitious evolution. It seemed almost pure commitment. It is inevitable to think that Apple prefers to focus on other products and segments, but that has not prevented rumors from appearing about a new and future revision of these glasses. The curious thing is that They will no longer be Pro, but Airand Apple is even looking for engineers with the theoretical intention of proposing a change of direction. That relief is expected —cheaper?— by 2027 or 2028. We will have to be patient. Few native apps. Apple boasts of having more than a million applications available for the Vision Pro, but there is fine print there. The vast majority of those tools are rescaled iPad apps that float in 2D windows. The offer of native applications to take advantage of this interesting concept of spatial computing is scarce, and there is also no “killer app” that has managed to sell these glasses. Not only that: Netflix or YouTube didn’t appear at launch, although at least YouTube did launch its native version in February 2026. That the majors in the entertainment segment did not offer that support was another nail in this disturbing coffin. Lack of content is a condemnation. But what is really problematic is that even though we are dealing with an absolutely wasted product. The photo demonstrations and especially the immersive video made us dream of a future in which we could also virtually “attend” live events from home. Concerts and sporting events seemed to be ideal to be enjoyed on the Vision Pro, but two years have passed and the offer of “spatial” content natively it is as visually spectacular as it is anecdotal. A design that was born lame. One of the fundamental problems with the Vision Pro has been in its design from the beginning. The ergonomics of the product were poor from the beginning, and in fact it could have been worse: the “flask” in the form of a battery with cable that is necessary for its operation was a solution to avoid greater evils, but it was not exactly an ideal option. The ergonomics were not perfect either, and this was confirmed by the fact that with the Vision Pro (2025) Apple provided a different headband with two support and grip zones, much more suitable for long sessions of use. Eyesight, what for?. Another of the Vision Pro’s mistakes has been the Eyesight technology, which Apple proposed as the solution to a problem that the company itself invented. Apple sacrificed weight, battery and complexity (in addition to cost) with that external screen that no one asked for and that is barely visible in normal light conditions. This cosmetic solution was intended to prevent one from losing “connection” with their surroundings when wearing the glasses, but it has probably been the most ridiculed feature of the device. He tried to avoid that feeling of total isolation, but the truth is that this product inevitably isolates the user. Not even Apple conquers the XR market. In many ways Apple tried to overcome what virtual reality glasses offer, but the reality is that the advantages of Vision Pro are too expensive. The Meta Quest 3 have made it clear that for 500 euros you can have 70 or 80% of the experience, for example. Those who have tried to compete with Apple directly, such as Samsung with its Galaxy XRthey have also ended up leaving the product something abandoned and with hardly any distribution. In both cases, these glasses end up becoming an exclusive $3,500 (or $2,000) virtual external monitor. The experience is fantastic, yes, but that has not been enough to convince users and developers. The Vision Pro as the “Lisa” of our generation. The technical milestone achieved by Apple is undeniable. The amount of technology built into the Vision Pro is astonishing, and it … Read more

I’ve had the Apple Watch on my wrist for 10 years. The only thing I asked for was the Google bracelet

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Server has had an Apple Watch in his drawer for months. And just take advantage of the introductory offer of the Fitbit Air for 99 euros plus 45 euros of balance in the Google Store (just what the straps are worth). Because? Because I’ve been waiting for exactly that product for years. No screen. In my particular case (and like a good part of Spain), practical crossfit daily. and the crossfit It is not a sport compatible with smart watches. Many of the movements require the barbell or kettlebell to hit the wrist, and you wouldn’t want to have a Apple Watch Ultra receiving a little kiss 32 kilos. Being able to have a smart device without a screen is a dream come true for me, since I can meet my health tracking needs without worrying about anything else. Why not the Whoop. Yes, Google has not discovered the fire. Whoop has his own bracelet and Polar launched theirs free of subscription. Whoop’s problem was precisely that, being literally tied to a membership of at least 199 euros per year (and that in the cheapest version). Amazfit has your Helio Strap for the same price than the Google bracelet, although it is a fairly bulky device and very similar to a smartwatch. However, Google has managed to launch a hybrid between a simple strap and a MiBand for 99 euros. A device from which, knowing Fitbit’s history, I expect measurement sensors with higher quality than those I have tried in similarly priced alternatives. I don’t want notifications. It is a completely personal decision, but one of my goals in the last two years is to respect digital disconnection. I’m not the first to buy a smartwatch to not depend so much on the phone… and end up turning my wrist every now and then to see what notification it has. Removing the screen completely eliminates this barrier. No calls, no notifications, no temptations of any kind. Just a device that works in the background measuring my vitals. No subscriptions. Google has done well with the two systems that its Fitbit allows: the paid one and the base one. It is not a device that requires a subscription to enjoy the basics required and, only in case we want to expand its functions, we can choose to checkout. PREMIUM BASE follow-up Steps, calories, distance traveled, cardiovascular load and recovery. Personalized physical activity plans. Steps, calories, distance traveled, cardiovascular load and recovery Measurements Heart rate, heart rate variability, respiratory rate, blood oxygen (SpO2) and more Heart rate, heart rate variability, respiratory rate, blood oxygen (SpO2) and more sport Adaptive physical activity plans Personalized weekly workouts and physical activity plans, adapted to your goals and that you can adapt to your lifestyle – dream Sleep score, schedule, duration and phases. Personalized sleep summaries. Sleep score, schedule, duration and phases. records Notes on weight, nutrition, water consumption, mood and menstrual cycle. Proactive information and statistics about your records. Notes on weight, nutrition, water consumption, mood and menstrual cycle. additional Library with mindfulness sessions, such as meditation, guided breathing, relaxation and more. Library of dynamic workouts led by expert trainers and instructors. Personalized Gemini-based coach – The subscription model for 8.99 euros per month adds Gemini as an ally, but it is not essential or mandatory. The bracelet, without any type of subscription, does everything you would ask of a product of this type. With an app with a lot of potential. The Fitbit app has been renamed Google Health, an important declaration of intent after purchasing Fitbit for 2.1 billion dollars. Google will collect all the data related to health here, finally giving the love it deserves to an app that was far behind its direct rival (Health on iOS). In short, an economical product, which allows me to forget that I am wearing a smart watch or bracelet, and whose information I will only consult at the end of the day as a summary. In Xataka | Best activity bracelets. Which one to buy and most recommended models from 25 euros

Spotify and Apple Music have a problem with AI-generated music. And the real musicians are paying for it

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Music generated by AI has flooded the large platforms of streaming without anyone having asked for it. Deezer says it detects 75,000 AI tracks uploaded every day, and the number is growing. Spotify has uploaded 75 million songs of that type in the last twelve months. And Apple Music recognizes that more than a third of everything that comes to it is “100% AI”. Why is it important. It is not only a quality problem for the catalog or the reputation of the platform, but also an economic problem. Spotify, Apple Music and most platforms operate with a proportional distribution model (pro-rata): each artist receives a percentage of the total pool royalties equivalent to your reproduction quota. The more AI songs that accumulate listeners (even if they are fraudulent, generated by bots) the more it dilutes what a real musician earns. Between the lines. Although more and more music of this type is uploaded, almost no one listens to it, at least on purpose (sometimes AI songs sneak into algorithmic discovery lists). The problem is not the demand, which does not exist, but the brutal and increasing amount that distorts the algorithms and erodes the income of real artists even though their songs are still the ones that people do want to hear. Someone is uploading music that no one asks for to collect money that they do not deserve because the listeners arrive via bots. And that is money that the real artist stops earning. The background. The most extreme case, at least documented so far, has been that of Michael Smith, an American businessman who between 2017 and 2024 generated more than 10 million dollars in royalties wearing Suno and other tools to create hundreds of thousands of songs and armies of bots to play them automatically. That was the first case of fraud streaming with AI criminally prosecuted in the United States. According to the accusation, it accumulated 660,000 views a day. One billion views and zero fans. Yes, but. The platforms are already facing this wave. Deezer has been the most aggressive: it has implemented AI automatic detection, excludes those songs from algorithmic recommendations and has demonetized 85% of its views. Bandcamp has outright banned AI-generated music. Apple Music has begun to roll out its ‘Transparency Tags‘ (optional for now), and Spotify has released a verification stamp ‘Verified by Spotify‘ to ensure there is a human behind every artist profile. The problem is that both Spotify and Apple have opted for voluntary systems: it is the labels and distributors who must declare whether they have used AI. Nobody who lives off fraud is going to do it. There is an important distinction: It is one thing for a musician to use AI as a tool within their creative process (to refine a lyric, generate a base, experiment with sounds…) and quite another for an entire song to come out of Suno or equivalent with a pair of prompts and without real human intervention. The platforms, at the moment, do not distinguish between one thing and another. And Spotify has also left a door open by noting that “the concept of artistic authenticity is complex and rapidly evolving,” which in practice means that AI artists could end up being verified one day. Featured image | Xataka In Xataka | Science has measured how music impacts us during exercise: choosing the right Spotify list is essential

Apple is clear that the memory crisis is about to hit harder. No more cushioning the blow

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With the launch of iPhone 17e and of macbook neoit seemed that Apple was one of the few untouchable companies due to the component crisis that we are experiencing. Although prices increased in the United States, they remained the same in Spain and the MacBook neo was launched at a price to eat the market. The problem is that time has shown that not even Apple is untouchable. And Tim Cook affirms that the worst is yet to come. The Mac Mini. This was, along with the MacBook neo, one of the best options when buying a computer. Not from Apple: in general. An interesting price for a team with enormous potential in a very small size. It had one drawback: it started with 256 GB of storage for a price of 719 euros, but it was interesting because using Thunderbolt you could expand with external SSDs. Now, that basic option does not exist. Apple has deleted the ‘cheap’ Mac Mini and now we can only buy the device with 512 GB base at a price of 969 euros. This is a mandatory price increase that suggests that the 256 GB option was the best-seller and Apple ran out of stock. Cushioning the blow. This price increase occurred hours after Tim Cook, in a call to investors to present quarterly results, will aim that the company has had the best starter of the year in its history, with 17% year-on-year. How well the iPhone is working in China, the services and equipment like those mentioned Mac Mini and MacBook neo have contributed to this. However, he left another message: the global chip crisis is about to hit the ship much harder. In the earnings presentation, he noted that things will get considerably worse due to “significantly higher memory costs” in the coming quarters. The rest of the industry has already been experiencing that blow, but Cook detailed that, so far, Apple has been partially protected and isolated because it has been selling inventory accumulated in advance. The problem is that, as reserves have been depleted, they have had to resort to the only two options: eliminate the best-selling options (we just saw this with the Mac Mini, but We saw it recently with the Mac Studio) and raise prices. Curves are coming. The current CEO pointed out that Apple is considering a range of options to manage this impact, although he has not given more details. Really, there aren’t that many: price increases in basic equipment, configurations with less RAM and less storage, eliminating options that, for the user, are still an increase and something that is more complicated: taking the hit. What is clear, as we read on CNBC, is that Apple expects that this increase in costs will have “a growing impact on our business”, leaving a message to John Ternus who will become CEO of Apple next September 1: “we have the right leader to take on the role.” The truth is that Ternus is going to arrive at a sweet time for Applebut in one where the industry is on fire. The 256 GB version is over. Now starts at 512 GB for 969 euros Tsunami. This time we focus on Apple, although Cook has not really said anything that any other executive from the main technology companies would not have commented before. With SK Hynix, Samsung and Micron turning to the NAND chip market for data centers, the consumer market has been left to its own devices and the consequence is what we are now seeing with Apple. As we say, the company has dodged the first blow because they had accumulated stock, but now the hard part will come for users. From Samsung, in the also recent presentation of results, already they warned that there will be “significant shortages” in products that need these types of chips and that they expect the situation to continue until at least 2027. It is an ambitious estimate, since SK Hynix believes that things will return to normal in 2030 and Nvidia is even more pessimistic. If you need something…Buy now. It is the best warning because things do not look like they are going to improve. If you think you are going to need a device, you better buy it as soon as possible because the price will continue to rise or, simply, that device will stop selling. The mobile industry has been warning for weeks that prices are going to rise, the same thing happens with computers and even with hard drives with which you can make a NAS. And a personal example: when the crisis was beginning to be critical, at the end of January of this year, I bought a 2 TB T7 SSD from Samsung for 160 euros. Today, that same one is for about 229 euros, which is not even close to its fair price. And how says Samsung itself, things are going to get worse. Images | Xataka In Xataka | There is a company that has grown 3,000% in the stock market, even beating the performance of Nvidia: Sandisk

Tim Cook has been a wonderful CEO for Apple investors. For the United States, not so much

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Filling the void left by a myth like Steve Jobs seemed like an impossible mission, and although Tim Cook has been a radically different CEO than his predecessor, his career has been equally prodigious. At least in financial terms, because with it Apple has become a four trillion dollar titan. That’s one way to look at it. There is another. Financially impeccable. Over the past fifteen years, this logistics genius has refined operational efficiency and managed to turn every iPhone into a ticket printing machine. An amazing fact: With Tim Cook, Apple’s value has grown by 682 million dollars on average per day for every day of the last three decades. The business runs like clockwork, but behind that economically impeccable facade there is an uncomfortable paradox. The factories do not matter, but the processes. Cook’s management has shown that to achieve maximum profit margins it is not enough to create iconic products: you must master the supply chain. And to achieve this, Apple preferred to own processes rather than factories. She delegated all production risk to external suppliers while she developed new hardware products and especially services that expanded the ecosystem and maximized profit. China as a great ally. The pillar of this entire strategy was unusual. Since arriving at Apple as vice president of operations in 1998, Cook opted for the massive scale and cheap labor of mainland China. This allowed Apple to manufacture in massive volumes and at a very low cost, but in doing so signed a blood pact with Beijing. Educating your rival. By fully focusing the manufacturing process on China, Apple invested billions of dollars in training millions of workers. The transfer and transfer of technical knowledge has been of such magnitude that it has elevated China’s economic and technological status compared to the West. Flexible principles. This relationship with China has also been controversial due to how the company has been folded to the demands of the Chinese government in the geopolitical sphere. The App Store removed thousands of applications following direct orders from Beijing, but even more revealing has been the iCloud data transfer of Chinese users to servers operated by a Chinese state-owned company. There is a moral duality that inevitably raises suspicions. Remembering Jack Welch. In The New York Times they remembered to Jack Welch, a manager who was described as “manager of the century” after his management at the General Electric (GE) company. Like Cook, Welch was a manager with a spectacular financial record. He achieved staggering annual returns, but over time he was shown to have turned GE into an overleveraged company that was about to collapse in the 2008 crisis. Hero or villain. Cook has systematically ignored a great existential risk: if the tension of the trade war between the US and China ends up exploding, the impact could be terrible for the North American economy. The threat that China ends up attacking Taiwan could come true and in that case Cook would be remembered as the CEO who handed over the technological sovereignty of his company to his country’s biggest geopolitical rival. It is true that Cook takes time reducing Chinese dependence in the manufacturing processes at Apple, but it is also true that “the damage has been done” and the transfer of knowledge has been enormous. Ternus and a very heavy legacy. Cook’s successor will be John Ternusbut your room for maneuver will be very limited at the moment. Tim Cook in fact is not retiring completely and will become CEO and supervise the management of his successor. That makes it difficult to chart a new course for Apple if that is what Ternus is proposing, which also seems unlikely. The iPhone has changed all of China. The truth is that every step that Cook took to reinforce his commitment to China It made undeniable financial sense. and generated huge sums of money for all of the company’s investors. That does not reflect the other reality, because the iPhone has contributed definitively for China to become the giant it is today. In Xataka | Apple has been giving in to China for years, but this time the price to pay is much higher. Your AI is at stake

It has been the biggest marketing campaign for Apple. and free

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I don’t know what someone who saw the moon landing felt. Apollo 11 in 1969but I do know that a couple of weeks ago half the Internet was glued to social networks to see everything the crew of Artemis II I was sharing. The moment in which the capsule returned to Earth It was exciting, but this time humanity had something unthinkable 50 years ago to follow the event. A iPhone 17 Pro Max. NASA didn’t want… When you travel 400,000 kilometers from home, you have to think very hard about what equipment you carry in your suitcase. Like any tourist, American NASA astronauts go with a camera, a Nikon Z9. It has its reason: NASA and the Japanese firm have an agreement to use these cameras. However, the most iconic photo of this trip wasn’t taken with a Nikon: it was taken with an iPhone. The Photon by Christina Koch With an iPhone 17 Pro Max, specifically. For years, NASA has refused to allow its astronauts to carry their cell phones because it is not essential for communications and, in addition, it can interfere with the systems of the ships and capsules. But For this occasion they relaxed the rules a little and things went well. The iPhone was going in airplane modeconnected solely to Orion’s internal network to transmit data to stations on Earth. And, seeing the success, they will surely repeat. The video. Because they are no longer just the photos: it is the tremendous video that Reid Wiseman, commander of the mission, has shared with the world. Before going into detail, here it is: It’s taken with that iPhone 17 Pro Max, using the 8x 406,771 kilometers away from Earth to capture how the planet was hiding behind the Moon. According to Wiseman, it is a focal length very similar to that of the human eye (you have to trust it, obviously) and the experience was like watching the sunset on the beach, but from the cosmos. For her part, astronaut Christina Koch also captured a video in which the iPhone looms mischievously in the reflection: The best camera. The iPhone is the mobile phone that captures the best video, although its telephotos are not even close to what they offer chinese mobile phonesnot on video either. However, as they say, the best camera is the one you always have with you. This is as true as a temple, and this case is a perfect example because the Nikon Z9 with its huge lenses could not fit through the gap in the docking hatch window to make that video. The iPhone does. Apple, so happy. After all the commotion caused by the photos taken on this mission (due to the quantity of them, the quality and how quickly they have been shared), we might think that Apple and NASA signed an agreement, but it seems that is not the case. Simply, it is one more tool than astronauts they came on board to document everything, since the agreement that does exist is the one they have with Nikon. If there was one with Apple, it would be public. But the truth is that Apple has just had the best ‘shot on iPhone‘ of his story. The company has been pushing that narrative of “we record our events with the iPhone because it is a beastly camera” for years, and now, four astronauts have put those iPhones to the test more than 400,000 kilometers from Earth. I have no doubt that in the September keynote we will see Apple take advantage of those photos captured with the iPhone on the Moon. And I can only think of how eager Chinese companies will be for their missions to start taking off so they can do the same. Images | Artemis II, NASA In Xataka | The mobile phones with the best camera 2026: next level photography in your pocket

which Apple John Ternus inherits and where the cracks are

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It arrived last night for Spanish time, but it is the news of the day. After 15 years at the head of Apple, Tim Cook will leave his position on September 1. It will be the moment in which a John Ternus50 years old and with 25 years in the company, will assume the position of CEO. From a sales shark, we will move to a hardware man. And, although Cook will leave Apple in an enviable position, Ternus will take the reins with significant debts and many open fronts. Let him Cook. Yeah jobs He was the idealist, cook was the executor. Most of the hardware of the Apple of the three decades with Tim at the helm was inherited from Jobs’ Apple, but Cook has made them shine. Products such as Apple Watch either AirPodsthe Mac line was turned upside down, giving sit down Intel to bet on its own chips and even the MacBook, which was not one of the economic legs of the business, has experienced tremendous success of the macbook neothe ‘cheap MacBook’. But under the mandate of a Cook who has developed his career doing numbers and not designing products, what has shone has been the services segment. Services > hardware. We already said it in 2024: services exceeded the combined revenue of practically all of Apple’s hardware except for the iPhone, which still represented approximately half of the company’s sales. Apple has gone from being a company recognizable for its devices to one in which the iPhone was still capital, yes, but in which wearables (AirPods and Apple Watch), accessories, home devices, iPad and MacBook They were capitulating to the software. Apple has been buying software (Pixelmator, for example) to strengthen its suite of applications, but it has also been moving to subscription models and opening new lines. AppleOnefor example, is the umbrella under which services such as Apple Music, Fitness+cloud storage, Apple Arcade either AppleTV. All with a monthly subscription, of course. Because the company has a complete line of services and subscriptions to compete against other alternatives. They are in all segments (music, video games, personal care, movies and series) and represent a lifestyle. But they also have their creative suite for compete directly with Adobe with apps like the aforementioned Pixelmator, Final Cut Pro or Logic Pro Proven effectiveness. If we talk about money, this translates into a beastly lever. Under Cook, Apple has grown, and it has grown in a big way: Income from 108 billion dollars in 2011 to more than 391,000 in 2024. Close to 4x. Capitalization which went from 320 billion to 3.7 trillion dollars in 2024, almost 11x. The margin left by services and subscriptions is greater and more direct than that of the iPhone, also allowing a constant cash flow that is not seen as much with hardware launches. An iPhone is purchased once a year, a subscription is paid every month. And all this leads us to talk about a different Apple than in 2011. If then it was the company of the iPhone and other devices, today it is a business that encompasses software and hardware. And there are not many who can boast of that. And Cook’s Apple has built this while creating an extremely streamlined and diversified supply chain with factories in China, India and Vietnam to adapt to regulations and market shocks. But although that is ‘Side A’ of Tim Cook’s film, there is a ‘Side B’. The limbo of the Vision Pro. At this stage we have seen many hardware successes, but also some devices that raise many questions. I don’t get into AirPower anymore (Do you remember AirPower?), but in the field of VisionPro. Apple’s VR/AR headset is a technological marvel, but also an expensive device, with compromises like that hanging battery and, above all, one that you don’t really know where it goes. Launched in 2024 at $3,500, they have not seen the light of day in many markets, they continue to cost the same and a renewal has not been presented in these almost two years. At that time, the other great promoter of VR, Meta, has moved to glasses that they have made a place for themselves among content creators and people who want to document their daily lives. It is evident that it is not the same product, but the underlying idea is: a wearable that you wear for much of the day to create content and consume it. In a different way (audio in the Meta, more video in the Vision Pro), but consuming content, in short. In these two years, we have not been able to give the Vision Pro a ‘killer app’, something that would really make them irresistible within the Apple ecosystem. Tariffs and Apple Intelligence. But if the Vision Pro can afford to be in limbo, these two issues cannot. First, the tariffs. That Apple is moving to other countries to stop depending so much on China is not a whim. Globalization has been breaking down with the most current protectionist policies. Not depending so much on China (which continues to happen) is necessary if Apple, like so many other companies, does not want tariffs to affect its products. It is a very complicated juggling act because the United States wants its companies to leave China, but China is consolidating like a huge marketwith Apple and NVIDIA being two of the companies more interested in continuing to penetrate it to get part of a huge pie. On the other hand, Apple Intelligence. Apple’s AI was introduced two years ago and not only is it not at the level of rivals like Google, they have to ask Google for help to revitalize Siri. Apple Intelligence It is the great pending task of an Apple that has not known how to compete in these early stages of the artificial intelligence race. 2026 is expected to be the year (even They have sent most of the engineers to an ‘AI … Read more

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