Apple needs to make the iPhone cool again. Tomorrow is its chance

Apple hasn’t given users a significant reason to buy an upgraded iPhone for four years, since it rolled out 5G connectivity with the iPhone 12 – a worrying trend for the tech giant’s core business. It has a chance to regain its momentum this week.

Apple hasn’t given users a significant reason to buy an upgraded iPhone for four years, since it rolled out 5G connectivity with the iPhone 12 — a worrying trend for the tech giant’s core business. That could change this week. The iPhone brought in more than half of the company’s total revenue last year, but sales growth has lagged as customers have been slower to upgrade to new models. Longer upgrade cycles — the time between users’ new phone purchases — currently plague many device companies. But they’ve been especially painful for Apple as it grapples with compounding challenges that also include steep competition in the key China market and a landmark antitrust lawsuit. Apple is expected to announce new artificial intelligence features at its annual Worldwide Developer Conference on Monday, which could supercharge its products and bring Apple back into competition with much of the rest of the tech world that has already gone full steam ahead on AI. And no product is more important to Apple than the iPhone. New AI features that provide a compelling reason to upgrade when Apple rolls out the iPhone 16 in the fall could boost the company at a crucial time. Here’s the thing: No matter how Monday goes, Apple isn’t losing its status as a tech powerhouse anytime soon. The company earned more than $200 billion from iPhone sales alone last year, its stock (AAPL) is up 9% over the past year and it has a healthy services business that helps to balance some of the seasonality of hardware sales. But analysts say that reinvigorating iPhone sales is key to Apple’s continued growth.