By John Moltz
August 1, 2025 2:01 PM PT
This Week in Apple: Book reportgate
Another Apple employee is careless with an iPhone, Tim Cook answers questions, and some former Apple AI employees need new business cards. Maybe AI can design them for them.
iPhones gone wild
Move those renders to the Trash because a soon-to-be-fired Apple employee may have been photographed with a real live iPhone 17 Pro in the wild!
While not definitive, the device looks much like what the rumors and renders of said rumors have been indicating, with a larger camera bump that has the LiDAR sensor and flash further to the right.
Naturally, innovation like moving camera thingies doesn’t come for free.
“iPhone 17 Models May See $50 Price Hike, Says Jefferies”
Well, at least the economy is doing great and everyone is raking in cash! It’s not like AI is being used as an excuse for more layoffs and making things hard on small businesses! Shouldn’t be a problem.
Take our money, Tim! No, take it. We insist.
Tim Talk. With Tim.
Apple announced its quarterly results this week and it was another relatively boring showing from a well-oiled machine gliding down Services Revenue Blvd. What is more interesting about these quarterly events is the quotable quips from a queried Tim Cook.
Breaking News: According to Cook, Apple is making “good progress” on personalized Siri features, which the company expects to deliver next year!
Well, that’s… super vague.
Tim’s dad: “How’s that book report coming, Tim?”
Tim: “Great! I got the book from the library!”
Tim’s dad: “Uhhh, OK, that’s… good. But have you…”
Tim [running out the door]: “Gonna go hang with my friends at the mall! Catch you later, dad!”
Tim’s dad [shaking his head]: “Damn kid’ll never amount to anything!”
Apple’s AI efforts are coming along so well, Cook said, that Apple is “very open to M&A that accelerates our roadmap”. Ummm, OK. If this does happen, don’t expect a big splash, though, because Apple traditionally only acquires small companies that…
We’re not stuck on a certain size company. … …we basically ask ourselves whether a company can help us accelerate a roadmap. If they do, then we are interested.
Lines are open. Operators are standing by.
Good news from the more concrete world of the present, though. Cook also said that the current betas are “the most popular developer betas we’ve had”.
Uh, Tim, this is John Moltz from The Wilkes-Barre Monthly Grocery Coupon Flyer. Are you measuring that in just downloads or actual customer sat? Because some developers might just be downloading it to see how much Liquid Glass hoses their apps. And, a follow-up question: how’s that book report coming?
CFO Kevan Parekh then grabbed the speakerphone away from Cook and said everything would be fine at Apple as long as:
…the global tariff rates, policies, and application remain in effect as of this call, the global macroeconomic outlook does not worsen from today, and the current revenue-share agreement with Google continues.
Well, it’s a good thing we have such sane and steady leadership in the U.S.!
[awkwardly tugs at collar]
Nnnnnyyyeeeee.
Apple employees are not Meta-averse
Mark Zuckerberg, a guy who is all-in on the metaverse, the place where we will all be interacting very soon, has some exciting updates! Let’s tune in now for the latest on how the metaverse is shaping up!
I continue to think that glasses are basically going to be the ideal form factor for AI…
AI? What the heck is this crap? What happened to the metaverse?
Would you be surprised to know that Zuckerberg said “metaverse” a grand total of one (1) time during the call? You know, the concept that was so important to the future they renamed the company after it. He said “AI” 40 times.
I wonder why the switch?
…you can let an AI see what you see throughout the day, hear what you hear…
Meaning you can let Meta see and hear all that, too. Thank you but no thank you.
Meta has poached at least four of Apple’s AI employees of late, presumably by shooting at them with a t-shirt cannon full of cash. Maybe Apple can work out some arrangement with Meta to pitch in for Apple to buy an AI company so Meta can then poach its executives. I don’t know how these big deals work but that seems like the least Zuckerberg could do.
[At the time of publishing, Apple had not yet responded about Tim’s book report. Six Colors will update this article if we hear back.]
[John Moltz is a Six Colors contributor. You can find him on Mastodon at Mastodon.social/@moltz and he sells items with references you might get on Cotton Bureau.]