Apple kicks off its Worldwide Developers Conference on Monday — traditionally an event where the company tries to woo developers, users, and Wall Street all at once.
Maybe that will happen this time around. But only because expectations are so low: Apple is limping into this year beset with all kinds of problems, from many directions, and it’s not clear how it’s going to work its way out from them.
Let’s get this part out of the way at the top: You, a normal person, are unlikely to care about anything Apple announces at WWDC this week.
Two years ago, Apple used the event to unveil its Vision Pro headset; last year, it showed off Apple Intelligence, its entry into the AI wars. Forget the fact that both of those products underwhelmed once they launched — they were at least something new for Apple to talk about.
But barring a surprise, it doesn’t look like there will be any major new unveilings at WWDC this week. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, who is exceptionally dialed into Apple, has a preview of what’s on tap and it all seems underwhelming: Even the most ardent Apple fans are unlikely to be excited about new interfaces, icons, and names.
And while Apple is scrambling to catch up in AI — turns out a bunch of the stuff it showed off last year has yet to actually materialize — it won’t have much progress to announce this week. Gurman predicts that Apple’s AI announcements “will be surprisingly minor and are unlikely to impress industry watchers, especially considering the rapid pace of innovation” from the likes of Google, Meta, and OpenAI.
All of which means people watching and thinking and talking about Apple may likely end up focusing on Apple’s problems, instead of its promise. Not a place Tim Cook wants to be — and not where investors want him to be, which is why Apple stock is down more than 18% in 2025. Here’s a look at what he’s facing right now:
Tariff trouble: Exactly how much will Apple have to pay to bring in new phones and other gadgets to the US from China? And what happens if they shift production — or at least final assembly — of those products to India or Vietnam? Who knows? Donald Trump’s tariff policies remain fluid at best.
Trump continues to insist that he wants Apple to build its products in the US — regardless of whether that’s possible — and the spectre of some kind of Trump-imposed tax that makes Apple products much more expensive remains a real possibility.
AI angst: Apple has two very big problems when it comes to AI. As my colleague Alistair Barr points out, Apple’s competitors have long, long leads in AI research, and it’s unclear if Apple will ever be able to keep up. Right now, it can’t even provide working versions of stuff it showed off a year ago.
There’s a possible future where Apple does just fine not having cutting-edge AI because it can simply use its massive distribution advantage — a billion-plus Apple devices in people’s pockets. But being wholly dependent on other people for tech that’s supposed to be table stakes in a few years isn’t a great place to be.
Government headaches: Regulators around the world have been lining up to take a crack at Apple — including the US Department of Justice, which filed an antitrust lawsuit against the company a year ago. (A separate federal antitrust against Google could also hurt Apple, by potentially ending a long-standing deal where Google pays Apple more than $20 billion a year to make its search engine the default on iPhones.)
Apple’s most persistent foe seems to be the European Union, which has come out with a series of rulings and judgments against Apple. Some of these don’t seem crucial to Apple’s future — see, for instance, its move to change the charging ports on its phone to adapt to an EU mandate a few years ago.
But Apple says an EU ruling forcing it to change the way it runs it powerful App Store is “yet another example of the European Commission unfairly targeting Apple in a series of decisions that are bad for the privacy and security of our users, bad for products, and force us to give away our technology for free,” and is pushing back as hard as it can. (It’s also hoping that Donald Trump’s administration will come to its aid.)
Developers, developers, developers: Europeans aren’t the only ones complaining about the way Apple runs its App Store. It continues to hear from a loud contingent of developers who complain that Apple’s rules around its store unfairly hamper their business. In the case of Fortnite-maker Epic Games, that kicked off a legal fight that started in 2020, and took a sharp turn earlier this year when a US judge ruled that Apple had to allow developers to tell users they could buy stuff from them without going through the App Store — a move that could threaten a huge stream of revenue for Apple.
But the app store also generates a vibes problem for Apple, with high-profile critics like Apple blogger John Gruber arguing that Apple has gone from courting developers to making it hard for them to make a living. Apple is most definitely sensitive to that criticism, which is why it often puts out press releases pointing out how much money developers make by selling stuff via Apple. (Its newest release puts that number at $1.3 trillion in 2024 alone.)
And this week’s event, remember, has the word “developer” in the title, so you can expect Apple to continue to insist that it’s on the software guys’ side. Don’t be surprised if you hear from folks who feel otherwise.
