Apple’s late leader Steve Jobs was known for having unusual habits — soaking his feet in the toilet during times of stress, for instance. His successor Tim Cook is more conventional, as bosses go. But as Silicon Valley embraces new business models, he and Apple too look like outliers.
The differences aren’t all flattering. Among the “Magnificent 7” stocks, the iPhone maker has performed worse in 2025 than all but Tesla, falling 15 per cent. While executives at other tech giants wax lyrical about their artificial intelligence-powered prospects, Apple’s quarterly earnings on Thursday reflected a future defined by more prosaic topics.
Tariffs are chief among them. Levies on India and Vietnam force Apple to absorb, or pass on, cost increases for products sold in the US, the majority of which come from those countries. Tariffs will shave $1.1bn off gross profit in the current quarter, it estimates, though those numbers seem to reflect current levies rather than higher ones that may soon come.