Apple Still Plans to Sell iPhones When It Turns 100 | WIREDSkip to main contentMenuSECURITYPOLITICSTHE BIG STORYBUSINESSSCIENCECULTUREREVIEWSMenuAccountAccountNewslettersSecurityPoliticsThe Big StoryBusinessScienceCultureReviewsChevronMoreExpandThe Big InterviewMagazineEventsWIRED InsiderWIRED ConsultingNewslettersPodcastsVideoLivestreamsMerchSearchSearchSteven LevyBusinessMar 27, 2026 11:00 AMApple Still Plans to Sell iPhones When It Turns 100As the tech giant turns 50, WIRED spoke to executives about how they plan to win in the AI era.Photo-Illustration: WIRED Staff; Getty ImagesCommentLoaderSave StorySave this storyCommentLoaderSave StorySave this storyApple is allergic to nostalgia. In 2008, when the Macintosh was about to turn 25, I mentioned it to Steve Jobs and he instantly shut down the discussion. “If you look backward in this business, you'll be crushed,” he told me icily. “You have to look forward.” Now that Apple’s 50th anniversary looms, however, the company is begrudgingly engaging in a series of concerts and commemorations, and we’re being blitzed by books, articles, and oral histories of the company’s early years.Rather than join the crowded trek down memory lane, I asked Apple to do what Jobs suggested—look forward. What does Apple want to happen in its next 50 years?Earlier this month, I sat down with two senior executives to discuss just that. One was Apple’s SVP of worldwide marketing, Greg Joswiak, aka Joz, who joined Apple in 1986. The other was SVP of hardware engineering John Ternus, the putative front-runner to succeed Tim Cook as Apple’s CEO. He’s been with the company for 25 years. I also chatted briefly with Cook himself, just before Alicia Keys sang in front of the Apple Store at Grand Central Station—the beginning of Apple’s reluctantly splashy anniversary celebration.After acknowledging Apple’s uncharacteristic party mode—“this is too special” to ignore, admits Joswiak—we tackle the future. After launching the personal computer revolution, Apple managed to navigate multiple inflection points. With the Macintosh, it mastered the graphical user interface that makes computers friendlier to use. The iMac positioned the company for the internet boom. And, of course, despite a late start, Apple absolutely owned the mobile era with the iPhone. These products have remained vital–just this month Apple released the buzzy new Macbook Neo, the latest version of a 42-year-old franchise. But now the future belongs to AI—a category where Apple seems to have whiffed so far.These gentlemen disagree. Apple, they insist, is already at the forefront of the AI revolution. “We were doing AI before we called it AI!” says Joswiak. “Every single great chatbot works great on our products.” Ternus argues that even if Apple didn't take the lead in developing AI technology, it would still benefit. “Our products are the best place people will use the existing AI tools.”I push them on this. After all, if we're looking decades into the future, shouldn’t we assume that we’ll move past our current computing paradigms and adopt something that specifically caters to the wonders of AI? That’s what Apple’s former design guru Jony Ive seems to be doing with OpenAI. They’re only one entrant in the race to come up with new kinds of hardware devices built specifically for AI. “I would assume you want one of them to be an Apple device, right?” I asked.The answer seemed to be not necessarily. “Let’s not lose sight of the fact that nothing you just said is incompatible with the iPhone,” Joswiak says. “The iPhone is not going to go away. iPhone is going to serve a very central role in any of those things you’re talking about.”Wait—Apple thinks that people will be using the iPhone 50 years from now?“It's hard to imagine not,” says Joswiak. “That's where everybody else struggles. They don't have an iPhone, and so they’re scrambling for what to do. A lot of what they talk about ends up being accessories for an iPhone. We’re not going to get into future road maps, but I will tell you, iPhones are not going anywhere.” (Despite this bravado, I will be shocked if Apple does not come out with some AI-powered gadget in the coming years.)Later in the day I have my greeting with Cook, and immediately ask him about Apple’s next 50 years. He launches into a rhapsodic description of Apple’s people, values, and culture, predicting that no matter what twists lie ahead, those factors will continue to make Apple unique and super successful. “Yes, the technologies of the future will change,” Cook says. “Yes, there will be more products and more categories. All of those things are true, but the things that made Apple Apple will be the same for the next 50 years, and the next 100 and the next 1,000.”That of course presumes that superintelligence doesn’t totally rearrange reality in the next 50 years, let alone the next millennium. It also flies in the face of what the leaders of AI companies believe. OpenAI’s Sam Altman has even postulated that his own successor as CEO will not be a human but an AI model! Does Cook see that as a possibility for Apple anytime in the next 50 years?Cook laughed merrily at the idea. “When you look at the leadership page,” he says of future Apple, “there will not be an agentic kind of model on there.” Left unspoken is what the people of 2076 will be using to look up that page.This is an edition of Steven Levy’s Backchannel newsletter. Read previous newsletters here.CommentsBack to topTriangleYou Might Also LikeIn your inbox: Will Knight's AI Lab explores advances in AI‘Flying cars’ will take off this summerBig Story: Inside OpenAI’s race to catch up to Claude CodeHow ‘Handala’ became the face of Iran’s hacker counterattacksListen: Nvidia’s ‘Super Bowl of AI,’ and Tesla disappointsSteven Levy covers the gamut of tech subjects for WIRED, in print and online, and has been contributing to the magazine since its inception. 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Apple, under the leadership of figures like Steve Jobs and now Tim Cook, intends to maintain its dominance in the technology sector even as artificial intelligence (AI) rapidly evolves. According to senior executives Greg Joswiak (a long-standing Apple figure) and John Ternus, Apple’s strategy is not to lead the charge in developing AI technology itself, but rather to leverage existing AI tools within the framework of its core product, the iPhone. As Steven Levy notes, Apple's approach isn't to radically reinvent computing, but to capitalize on the established utility of the iPhone, anticipating that it will remain a central device for interacting with future AI systems.

Joswiak emphasized that Apple is already utilizing AI effectively, pointing to the success of popular chatbot applications that run seamlessly on Apple products. Ternus echoed this sentiment, arguing that Apple’s hardware provides the ideal platform for utilizing existing AI technologies, suggesting a focus on accessory development rather than fundamentally altering computing paradigms. This perspective is significantly influenced by Jony Ive’s collaboration with OpenAI, indicating Apple’s proactive engagement, though not necessarily leadership, within the burgeoning AI landscape.

Despite these assertions, Cook remains steadfast in Apple’s enduring principles, predicting that the company’s core values and culture—factors he considers central to its continued success—will remain unchanged over the next century. Cook’s vision prioritizes the enduring appeal of Apple’s product line and its established customer base, anticipating continued demand for the iPhone even amidst technological shifts. This demonstrates a deliberate resistance to the futuristic predictions often voiced about AI’s impact on the tech industry, reflecting a cautious approach rooted in Apple’s historical success.

The executives’ projections, however, are tempered by the considerable uncertainty surrounding the future of AI, including predictions of superintelligence potentially reshaping reality. This acknowledgement, coupled with Cook’s unwavering faith in Apple’s foundational strengths, suggests a strategic blend of pragmatism and confidence. The company appears determined to not simply adapt to the AI era but to maintain its relevance as a leading technology provider, relying on the continued popularity of the iPhone as its primary vehicle for accessing AI-powered services and applications. While Apple is recognizing and participating in the race towards AI, it seems to be settling on a strategy centered around utilizing, augmenting, and adapting existing AI rather than pioneering its development, aiming to secure its position as a dominant force within a potentially disruptive technological future.