Apple has rarely been discussed with so much ambivalence. Recent phone reviews have leaned bearish, and a widely shared tech video made a blunt case: Apple is facing three major crises. The most visible one is that the company looks almost passive in the phone race while directing energy toward Vision Pro. The second is AI. Since ChatGPT set off the current wave, Microsoft has woven AI into its productivity tools and, in the eyes of many, overtaken Apple in momentum. The third is the Nokia question: could Apple end up in the same awkward position, or become the 21st-century senior phone?
The shift in mood is easier to understand when you look at the details. A vivo X30 Pro that had served for nearly four years developed a bug; its owner quickly moved to an iPhone 15. For people who have gradually assembled an Apple ecosystem across devices, the appeal is not only hardware. It is the same affection one might have for a Kindle: a product that feels coherent, closed, and deliberately designed. Yet affection does not erase the strategic worry.
ChatGPT made the first move, and the response was global. In China, Baidu launched Ernie Bot, though there is understandable skepticism: given Baidu’s history, future AI answers could include ads. That is a side issue, but it points to the trust problem. In the early days, ChatGPT accounts were even traded; one could buy an account for about two yuan. The novelty was real. It answered questions well, handled scenario-based conversation smoothly, and helped write the code for a static blog. On mobile, voice conversation became the most useful feature—especially for English speaking practice.
Microsoft’s Copilot is the more strategically important move. Putting AI inside Office was one of Microsoft’s best decisions this year, and many now see that as the reason Microsoft has moved ahead of Google. But product demos are not the same as daily use. For light users, Copilot can feel complicated; after a few trials it may seem less convenient than advertised, and for ordinary study tasks it is not necessary.
Google Bard arrived in a hurry and produced some embarrassing moments. A heavy Google user might try it immediately and find it disappointing. Months later, a month of intensive use for an internship could reverse that judgment; Bard became surprisingly comfortable, while ChatGPT felt weaker—perhaps because the user never learned to prompt it well, or because the free version is not ChatGPT Plus. The lesson is not that one tool is permanently better, but that AI products improve quickly and user skill matters.
On phones, AI is still mostly a label. Samsung’s Galaxy S24 introduced call AI and note AI, so AI has technically entered the handset. But the features have already drawn criticism. Most phone AI is tucked into a corner and left there; people who genuinely need AI still open ChatGPT, Bard, or Ernie Bot. Putting AI in a phone is not the same as making the phone better.
There is also a basic reliability problem. AI is connected to the web and draws on existing knowledge. If someone posts a false answer online, AI may pick it up and repeat it. Ask ChatGPT a legal question and it can invent a statute that does not exist. Search for that statute and nothing comes up. The embarrassment is funny until you imagine relying on it in a serious setting. Artificial intelligence can become artificial stupidity when it treats bad data as authority.
Smart tools have to serve daily life. If they remain lofty concepts, they will not be widely used. For all the talk of an AI world, the most traditional habits have not changed much. People still use Google because it is convenient and reliable. They do not hand serious legal drafting entirely to AI. Phones already meet most daily needs; the next gains come from details that win people over. Good AI can be one of those details, but it is not the main problem.
What matters more is the ecosystem. A phone maker needs to make its own ecosystem work well before AI can be meaningfully layered on top. Once AI matures, the question will be how to integrate it into that ecosystem, not how to add a standalone chatbot icon. Samsung’s S24 launch shows both the ambition and the limitation: AI is entering phones, but the execution still leaves room for complaint. Huawei’s next ecosystem push is worth watching. A safe, reliable, stable environment can earn a place in the market. Apple users often care about the closed ecosystem and the small animated details. No one wants a phone full of ads and uninstallable preinstalled software. One previous vivo phone had more than twenty built-in apps that could not be deleted and were never used. That is the kind of irritation that makes ecosystem quality feel personal.
Vision Pro is still worth anticipating. Many people in China cannot afford it, and foreign reviews describe it as dreamlike but heavy. That makes it an experience device, not something for convenient daily life. When AR becomes a pair of glasses, people will rush to try it. Going from a phone to glasses would be a genuinely good move.