tim cook, boss of apple, is h**ing a rough start to 2024. in the past month his company has faced an unusual barrage of unpleasantness. a patent dispute forced it to remove features from two of its smartwatches. it found out that america's department of justice (doj) would be suing it over antitrust transgressions. and it reported that it was losing market share in china, its second-biggest smartphone market. adding insult to injury, a few wall street analysts said something unthinkable until recently—that apple's shares were overvalued. on january 11th microsoft, a rival tech titan, duly dethroned the iphone-maker, temporarily, as the world's most valuable company.
蘋果老闆蒂姆·庫克（Tim Cook）在2024年開局不佳。 在過去的乙個月裡，他的公司面臨著一系列不同尋常的不愉快。 一場專利糾紛迫使蘋果公司取消了兩款智慧型手錶的功能。 它發現美國司法部（DOJ）將起訴其違反反壟斷法。 該公司還報告說，它正在失去其第二大智慧型手機市場中國的市場份額。 雪上加霜的是，一些華爾街分析師說了一些直到最近才想像的事情——蘋果的**被高估了。 1月11日，競爭對手Microsoft正式取代iPhone製造商，成為全球最有價值的公司。
the run of bad news may continue on february 1st, when apple reports its latest quarterly earnings. equity researchers estimate that its revenues barely grew in the last quarter of 2023, if at all. then, on february 2nd, apple will be tested once again. it will start shipping the vision pro, an augmented-reality (ar) headset that it has been working on—and talking up—for a few years. the high-end gadget, which will sell for $3,499, represents a big bet on a new technology "platform" that, apple may be hoping, could one day replace the smartphone as the core of consumers' digital experience—and the iphone as the source of its maker's riches. early indications hint that apple should worry about the device's prospects. netflix, spotify and youtube h**e announced that they will not make their popular streaming apps work on the headset. none said why. but it could be because they all compete with apple's own streaming services, and developing an ar app is likely to be costly.
壞訊息可能會在2月1日蘋果公布其最新季度收益時繼續。 *研究人員估計，該公司在 2023 年最後乙個季度的收入幾乎沒有增長，如果有的話。 然後，在 2 月 2 日，蘋果將再次接受考驗。 它將開始銷售Vision Pro，這是一款已經開發並宣傳了幾年的增強現實（AR）耳機。 這款售價3,499美元的高階裝置代表了蘋果對新技術“平台”的重大押注，它希望有朝一日能夠取代智慧型手機成為消費者數字體驗的核心，iPhone成為其製造商的財富**。 早期跡象表明，蘋果應該關注這款裝置的未來。 Netflix、Spotify 和 YouTube 已經宣布，他們不會讓他們流行的流媒體**應用程式在這款耳機上執行。 沒有人告訴原因。 但這可能是因為它們都在與蘋果自己的流媒體**服務競爭，而且開發AR應用程式的成本可能很高。
mr cook can brush off some of these worries. despite everything, apple's share price has not moved meaningfully in january. a few days after being overtaken by microsoft, it reclaimed its he**yweight stockmarket title—and its $3 trillion valuation. and if the vision pro's launch is a flop, the short-term effect on apple's revenues will be nugatory, given the headset's limited initial production.
庫克可以忽略其中的一些擔憂。 儘管如此，蘋果的股價在1月份並沒有顯示出有意義的變化。 在被Microsoft超越幾天後，它重新獲得了重量級的市場份額——以及 3 萬億美元的估值。 如果Vision Pro的推出是失敗的，那麼考慮到耳機的初始產量有限，對蘋果收入的短期影響將是徒勞的。
nevertheless, apple's boss would be unwise to dismiss the new year's niggles. for they point to larger challenges for the company. these fall into three broad categories: antitrust and legal issues; slowing iphone sales; and growing geopolitical tensions. none of these is existential right now. but each carries with it a risk of causing a big upset. could they cost apple its position as the world's most valuable company for longer than a week or so?
儘管如此，蘋果老闆在新的一年裡對這些小問題不屑一顧是不明智的。 因為他們指出了公司面臨的更大挑戰。 這些問題大致分為三大類：反壟斷和法律問題; iPhone銷售放緩; 以及地緣政治緊張局勢加劇。 目前，這些都不是生存問題。 但隨之而來的是引起巨大不安的風險。 他們是否會讓蘋果公司失去成為世界上最有價值的公司超過一周左右的時間？
though apple's market value has been among the world's top ten since 2010, until a few years ago it traded at a low valuation relative to profits. it was thought of as a maker of hardware, a business that is more difficult to scale than software.
儘管蘋果的市值自2010年以來一直躋身全球前10名，但直到幾年前，其估值相對於利潤而言還很低。 它被認為是硬體製造商，這是一項比軟體製造商更難擴充套件的業務。