Apple still plans to sell iPhones when it turns 100

Apple is allergic To nostalgia. In 2008, when the Macintosh was about to turn 25 years old, I mentioned it to Steve Jobs and he immediately shut down the discussion. He said to me coldly: “If you look back on this work, you will be crushed.” “You have to look forward.” As Apple approaches its 50th anniversary, the company reluctantly engages in a series of concerts and commemorative celebrations, and we are bombarded with books, articles, and oral histories about the company’s early years.

Instead of joining the crowded memory lane, I asked Apple to do what Jobs suggested — look forward. What does Apple want to happen in the next 50 years?

Earlier this month, I sat down with two senior executives to discuss this matter. One was Apple’s senior vice president of global marketing, Greg Joswiak, also known as Goose, who joined Apple in 1986. The other was senior vice president of hardware engineering John Ternos, the front-runner to succeed Tim Cook as Apple’s CEO. He has been with the company for 25 years. She also spoke briefly with Cook himself, just before Alicia Keys performed in front of the Apple Store in Grand Central Station — the reluctant start of Apple’s anniversary celebration.

After acknowledging Apple’s uncharacteristic party style — “this is too special” to ignore — Joswiak admits — we’re treated to the future. After launching the PC revolution, Apple has been able to navigate multiple inflection points. With the Macintosh, they perfected the graphical user interface that made computers much easier to use. The iMac positioned the company for the Internet boom. Of course, despite the late start, Apple owned the mobile era with the iPhone. These products have remained vital, and just this month, Apple released the new Macbook Neo, the latest installment in a 42-year-old series. But the future now belongs to artificial intelligence, a category that Apple seems to have implemented so far.

These gentlemen disagree. They insist that Apple is already at the forefront of the artificial intelligence revolution. “We were making AI before we even called it AI!” says Joziak. “Every great chatbot works great on our products.” Ternos says that even if Apple doesn’t take the lead in developing AI technology, it will still benefit. “Our products are the best place people can use existing AI tools.”

I’m pushing them into this. After all, if we’re looking decades into the future, shouldn’t we assume that we’ll move beyond our current computing paradigms and embrace something that specifically caters to the wonders of artificial intelligence? That’s what former Apple design guru Jony Ive appears to be doing with OpenAI. They are just one participant in the race to come up with new types of devices specifically designed for artificial intelligence. “I assume you want one of these to be an Apple device, right?” I asked.

The answer seems to be Not necessarily. “Let’s not lose sight of the fact that none of what you just said conflicts with the iPhone,” Joswiak says. “The iPhone is not going away. The iPhone is going to play a very central role in any of those things you’re talking about.”

Wait – Apple thinks people will use the iPhone 50 years from now?

“It’s hard to imagine not having that,” says Joswiak. “This is where everyone struggles. They don’t have an iPhone, so they’re scrambling to figure out what to do. A lot of what they’re talking about ends up being accessories for the iPhone. We won’t get into future roadmaps, but I will tell you, iPhones aren’t going anywhere.” (Despite this bravado, I’ll be shocked if Apple doesn’t produce some AI-powered gadgets in the coming years.)