A prominent developer's critique of Apple is catalyzing anxieties about its future

Marco Arment, the former lead developer for Tumblr and creator of Instapaper, this weekend (May 21) argued in a blog post that Apple risks succumbing to the same fate as BlackBerry, which saw its business evaporate when Apple's iPhone changed the game. Arment contends that Apple is unprepared for the shift if consumers begin favoring services rooted in artificial intelligence being developed by other internet giants. "Today, Amazon, Facebook, and Google are placing large bets on advanced AI, ubiquitous assistants, and voice interfaces, hoping that these will become the next thing that our devices are for. Today, Apple's being led properly day-to-day and doing very well overall. But if the landscape shifts to prioritize those big-data AI services, Apple will find itself in a similar position as BlackBerry did almost a decade ago: what they're able to do, despite being very good at it, won't be enough anymore, and they won't be able to catch up."