Apple R&D Spending At All-Time Highs Under Tim Cook's Leadership

Apple has recently hit it record best on its highest expenditure on research and development in their financial quarter. The company has long been focusing on making and improving services this 2019. Potentially, this data cements the company’s departure from being a leading smartphone and device maker into a full-fledged software and services provider.

The company has reportedly spent $4.2 billion on research and development according to CNBC. The company has only had this much focus on the R&D part since 2003. Back in the early millennium, Apple was making iPods and Macs which were greatly part of Apple’s continuing success.

As the company invests more money on R&D, the device side of Apple is currently in decline. The iPhones sales haven’t been doing well. It also doesn’t help that the company has been marketlng less attention to the iPhones. The company’s focus is mostly on digital services at the moment.

Many fans are seeing Tim Cook’s time as CEO as a transition period of Apple turning into a whole new company. Due to many new announcements focusing on improved services, new subscriptions, and other software-related upgrades, Apple is setting itself up to focus more on these products rather than going for iPhone upgrades.

As of now, Apple seems to be stagnating on adding new improvements to the iPhone device. Apple’s additions to the iPhone and their other devices are mostly hardware overhauls. Apple has yet to introduce a wholly new device that does something unique or at least introduce a wholly new feature that was not an improvement from an existing one.

Overall, Apple’s current spending on R&D shows that the company is investing money to develop something else as it transitions into another industry. Prior to being a smartphone giant, Apple was known for its music players with the iPod. The iPod also had many iterations such as the Shuffle, Mini, Touch, and Nano. As of now, the iPod Touch is the only device of its line that’s still currently supported by Apple.

In time, the iPhone could also get obsolete as Apple fully transitions into the services industry. Many fans are hoping that new devices would also be released by late 2019 when the newly introduced Apple services will be operational. However, we have to wait on Apple to see if they do have new releases.