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.
苹果老板蒂姆·库克（Tim Cook）在2024年开局不佳。 在过去的一个月里，他的公司面临着一系列不同寻常的不愉快。 一场专利纠纷迫使苹果公司取消了两款智能手表的功能。 它发现美国司法部（DOJ）将起诉其违反反垄断法。 该公司还报告说，它正在失去其第二大智能手机市场中国的市场份额。 雪上加霜的是，一些华尔街分析师说了一些直到最近才想像的事情——苹果的**被高估了。 1月11日，竞争对手Microsoft正式取代iPhone制造商，成为全球最有价值的公司。
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.
坏消息可能会在2月1日苹果公布其最新季度收益时继续。 *研究人员估计，该公司在 2023 年最后一个季度的收入几乎没有增长，如果有的话。 然后，在 2 月 2 日，苹果将再次接受考验。 它将开始销售Vision Pro，这是一款已经开发并宣传了几年的增强现实（AR）耳机。 这款售价3,499美元的高端设备代表了苹果对新技术“平台”的重大押注，它希望有朝一日能够取代智能手机成为消费者数字体验的核心，iPhone成为其制造商的财富**。 早期迹象表明，苹果应该关注这款设备的未来。 Netflix、Spotify 和 YouTube 已经宣布，他们不会让他们流行的流媒体**应用程序在这款耳机上运行。 没有人告诉原因。 但这可能是因为它们都在与苹果自己的流媒体**服务竞争，而且开发AR应用程序的成本可能很高。
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.
库克可以忽略其中的一些担忧。 尽管如此，苹果的股价在1月份并没有显示出有意义的变化。 在被Microsoft超越几天后，它重新获得了重量级的市场份额——以及 3 万亿美元的估值。 如果Vision Pro的推出是失败的，那么考虑到耳机的初始产量有限，对苹果收入的短期影响将是徒劳的。
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?
尽管如此，苹果老板在新的一年里对这些小问题不屑一顾是不明智的。 因为他们指出了公司面临的更大挑战。 这些问题大致分为三大类：反垄断和法律问题; iPhone销售放缓; 以及地缘政治紧张局势加剧。 目前，这些都不是生存问题。 但随之而来的是引起巨大不安的风险。 他们是否会让苹果公司失去成为世界上最有价值的公司超过一周左右的时间？
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.
尽管苹果的市值自2010年以来一直跻身全球前10名，但直到几年前，其估值相对于利润而言还很低。 它被认为是硬件制造商，这是一项比软件制造商更难扩展的业务。