Apple Is Speeding Up. Siri Isn’t. Jabran Kundi Thu, October 8, 2026 at 12:34 PM EDT 3 min read AAPL +0.82% Trade Apple on Coinbase Trading disclosure Trading disclosure The above button links to Coinbase. Yahoo Finance is not a broker-dealer or investment adviser and does not offer securities or cryptocurrencies for sale or facilitate trading. Coinbase pays us for certain activity generated through this link. Prices displayed are informational.
Just over a month into the job, new Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) CEO John Ternus is shaking things up. According to Bloomberg, he wants to release new devices throughout the year instead of saving them for spring and fall events. He's also considering cutting layers of middle management so engineers work more closely with leadership. At the same time, Apple is pulling back on projects it sees as less essential, including Siri, Vision Pro, and some AI software teams. AAPL's long-term track record is impressive enough to put it on our list of the 20 best-performing stocks over the last 20 years. But it was not the top performer. Seven other stocks on our list delivered a higher 20-year CAGR than Apple.
As Apple's former hardware chief, Ternus is playing to his strengths, and I think the move makes sense. More devices bring more people into Apple's services. This matters more right now because services revenue dipped from the previous quarter in June for the first time since 2022. A leaner structure should also help Apple move faster. Bank of America analyst Wamsi Mohan still sees Apple as "an eventual winner of AI at the edge" and rates it a Buy with a $370 target.
The risk is who people turn to when they want to get something done on their phones. Mohan warned that many iPhone owners now ask agents like Meta's Muse to shop or book things for them. That puts Meta in the middle of those purchases. The value Apple gets from app downloads and search traffic could then shift to whoever owns the agent. Apple could keep selling iPhones and still lose that business. That raises another question: Can Apple's premium iPhone strategy keep attracting buyers beyond early adopters?
What concerns me most is how slowly Siri improves. Its biggest upgrades tend to come with Apple's yearly software update, while agents like Muse can get better almost daily. Faster hardware launches won't close that gap, especially with Apple reportedly scaling back on Siri.
Apple's valuation already reflects high expectations. The stock's forward P/E stands at 37.78x, around 28% higher than its most recent historical average of 29.55x. Investors are paying that premium on the assumption that the company will continue to shape how people use their phones. Meanwhile, EPS growth is expected to slow from 18.38% in fiscal 2026 to 8.51% in 2027. To me, that makes a slow Siri and agents like Muse more important, while the premium valuation leaves little room for disappointment.
Meanwhile, hedge funds held steady. The number holding Apple slipped marginally from 170 in Q1 to 169 in Q2, while their stakes rose from $107.5 billion to $124.8 billion.
Overall, I like Ternus' push for speed. But the part of Apple that most needs to move faster right now is Siri.
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