Apple, what's up?

This post was originally written in Swedish, following the Google I/O Conference in early may 2018, and posted to Facebook. Below is a slightly edited Google translation, which is not how I would usually do things but feels fitting concerning the subject...

In the wake of Google I/O I wonder if Apple in the long run has a chance if they do not get better on cloud services and AI. Or is the value of these features exaggerated?

In Sweden, it is easy to dismiss voice-driven services and AI-curated as tech-geeky gimmicks, but in a major market such as the United States, the experience seems far more impressive and valuable to the general public. Nearly 20 million US households have already acquired smart speakers and can, with services like Amazon Prime and their credit cards, consume wildly from home with just the voice.

However, I find it much more exciting how the opportunity grows to let AI-driven services help us navigate the current information surplus. Google's new task of allowing AI and automation to relieve us of the screen fatigue they themselves helped to create feels both fresh and deeply ironic.

But what really sparked my thoughts around this is thinking back to this article I read a couple of months ago.
https://stratechery.com/2016/apples-organizational-crossroads/

In it, Ben Thompson argues that Apple's organizational model, which is so well suited for developing well-integrated ecosystems with hardware, does not work well at all for services. It's two years old now, have we seen something that suggests the opposite?