I stopped using Macbooks about 5 years ago infavor of arch linux on my laptops. Its way better. I still use an iPhone but as soon as puri.sm gets an affordable linux phone with spotify and turn-by-turn directions with Google Maps I will probably switch to that.

they've had some missteps

Apple Vision Pro just flat out failed (please don't try to contrarian-take this)

Apple Intelligence may be something one day, but for now Apple seems completely out of the AI race (and they want to be in it, regardless of what HN readers think)

Apple Car was either a failure or a total lie

Apple TV seems to be lots of money spent for a little money back

the iPhone has become a replacement parts business with incremental upgrades but no real reason to run out and stand in line for a new phone

MacBooks are fine but MacOS just seems to be slowly rotting

Watches still seem to be doing fine

Apple Silicon chips are great but I doubt most users care about incremental improvements they will never exploit

Trump keeps hounding them to get manufacturing in to the US, and he has some levers to pull (like it or not)

Tim Cook probably just needs to claim victory and move on, let someone else try something new

No.

The difference is one has $250B+ in cash reserves and the other doesn't have a clue.