It seems to me that Apple is only going to be further increasing the number of price points and "levels" of caliber of devices, from budget/entry level all the way to new heights such as things like iPhone Ultra or Macbook Ultra, because services will be have an even wider net to cast into (If you're buying Ultra devices, you'll probably get AppleCare+, and if you have new apple devices such as the Neo or 17e etc, you'll be more likely to get Apple music or books or fitness or whatnot.

I subscribed to MacAddict in the mid-90s, back when Gil Amelio was Apple’s CEO, the company couldn’t ship software (Copland, Dylan, Gershwin, etc.), & they could barely afford to acquire NeXT.

It still blows my mind that this is the same company.

Short version:

Reported quarterly revenue: ~$111 billion, so a 17% year-over-year increase.

Diluted earnings per share: ~$2. 22% increase compared to the same quarter last year.

Operating cash flow: surpassed $28 billion. Record for a March quarter.

iPhone: Record March-quarter revenue of ~$57 billion, heavily supported by demand for the iPhone 17.

Services: Hit an all-time high revenue record of ~$31 billion.

Capital Allocation: The board raised the quarterly cash dividend by 4% to $0.27 per share and authorized an additional $100 billion for share repurchases.

More generally, we're seeing a transition in their financials away from hardware dependence. At this point we can pretty conclusively say that Apple is now a hardware manufacturer mainly, backed up by a high-margin services ecosystem. Services revenue has grown consistently, providing a smoothing function against the more spikey revenue from the hardware product cycles.

Overall they've managed to maintain an ability to deliver double-digit growth, despite creating categories of product which haven't succeeded, providing enough free cash flow to continue their insane (in terms of scale) capital return program (dividends and massive buybacks in the main).

All this while passing on the leap of faith everybody else is taking in the form of crazy AI investments.

If the bubble bursts, Apple with its mountain of cash will be ready to buy the carcasses of whatever is left.