Trump Tariffs Add to Apple’s Long-Standing Innovation Woes

Even before President Trump’s tariffs threatened to upend Apple’s manufacturing business in China, the company’s struggle to make new products was leading some people inside its lavish Silicon Valley headquarters to wonder whether the company had somehow lost its magic.

The tariffs, which were introduced April 2, caused Apple to lose $773 billion in market capitalization in four days and briefly lose its standing as the most valuable publicly traded company in the world. But investors had already started to sour on the company, sending its share price down 8 percent in the first four months of the year, double the S&P 500’s decline.

Apple had hoped to revive its fortunes over the past year with a virtual reality headset, the Vision Pro, and an artificial intelligence system called Apple Intelligence. Sales of the headset have been a disappointment, however, and the signature features of the A.I. system have been postponed because it didn’t work as well as the company had expected.

The company’s issues underscored how its reputation for innovation, once considered a fundamental element of its brand, has become an albatross, fueling angst among employees and frustration among customers. And company insiders worry that Apple, despite its years of gravity-defying profits, is hamstrung by the political infighting, penny pinching and talent drain that often bedevil large companies, according to more than a dozen former and current employees and advisers.

Apple declined to comment.

It has been a decade since the releases of Apple’s most recent commercial successes: the Apple Watch and AirPods. Its services like Apple TV+ and Fitness+, which it introduced in 2019, lag behind rivals in subscriptions. Half of its sales still come from the iPhone, an 18-year-old product that is incrementally improved nearly every year.

While Vision Pro sales have been disappointing, Apple’s issues with Apple Intelligence exposed dysfunction inside the organization.