Forget the AI Headlines: Apple's First Foldable iPhone Could Be the Stock's Biggest Catalyst in Years

2026-06-09 23:51:00 ET

Most of the recent conversation around Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) has centered on artificial intelligence (AI) . At its annual developers conference this week, the tech giant walked through a long-awaited overhaul of its Siri voice assistant and its broader Apple Intelligence AI features -- and investors weren't especially impressed. After touching an all-time high of about $317 earlier this month, shares have eased back to around $291 as of this writing.

But for a company worth about $4.3 trillion, where the iPhone still brings in about half of all revenue, the more important near-term question may have little to do with AI. It could come down to hardware -- and specifically, whether Apple can keep its current upgrade wave going while adding something genuinely new to the lineup.

There's reason to think it can.

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