AAPL's customer service and quality control have gotten worse, but IMHO less worse than the competition. As a brand, it is still hard to beat. Plus, AI and its adjacent tools are going to drive a large round of upgrading across AAPL device classes. People will want more powerful devices to run new software and access new services, and AAPL's focus on on-device processing and privacy is going to serve it well. Estimates are that the global smartphone market alone will grow by $90-130 billion in the next three years, driven by AI and its new use cases. AAPL is likely to take a good portion of that new spending.

If AAPL continues to regularly introduce new, more useful and powerful devices, they will maintain their moat and possibly grow it. Given global supply shortages, they will probably sell all the devices they can produce, even with price increases. And if they continue to match production to the demand from their upgrade cycle correctly, their profits will remain undiminished.

It's hard to innovate and execute at such a high level consistently over time, but AAPL seems to have figured out how to do it. Their CEO transition was as smooth as BRK's. I am also a user and shareholder, and I like their prospects.

abromber