| | | Mark Zuckerberg Just Declared War on the iPhone
Meta’s CEO painted a vision for how AI creates an opening for new ‘primary computing devices’
By Tim Higgins
Aug. 3, 2025 5:30 am ET
Mark Zuckerberg didn’t use Apple’s AAPL name the other day when laying out his vision for marrying superintelligent AI and his hardware. He might as well have.
The Meta Platforms META chief is just the latest in Silicon Valley to put a bull’s-eye on the iPhone’s role as gatekeeper to the digital world. He did so in a manifesto that dropped during a week when everyone was fixated on earnings from Meta and its Big Tech rivals.
Zuckerberg is clearly betting that advanced artificial intelligence’s near emergence will finally open the door to a post-smartphone world. “Personal devices like glasses that understand our context because they can see what we see, hear what we hear, and interact with us throughout the day will become our primary computing devices,” he wrote Wednesday in an online post detailing how Meta will bring AI to users.
He’s long dreamed of unseating Apple as his users’ primary computing device—whether through his own smartphone, VR goggles or augmented-reality glasses—but failed to do so. Now, he is spending big, offering $100 million pay packages to land top AI talent in an arms race to develop and commercialize AI.
It is an area where Apple is seen as a surprising laggard. The company has delayed features, and investors worry about the lack of investment compared with the likes of Meta, OpenAI and others.
The Facebook co-founder called his vision “personal superintelligence” and drew a path for finally achieving his desire to have an Apple-like experience that combines software and hardware. What has been a cold war with the bigger rival, becomes much hotter if Zuckerberg is really able to pull off what he’s suggesting, infusing his smartglasses—which he has been touting as the perfect device for AI assistants—with much more capability than they currently offer.
“Personal superintelligence that knows us deeply, understands our goals, and can help us achieve them will be by far the most useful,” he wrote.
Zuckerberg isn’t alone in believing that the time is ripe for a new pecking order among tech platforms—and the new fortunes that could unlock for the winners.
wsj.com |
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