Best Podcasts on Apple iPhone 17 & Vision Pro
Updated: May 04, 2026 – 7 episodes
Apple has reported robust earnings for the second quarter, largely attributed to the strong sales of its iPhone 17. However, there is ongoing debate about the future of its Vision Pro product, which has not met expectations. This performance highlights Apple's continued dominance in the smartphone market, while raising questions about its strategy in augmented reality.
Apple Bitz XL with Brian Tong offers a critical view on the Vision Pro, suggesting it's an overpriced foundation for future AR tech. For a bullish take on Apple's iPhone 17 success, 9to5Mac Daily highlights its market dominance. Hard Fork provides a balanced perspective, discussing Apple's missed opportunities in AR while acknowledging its smartphone leadership. The Vergecast questions Apple's future growth, pointing to the Vision Pro and Apple Car as failed experiments. Start with Hard Fork for a well-rounded discussion on Apple's strategic challenges.
Listen to the Playlist
Ridealong has curated the best podcasts and clips about Apple sees strong Q2 earnings driven by iPhone 17 sales. Listen now.
Podcast Episodes Covering This Story
“Obviously, what Apple's trying to do here is launch a completely new computing paradigm with spatial computing. And another way of saying sort of augmented reality, because you're kind of pulling the inside and outside world together, the virtual and the real world together. And no headset that I've used does it better. I thought that Samsung's, the Galaxy AR, it's impressive, but it's not as good. I wished it were, but it was not.”
Ridealong summary
The Vision Pro is an impressive but overpriced product that serves as a foundation for future, more accessible AR innovations.
“The iPhone 17 lineup led the market in Q4 2025 with its core models taking the top three spots and anchoring Apple presence in the top 10 best smartphone list. Apple took five total spots among the top 10 best phones in the last quarter of 2025 headlined by the iPhone 17 Pro Max at number one followed by the base model iPhone 17 at number two, the iPhone 17 Pro at number three.”
Ridealong summary
Apple's iPhone 17 lineup has dominated the smartphone market, securing multiple top spots in sales and reinforcing Apple's market leadership.
“I think the Apple Vision Pro flop points to, I would say, the biggest sort of macro miss of Tim Cook's tenure as CEO, which was that they didn't find the next platform. Whichever company makes the most important computing platform in the world and the most financially successful one is never the company that invents the next big thing. They have no incentive to, right? It's, you know, the classic sort of innovators dilemma.”
Ridealong summary
Apple's Vision Pro flop highlights a failure to find the next big platform, but their dominance with the iPhone remains unchallenged.
“"Vision Pro, certainly a failure I think it a little bit of a flop that they kind of quietly pulling that and now he leaving... certainly in terms of consumer AI Apple intelligence has been kind of a flop... Siri was very well primed to be a great winner of the AI revolution, and it wasn't."”
Ridealong summary
Apple's strong iPhone sales contrast with its struggles in AI and augmented reality, highlighting a strategic imbalance.
“They lost the innovative groundbreaking soul of the company and they just went into profit and iteration mode. But no acquisitions of note nothing important was acquired, and nothing important was released. Vision Pro, you can give them like, maybe that's like the sixth best product or something. But it obviously hasn't hit the mainstream.”
Ridealong summary
Apple's current strategy under Tim Cook is seen as lacking innovation, focusing instead on iteration and profit, despite strong earnings from iPhone sales.
“"I think my hottest take is there's not another thing after the smartphone. I don't think we're all going to run around wearing glasses in that way... the car, which I think is the closest thing to sort of a failed lark of an experiment, seems by and large to have been Tim Cook giving Johnny Ive too much rope to chase his own vision and ideas."”
Ridealong summary
Apple's future growth is limited by the smartphone's maturity, and ventures like the Vision Pro and Apple Car are seen as failed experiments rather than the next big thing.
“Apple doesn't like to ship anything that it doesn't think is going to be a hit. That's I've been thinking about this a lot. And like the companies that we cover, we talk about Google a lot. We talk about, you know, Samsung a lot here in the U.S. There's a lot of companies who ship a lot of products and famously kill them. Like the Google graveyard is immense. And these companies kill products for various reasons.”
Ridealong summary
Apple's cautious product strategy contrasts with competitors like Google and Samsung, leading to fewer but more significant product releases, which can amplify the impact of failures like the Vision Pro.