Apple's surge to record highs faces a major test next month. What it must do to pass

Apple 's incredible eight-week march to record highs faces a major test next month. Like many investors, we want to see the company meet the moment and keep the rally going. The iPhone maker's annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) kicks off on June 8, offering another chance to impress Wall Street with its rather uneven artificial intelligence execution. The event comes during a year of change for Apple as long-time CEO Tim Cook prepares to hand over the reins in September and a big AI partnership with Alphabet 's Google gets underway. The question is: Can Apple finally deliver on a truly conversational Siri? Ben Reitzes at Melius Research thinks so — predicting the new Siri will be "a lot better" with help from Google and its Gemini large language models. "We are seeing evidence that Siri could prove to be an agentic interface that can further differentiate the Apple ecosystem and ignite a level of excitement with developers not seen since the early days of the App Store," wrote Reitzes, Melius partner and head of technology research. "In short, Apple may be on the brink of some real AI sizzle." In addition to being embedded in Apple's platforms, Reitzes and his team envision a world in which must-have apps such as Uber , Lyft , and DoorDash get "really integrated into Siri." If users engage with apps more often and developer activity increases, that means more App Store revenue, which would further boost Apple's high-margin services business. …