People are no longer making so many friendships on Facebook these days. The iPhone may not seem necessary in a decade. And Google searches in one of the most popular smartphones in the world are decreasing.
These were some of the exceptionally frank admissions of two antitrust judgments separated against the goal and Google. It was a rare recognition by the technological leaders that the avant -garde products in which their companies were founded could ever lose their relevance.
The Silicon Valley is proud of innovation, change and a constant search for finding “the next big news”.
The race for relevance is constant.
Still, admissions emphasize the growing pressure that technology giants face amidst new threats of artificial intelligence and new social media applications – and the speed with which any product can be left behind.
Apple did not respond to CNN’s request for comment. A Google spokesman pointed to the company’s public statements, while a Goal spokesman directed CNN to specific answers from CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s testimony in court.
The three giants of technology have helped shape the modern web in the last two decades.
Google’s search engine triumphed in the late 1990s and early 2000s due to its results classification system by relevance and importance rather than classifying them by topic.
And Meta, a Facebook -controlling company, is largely responsible for turning social platforms into a addictive feed of likes, comments and other interactions.
What boosted these two trends was the smartphone, allowing users to access these services from almost anywhere, something Apple prepared with the first iPhone in 2007.
The success of these products catapulted Apple, Google and the goal for mega-values. But during the testimony in the court, executives indicated that consumers are losing interest in some of the tasks to which Facebook and Google were initially created.
Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president, revealed last week that Google search consultations on their devices first decreased last month, according to Bloomberg. The comments were made during his testimony at the Justice Department Antitrust Judgment against Google. (Google pays Apple to be the standard search engine in the iPhone manufacturer’s safari browser).
This is another sign that consumers may be changing to AI chatbots to fulfill some of the functions of a traditional search engine. The Gartner market research company estimated last year that the volume of search engines would fall 25% by 2026 as consumers turned to AI tools.
Google said in a statement on Wednesday that it continues to “see the overall growth of research consultations,” and this includes “an increase in total consultations from Apple devices and platforms.”
The goal is also seeing consumers move away from their original use case: add friends and share content.
“The amount of content people share with friends on Facebook, especially, has diminished,” said Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg during an April trial of an antitrust process filed by the Federal Commission Commission.
“Even the amount of new friends people add … I think it’s decreasing. But I don’t know the exact numbers.”
Instead, Zuckerberg said the company recorded a large increase in direct messages.
Zuckerberg’s comments have been done at a time when surveys show that Facebook is behind other online platforms with younger audiences. A report from the December Pew Research Center found that Facebook use has fallen in the last 10 years, with only 32% of adolescents saying they use the homonymous social network of the goal. This compares to 71% in 2014 and 2015, although adolescents still use Instagram frequently.
The goal has aggressively shaped its applications to track new trends.
In 2013, Facebook failed to buy Snapchat, but about three years later introduced its own alternative on Instagram Stories. Instagram’s short -format video feed, known as Reels, came to face Tiktok in 2020, and Zuckerberg said in his testimony that video content is where people are spending most of their time on Facebook today.
Even the iPhone may be at risk of losing preference in the next decade, said an Apple executive.
“You may not need an iPhone 10 years from now, as crazy as it may seem,” said Cue, from Apple, during his statement at Google’s trial, Bloomberg.
With 19% of global smartphone shipments in the first quarter of 2025, according to the International Data Corporation, Apple’s iPhone is the second most popular smartphone brand in the world.
But Apple, along with other technology giants, is determined to find out what comes next.
And the answer could be smart glasses that use it to analyze the world around you and perform tasks without having to get the phone – a view in which the goal, Samsung and Google are already betting. Zuckerberg said in his testimony that he believes that consumers will eventually interact with content through “smart and holographic glasses”, eliminating the need to use a “bright rectangle” to access digital platforms. Amazon’s head of devices and services, Panos Panay, also did not rule out the possibility of Alexa glasses equipped with camera, similar to those offered by the goal, in an interview with CNN in February.
Apple also believes that the next step of computing will involve devices used in the face, as evidenced by the Vision Pro of $ 3,500. This device, although niche, can be a precursor of the types of intelligent glasses that Apple rivals are developing or selling today.
At the same time, consumers are not updating their phones so often now that mobile devices no longer change each year each year.
For now, consumers will continue to go through Instagram and enter Google search queries on their iPhones. And change is a good thing for corporate giants like these; It allows them to show Wall Street that there is still room to grow and at the same time reinforces their arguments for legislators that they face fierce competition.
What is changing, however, is that technology companies that dominated the early 2000s and 2010 may have to fight a little more to stay in front of the curve.
