Apple snaps out of iPhone slump, but for what's next?
By Associated Press
Jan 31, 2017 3:33 PM CST
FILE - In this Sept. 7, 2016, file photo, Phil Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of worldwide marketing, talks about the pricing on the new iPhone 7 during an event to announce new products, in San Francisco. Eliminating the headphone jack doesn't seem to have hurt sales of the iPhone 7, which...   (Associated Press)

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Apple has snapped out of the first sales slump in the iPhone's decade-long history, but the upturn doesn't mean that the company has broken out of its innovation funk.

If anything, the numbers Apple released Tuesday served as the latest reminder of the company's growing dependence on the iPhone while failing so far to come up with another breakthrough product since co-founder Steve Jobs died in 2011.

Meanwhile, Apple's rivals have been rolling out new products in other promising fields such as augmented reality, virtual reality and artificial intelligence. Apple has been trailing in these areas.

To make matters worse, Apple's iPhone sales had fallen in three consecutive quarters before it rose 5 percent in the last three months of 2016 to 78.3 million units.