https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/4/17419154/apple-wwdc-2018-ios-12-mac-macos-rebuild-trust > Apple software has never been more important. As we learned just this week, 2017 was the first year since the introduction of the iPhone that smartphone sales were basically flat year over year, according to venture capitalist Mary Meeker’s influential Internet Trends report. For Apple, its future depends on finding a business that doesn’t rely solely on achieving record-breaking smartphone sales year after year. The iPhone cannot last forever, and CEO Tim Cook has often positioned Apple’s growing services business as a core pillar of the company going forward. > But to find that way out of its iPhone dependence, Apple needs to figure out how to sell more consumers on its software and the broader Apple ecosystem, from Apple Music to Apple Pay to iCloud. Plus, the more you use and rely on Apple software, the more likely you might be to buy the new HomePod speaker, the latest version of the AirPods and Apple Watch, or even Apple’s rumored augmented reality device.