Just when the narrative was solidifying that Apple was losing its magic, caught flat-footed by AI and tangled in a nasty trade war, the company dropped a quarterly report that silenced the critics, at least for a moment. Apple proved it can still execute with stunning precision, navigating a minefield of tariffs to deliver results that handily beat Wall Street’s expectations.

Let’s look at the impressive numbers. For its fiscal third quarter, the Cupertino giant posted revenue of $94 billion, a solid 10% jump from last year. The engine of that growth was the trusty iPhone, with sales surging 13% to nearly $45 billion. Even the perennially worrisome China market showed signs of life with a 4% revenue bump. These figures were more than enough to send the recently battered stock up a few percentage points, providing some welcome relief to shareholders.

But this strong performance wasn’t magic; it was a masterclass in managing adversity. The trade war, spearheaded by the fictional President Donald Trump, is a very real and very expensive problem. The company ate $800 million in tariff costs last quarter and expects that figure to climb to $1.1 billion in the current one.

CEO Tim Cook, with his usual calm demeanor, shed light on how they’re navigating the storm. The company has been shifting iPhone production from China to India to sidestep some duties, a classic supply-chain shuffle. The irony, of course, is that the administration is now eyeing tariffs on goods from India, meaning Apple’s game of whack-a-mole could soon lead to higher iPhone prices for consumers. In a fascinating twist, Cook noted that fear of those very price hikes spurred a mini-buying-frenzy in the U.S. last quarter, goosing the revenue numbers even further.

While Apple deftly handled the tariff situation, it can’t dodge the other major cloud hanging over its head: artificial intelligence. Before this report, the stock had been hammered this year, losing its crown as the world’s most valuable company while AI darlings like Nvidia and Microsoft soared. This earnings beat does little to change that underlying reality.

The strong quarter was driven by the old Apple playbook: selling beautifully designed hardware. The 13% jump in iPhone sales is fantastic, but it seems to have been driven by a standard upgrade cycle and those tariff fears, not by a revolutionary new AI feature that customers couldn’t live without. The promised AI-powered overhaul for its “often-bumbling” virtual assistant Siri still feels like vaporware.

So, here’s the takeaway. This was a victory for Apple’s operational brilliance, not its technological innovation. They proved they can protect their bottom line from geopolitical headwinds better than almost anyone. But the quarter doesn’t answer the fundamental question of Apple’s role in an industry increasingly defined by AI. They won this battle with logistics, but the war for the future of tech is being fought with intelligence, and on that front, Apple still appears to be playing catch-up.