Apple is late to AI. But this spring, it has caught up and said it is committing to all sorts of AI capabilities. Many of them have not yet been realized. The nearest Apple Watchers are wondering if Apple will deliver them. But when people like Apple blogger John Gruber are publicly ashamed of the company, you know something is happening.
Do you remember when Apple said it would bring artificial intelligence to the world to your mobile phone?
It was June. And, after all, the bundle of things Apple has promised to be here hasn’t yet appeared and may not appear for a while now.
If you’re a normal person, you probably wouldn’t mind this. However, for Apple Watchers and close fans of Apple, this has become an increasingly big problem. I wonder if Apple made a clear, non-app-like mistake last year.
And it worries them about the condition of the apple itself.
That faith crisis was most notably achieved on Wednesday through a ferocious post from influential Apple blogger John Gruber. The title is correct: “Something is rotten in Cupertino.”
Gruber’s discussion was summarised: Apple has not shipped the most consequential features unveiled in June. Just as the phone sifts through your emails and texts and tells you if your mother has arrived at the airport. More worry is Gruber’s belief that Apple actually doesn’t know how to provide such features, and what was revealed in the spring was merely “Vaporware.”
What’s even more worrying is that Apple wasn’t just showing something like this at the developer meeting. It tells ordinary people that these features will come soon.
Adding it all refers to the company’s deep mal laziness, Gruber said. If Cook doesn’t get it right away, Gruber insisted, “That’s all she wrote. The ride is over.”
“When the mediocre, the excuse, the bull takes root, they take over,” he said. “A culture of excellence, accountability and integrity cannot protect the acceptance of either of them and quickly collapses with the acceptance of all three.”
Gruber isn’t the only one who is worried about Apple’s AI efforts. Earlier this week, analyst Ben Thompson pointed out the delay, and concluded that “Apple seemed to have tried to do too much at once.”
These critiques have been constructed for some time. In November, High Poplar technology reviewer Marques Brownlee was unimpressed after Apple rated the AI capabilities it had deployed so far. “Apple made this promise that this huge thing is coming,” he said. “I think that promise is beginning to fade.”
We have contacted Apple for comment.
Is this problem in the real world? perhaps. Apple’s stocks are down 10% this week, doubleping the decline seen by the wider Nasdaq. Of course, other reasons investors are concerned about Apple: trade war exiles that could dramatically increase the costs of Apple’s supply chain, which rely heavily on China.
That said, a year ago, Google was in the middle of what seemed like an existential crisis when it ran through its own AI rollout. You may remember the result of the “waking up” of the Gemini chatbot, or the equally embarrassing answer to putting glue on pizza. But Google keeps it, and for better or worse, Google offers you AI-generated answers, most often, whether you want them or not.
Also, Apple can get around this problem entirely by having the API chase AI and leaving AI to companies that focus on Apple’s real success.
Analysts are excited about the new Apple device. This seems to be a newly released desktop PC that should work very well with the computing demands that cutting-edge AI requires.
“Apple doesn’t have to have its own industry-leading AI, at least not now. If it’s that way, that’s great, but if it’s not, it’s fine,” Gruber told me via email.
“Apple is the best platform to use AI from anyone. The best phone to use ChatGpt is the iPhone. The best phone to use Claude or Prperxity is the iPhone. ChatGpt has a great native Mac app.
A little oddly, “Apple makes hardware suitable for other people’s AI” was actually a major part of Apple’s AI pitch last year, and what people like Thompson thought was very smart.
“We have an interface for people who want to do these big, massive language models and plug in and shoot them or spend billions of dollars left to leave it. It’s about taking their position as a reliable device in people’s lives and letting everyone dance to their songs,” he told me in the spring.
Can Apple focus on that version of AI instead of trying to catch up with everyone else? It’s very different for Apple to look up and announce that the very big things they promised never happen. Also, unlike Apple, you can get this sadness from its biggest fans.
