Cook 'incredibly excited' about generative AI coming to Apple gear later in 2024
Tim Cook says that Apple is spending "a tremendous amount of time and effort" on AI features that will be announced in the coming months.
A Siri icon superimposed on Apple Park
Apple's Cook took the opportunity of the firm's latest financial earnings call to enthuse about the Apple Vision Pro and the future of AI. "We are announcing these results on the eve of what is sure to be an historic day as we enter the era of spatial computing," he said. "Moments like these are what we live for at Apple, they're why we do what we do."
He said that this is "why we're so unflinchingly dedicated to groundbreaking innovation," and also "why we're so focused on pushing technology to its limits as we work to enrich the lives of our users."
"As we look ahead," he continued, "we will continue to invest in these and other technologies that will shape the future that includes artificial intelligence, where we continue to spend a tremendous amount of time and effort and we're excited to share the details of our ongoing work in that space later this year."
Cook initially said nothing more than that, and it was only an implication that the news would happen during the year instead of at the end. That does fit with recent reports that Apple will make significant AI and Siri announcements at WWDC in June.
In response to questioning about AI, Cook did expand on his brief statement. "In terms of generative AI," he added, "we have a lot of work going on internally as I've alluded to before."
"Our MO, if you will, has always been to to do work and then talk about work, and not to get out in front of ourselves and so we're going to hold that to this as well," he continued. "But we have got some things that we're incredibly excited about, that we'll be talking about later this year."
Perhaps the most significant element of Cook's promise of forthcoming news was how he set up that initial announcement. Apple is a technology company but also one that is very much focused on how it can "enrich the lives of our users."
Cook is saying that Apple is not leaping onto the AI bandwagon just in order to catch up with the rest of the industry. He's saying that Apple has been looking for a point for adding AI features -- and that it has found it.
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Comments
I think Tim said what he had to say today for the benefit of Wall Street because Apple is simply not in the conversation when it comes to AI... except to ask, "Where is Apple in all of this?" which is not the question you want raised. The lack of specifics in what he said did not inspire confidence that there are specifics to tout--I guess he's hoping to have some by WWDC in June. And you can blah, blah, blah all you want about how much AI is already in Apple products, but it doesn't change the fact that, as a company, they are not in the AI conversation like MSFT, NVDA, GOOG, META, etc.
As a creative professional--you know, a prime target market for Apple--AI is already having a profound and beneficial effect on my work flow. And none of the tools I'm currently using are connected to Apple in any way.
AI euh excuse me ML is being backed into every product since 2017 from a HW perspective, and FaceID was the real visible use of AI/ML of Apple, but to name just a few things that Apple has used ML more and more. The Translate App that is really fast and completely offline supporting dozens of Languages, recognizing objects and people in photo’s you can look up in your library. All the features that people with disabilities use, are almost all based on AI/ML. The dictation tool that works way better than Siri by the way, AI/ML, The autocorrect / suggestion, finally uses AI/ML and is finally descent … Centerstage … etc etc etc … So all in all things I use daily, while I used ChatGPT in the beginning for fun, I stopped using it, the initial high and wow has gone and some meh feeling took over. Yes for coding it has potential or for some very niche use cases it could be great, replacing jobs, but do we really want to replace humans buy a chatbot …
alternatively, they could name it Steve. That would be kinda cool. And have the ai render Jobs’voice
and password fields of some websites I use, so autofill passwords don’t work (as just one example)
Oh but Alexa is doing so well /s
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/11/amazon-lays-off-alexa-employees-as-2010s-voice-assistant-boom-gives-way-to-ai/
https://www.reuters.com/technology/amazoncom-cut-several-hundred-alexa-jobs-2023-11-17/
I have a Mac Studio M2 Ultra (code-named Max Headroom) with a Apple XDR, I'm very happy using it but this quarter Apples financial report says Apple is leaving too much on the table by not offering big screen iMacs, Mac M2/M3 servers, Mac Pro and when combined with bad timing by not offering upgraded iPads before the start of the 2023 back to school buying season (starting 2nd week of August), a Oct 26 availability was too late and the same applies to the new M3 PowerBook laptops which were released on a even later date Nov. 7.
Any new/updated computer laptop/iPad Apple sells has to hit the streets mid August to catch the start of the back to school buying season to maximize sales? Which also gives a long run up to the Christmas buying season, yea it's tough but these are tough times those dates were missed. Apple did not maximize their opportunities. Mid August release time frame cannot be missed.
Apple is leaving real product possibilities on the table big screen iMacs, Mac M2/M3 servers, and Mac Pro's all may seem mundane when compared to the current AI hype or the Apple Vision, but some unglamorous computer trucks need to be built too the latest financials certainly indicate that.
I’ve been using a Dell 32” 4K monitor on a VESA arm with my M2 MacBook Air. I find it to be an awesome setup on a 30” x 60” desk. It would be equally awesome with a nicely spec’d Mac mini. The 144Hz capable 4K Dell monitor plus VESA mounting arm combined configuration cost me less than one-half what a smaller what a Studio Display costs. I had previously thought that 32” would be too big, but it’s a very nice size for a single monitor setup. There’s no denying that it is large and heavy and if I kept the stand it came with it would consume a fair amount of desk real estate. The VESA mount makes a world of difference. By having the VESA mount I can position it in portrait orientation, but it seems ungainly when setup like this. In fact I do use the rotating mount to initially plug in the various cables because Dell has for some reason decided to make access to the monitor ports as difficult to access as possible. Rotating the whole monitor 90 degrees solves this problem.