Not a surprise really that Apple got caught with their pants down. Too much time and money wasted on the "never saw the light of day" car. The "googles" have consumed untold resources, too and have not been a runaway success in terms of sales. Frankly, usable Apple's AI is years away and could become a serious concern financially as investors loose confidence.
Apple has morphed from a small and fast Navy Destroyer to a more than cumbersome Battleship. The latter finally gets up to speed and requires vast space to change course or turn around let alone stop.
The incremental changes or improvements in their "core" revenue source, the iPhone, are an embarrassment when one sees what the competitors are pushing out.
The comments here in the peanut gallery should be a five alarm file in the Board of Directors meetings such as the lack of more and more folks upgrading annually as there is just not enough change to justify a $2,000 expenditure for the top model with full memory - their most profitable model.
The incremental change of their most popular laptop (MacBook Air) is a chip change from the M3 to the M4. Wow! ???????
Just observations of an Apple user since1990 into computers since the early 1970s.
YMMV
Apple has been integrating AI features for the better part of a decade, can you clarify which AI feature is years away from being usable? Is it Face ID, AFib detection, object recognition in photos, workout detection, auto complete, noise cancelation ? And would it be possible to articulate what AI feature Apple users don't have access to?
The AI feature in question is Siri. I'm not a general Apple doomer, I think they're doing great with hardware and core software, I like that they tried the car but cancelled it when it became unfeasible, 1,000 no's for every yes and all that, but Siri, and to some extent services in general, are terrible. Apple was first out of the gate with Siri and yet it still barely works. I'm even ok with siri not being the best in order to make privacy a priority, but it's ridiculously behind at this point. Just give us the option to plug into the AI of our choosing (like choosing a default web browser). I avoid Siri for anything other than rote tasks (e.g. "turn on the kitchen lights"), because it regularly messes up anything that's slightly more complicated. I saved a location on Apple maps (because maps buries recent trips for some reason..), asked siri, "get me directions to 'Bob's House,'" and nothing. I try to find a photography app on my phone by typing in "photography" in the search, and it doesn't work, Apple doesn't let you find apps by searching the category they're a part of ffs. The only service related 'intelligence' that I've actually been impressed by is apple music recommendations. I don't know how Eddie Cue has lasted so long.
Honestly, it’s remarkable how long Steve Jobs’ reality distortion field remains in effect after his own death.
The perception that he introduced new, fully-formed, instantly successful category killer products on an annual basis continues unabated. This is, of course, the driving force behind the perpetual lamentations about incrementalism at Apple.
Turn off the RDF, and you’d realize everything at Apple has started at a slow burn and moved along at an incremental pace thereafter. Even the iPhone took years to become an instant success.
The gloomy predictions in this article seem largely based on some features not showing up yet in the current iOS beta. I personally wouldn’t recommend selling your stock based on that. Either way, this stuff takes time to get right, and then when it does, everyone forgets about the half-baked competition that was supposed to be ahead of the curve.
Siri is currently better than the peanut gallery claims, and in my experience, the occasional regressions where Siri stumbles on something that used to work usually turn out to be the result of back-end updates that come before a boost in Siri power or features.
Lost in the grousing about iPhone 16e and MagSafe is the fact that the included hardware didn’t skimp on its ability to handle ‘Apple Intelligence.’ That’s because that’s what’s coming in the immediate pipeline, and they’re not going to sell a new iPhone that can’t handle it. Apple’s decisions about the 16e likely would’ve been different if the delays predicted in this article are accurate.
I think that it's fair to say that people have a right to be frustrated here. You've got to remember that Siri first shipped in 2011, Apple had first mover advantage and it failed to deliver on the original promisses. In 2014 it was eclipsed on day one by Amazon's Alexa and was further pushed into also-ran status when Google Assistant launched in 2016.
Yes, for super basic queries, Siri does just fine. But, after nearly 14 years of being on the market, you'd think that they'd have caught up by now.
Think of Apple Maps. When it launched, it was rightly called out for being a mess and for being an inferior replacement for Google Maps. It took a few generations, but I've not heard the average person bitch about Apple Maps for years now.
Consider where iOS is today and what it can do now against iOS version 5. Yes, Siri has moved on a bit from iOS 5 too, of course it has. But it's still absurdly basic and poorly received by the masses in comparison to the competition.
People can be frustrated if they want, but the claims that Siri is 'far behind the others' are probably overblown. In fact, just a year ago, google dropped 17 features from its assistant in order to "focus on quality and reliability." It doesn't take much digging around in Android forums to find that those users are not necessarily giddy about how great Android Assistant is. Apple has nonetheless kept Siri's focus somewhat narrower than competitors, notably because Apple isn't mining your data and using Siri to sell you crap. The commitment to privacy and security surely prevents Siri from doing some things that others can do, but I'm not convinced that the gap is as wide as some claim it is.
I use Siri successfully every day. I have an idea what it can and can't do, and I have a basic sense of what the back end is probably doing to respond to requests and queries, so perhaps my expectations are different than others.
I also have ideas of some pretty useful things that Siri could do in the not-too-distant future, considering Apple's stated approach to machine learning and AI, as well as their commitment to privacy, security, and intellectual property. I think the rumored AI-capable home hub and Apple's decision to make the iPhone 16e Ai-capable are some strong clues for what Apple has in store, especially for Siri.
Apple's stated intent is to make Siri be able to respond to more complex and nuanced queries and requests, and to do so privately and securely by using AI that's run locally, rather than farmed out to cloud servers. For Siri to move forward, that AI-capable hardware needs to be readily available. The rumored new home hub device will make that possible on everything (like HomePods and AppleTVs) that is currently connected to your home network. Including the 16e, the current slate of portable Apple hardware will all be able to handle it outside the home. By laying that groundwork, Siri should be able to jump ahead of the competition, using hardware purchased and owned by their customers. By taking this approach, Apple could do things like pull content from user-subscribed sources such as Apple News+ (thus respecting the sources' IP), and provide it to the user in useful ways, like perhaps a verbal morning news briefing, weather update and daily schedule highlights, coupled with written detail on-device, with things like links to news articles relevant to the verbal news briefing. AI capability would allow the user to interrupt Siri's news summary to ask her to "put that article in today's folder," and later to ask Siri to read bookmarked content aloud in the car while the user is driving to work. Also note that Apple has indicated that its AI will in the future be able to engage with apps on the users' devices. This potentially expands its capability to legitimately tap into user-paid content so that Siri can read or otherwise conveniently provide that content to the user on demand, all while respecting IP and user privacy and security.
Because google doesn't have nearly as much control over the hardware that runs Android, they couldn't begin to do what Apple is preparing to do, even if they wanted to. Instead, Android assistant will have to be farmed out to AI running on google's servers. I'll give you one guess how they'll pay for all that, and how much consideration they'll give to content creators' IP.
Honestly, it’s remarkable how long Steve Jobs’ reality distortion field remains in effect after his own death.
The perception that he introduced new, fully-formed, instantly successful category killer products on an annual basis continues unabated. This is, of course, the driving force behind the perpetual lamentations about incrementalism at Apple.
Turn off the RDF, and you’d realize everything at Apple has started at a slow burn and moved along at an incremental pace thereafter. Even the iPhone took years to become an instant success.
The gloomy predictions in this article seem largely based on some features not showing up yet in the current iOS beta. I personally wouldn’t recommend selling your stock based on that. Either way, this stuff takes time to get right, and then when it does, everyone forgets about the half-baked competition that was supposed to be ahead of the curve.
Siri is currently better than the peanut gallery claims, and in my experience, the occasional regressions where Siri stumbles on something that used to work usually turn out to be the result of back-end updates that come before a boost in Siri power or features.
Lost in the grousing about iPhone 16e and MagSafe is the fact that the included hardware didn’t skimp on its ability to handle ‘Apple Intelligence.’ That’s because that’s what’s coming in the immediate pipeline, and they’re not going to sell a new iPhone that can’t handle it. Apple’s decisions about the 16e likely would’ve been different if the delays predicted in this article are accurate.
People were excited about the iPhone before it was even announced.
Apple has had 14 years to get Siri right...since 2011. Still waiting on that one. Apple Intelligence is so far a big let down and Apple has even disabled some features due to embarrassing results. So I am not holding my breath for Siri to get any better, and definitely not any time soon.
Think of Apple Maps. When it launched, it was rightly called out for being a mess and for being an inferior replacement for Google Maps. It took a few generations, but I've not heard the average person bitch about Apple Maps for years now.
That is because everyone uses Google Maps or Waze on their phone. They don't use Apple Maps.
Siri is currently better than the peanut gallery claims.
No, it is not.
Siri, play Tom Petty. Siri: Playing music by MC Hammer. Siri, play 'name of playlist'. Siri: Sorry, I can't do that. Siri cannot even play a playlist because she can't figure it out. and my favorite Siri, give me directions to 'address'. Siri: I cannot do that while you are driving. WHAT? That is the whole point of Siri and that is the message that came up in CarPlay.
Sorry, but Siri is not any better than day one. So many basic things that Siri can't do. Here is what I found on the internet. Yeah, whatever Siri. And the AppleTV Siri is even worse, and so is the Mac Siri. You don't even know what to ask it because Siri is different on all devices.
Think of Apple Maps. When it launched, it was rightly called out for being a mess and for being an inferior replacement for Google Maps. It took a few generations, but I've not heard the average person bitch about Apple Maps for years now.
That is because everyone uses Google Maps or Waze on their phone. They don't use Apple Maps.
I must be an outlier then. I stopped using Google Maps about 4 years ago and have been exclusively using Apple Maps since then.
Siri is currently better than the peanut gallery claims.
No, it is not.
Siri, play Tom Petty. Siri: Playing music by MC Hammer. Siri, play 'name of playlist'. Siri: Sorry, I can't do that. Siri cannot even play a playlist because she can't figure it out. and my favorite Siri, give me directions to 'address'. Siri: I cannot do that while you are driving. WHAT? That is the whole point of Siri and that is the message that came up in CarPlay.
Sorry, but Siri is not any better than day one. So many basic things that Siri can't do. Here is what I found on the internet. Yeah, whatever Siri. And the AppleTV Siri is even worse, and so is the Mac Siri. You don't even know what to ask it because Siri is different on all devices.
I don’t use Siri to play music. Honestly the Music App is such a mess that I don’t hold it against Siri that it can’t work it right. But for basic queries, time, weather, when X team is playing, setting timers, that sort of thing it works very well, far FAR better than it did the first few years. so it has gotten better.
I've always viewed Siri as more of a voice based UI slapped on top of a specific Apple device. It was a way to interact with a device's user interface using your voice rather than your fingers. No more navigating through a scrolling list or hierarchy of songs to find what you're looking for and then pressing the play button. From the standpoint of Siri providing a hands-off control mechanism to do some of the things you used to do using fingers, keyboards, and mouse/trackpad, it was a nice-to-have alternative UI.
When the HomePod came along Siri suddenly became the primary UI, not a nice-to-have. In terms of doing Music Pod'y things it worked well enough for me most of the time considering the huge variation in human speech even within large populations of users speaking a single language. If I spoke to Siri using my native central Massachusetts R-Less English, I think Siri would be thoroughly lost. Same thing probably applies to Scottish users, which I find completely indiscernible as being any form of English at all. Thankfully I've learned to speak generic US English so Siri worked okay for me as long as I stayed within the scope of the product Siri was designed to control. Speaking to Siri like you're interacting with a kindergartener or a Labrador Retriever helped too.
One disappointment with Siri may have been that Apple inferred that it was more than a voice based UI. People thought it was a bonafide Magic 8-Ball living in their iPhone. Asking Siri about general topics, the meaning of life, meatloaf recipes, or anything too far outside the realm of voice UI could be very spotty at best. When it first arrived on the iPhone 4s we peppered Siri with questions about very important life topics and world knowledge, many of which concerned things related to Monty Python movie and TV show dialog. When the seriousness of the questions fed to Siri only involved silly matters it didn't really have to be accurate. It was fun. Staying inside the lines like asking for it to play a song worked most of the time but resulted in hilarious results more than a few times. Maybe if we hadn't challenged it early on with mindless drivel it would have grown and learned not to resent us for abusing it.
Maybe Siri would have provided better answers or actually did what we asked it to do if we were not so mean and condescending, or in many cases, called it the c-word. Yeah, that was bad. Crazy users like me and my colleagues, and Monty Python, obviously ruined Siri early on, so we quit using it very much. Lacking input from humans Siri ended up being socially stunted, spent years mindlessly ordering stupid stuff from the Home Shopping Network, and languished in obscurity. Maybe Apple didn't feed it properly and it became malnourished?
I am not really disappointed at the slow progress or low level of AI infusion in Siri. I'd be fine if all it ever became was a better and much more accurate voice-based UI. I'd rather have a tool that does one thing extremely well and for an intended purpose rather than a tool that tries to do too much and ends up not doing any one thing particularly well. My expectations are low, they're simply constrained to a few things that I would find very useful, like being an amazing voice based controller.
Not a surprise really that Apple got caught with their pants down. Too much time and money wasted on the "never saw the light of day" car. The "googles" have consumed untold resources, too and have not been a runaway success in terms of sales. Frankly, usable Apple's AI is years away and could become a serious concern financially as investors loose confidence.
Apple has morphed from a small and fast Navy Destroyer to a more than cumbersome Battleship. The latter finally gets up to speed and requires vast space to change course or turn around let alone stop.
The incremental changes or improvements in their "core" revenue source, the iPhone, are an embarrassment when one sees what the competitors are pushing out.
The comments here in the peanut gallery should be a five alarm file in the Board of Directors meetings such as the lack of more and more folks upgrading annually as there is just not enough change to justify a $2,000 expenditure for the top model with full memory - their most profitable model.
The incremental change of their most popular laptop (MacBook Air) is a chip change from the M3 to the M4. Wow! ???????
Just observations of an Apple user since1990 into computers since the early 1970s.
YMMV
Another Apple vet here, using Macs at work and home since the Macintosh Classic in 1991. It's not that I disagree, per se, with this assessment, but it's a reminder that perceptions in the tech press and by commenters on tech message boards like this one are often completely disconnected from the reality of how Apple is actually doing as a company. In three words: "Better than ever" by any of the usual metrics by which the performance of companies is measured. Something astonishing, almost unthinkable a short time ago just happened when Apple reported earnings for the holiday quarter: its iPhone numbers were a little soft, which would have normally tanked the stock, but this time, it didn't matter. Why? Because its insanely profitable Services business is growing so rapidly and is essentially a license to print money. Under Tim Cook, Apple has transitioned from a one-legged company whose fortunes rose and fell with iPhone, to a company with three sturdy legs: iPhone, Services (which will surpass iPhone in profit and revenues sooner than later) and Hardware, including Macs, iPads and wearables. Fun fact: even with numbers that were a little soft, iPhone 16 is the best-selling smartphone in the world, while Pro Max, Pro and Plus occupy 3 more spots in the top ten rankings in that order. So you might ask yourself how a phone that is supposedly "an embarrassment" compared to competitors becomes the best-selling smartphone on the planet, especially at a relatively high price point.
Did I mention that this past holiday quarter was yet another all-time record? Kind of a yawn, for Apple, I know, because it keeps setting new records like this, but: this only happens because buyers are voting with their wallets to choose Apple products. Here in the technosphere echo chamber, it's the constant sound of doom and complaints about the glacial pace of Apple evolving its products. But the real world of mass market buyers keeps disagreeing.
Apple does face the problem of being more cumbersome battleship than nimble destroyer--that is the inevitable challenge all companies face when they grow to the enormous size of Apple. Even more difficult: Wall Street continues to price Apple stock like a growth company, so even as it keeps breaking records for revenue and profit, the challenge of continuing to grow those huge numbers just gets exponentially harder... but Apple keeps doing it thus far. Tech message boards have been predicting doom just around the corner for Apple for as long as the company has been in business. It has weirdly become the always-present background noise to Apple's continued success. Just how much more successful does Apple have to be before the doom-saying gets a rest?
I think you’re confusing how Apple is doing vs how Apple stock is doing.
Not at all. And the notion that the stock price of a company as mature as Apple is somehow disconnected from how the company is doing is misguided at best. The big concern about Apple over the years was what was going to happen when the iPhone juggernaut inevitably slowed down. For a long time, there really wasn't an answer. And here we are, with all phone makers now having to face the post peak smartphone environment. But Apple has delivered an answer to the slowing mobile phone business with Services continuing to grow at a fast pace and at nearly 80% margins. What company wouldn't kill to have a business like that? And I have to ask: if you really feel that Apple isn't doing as well as a company as its stock price would suggest, why are you a shareholder at these prices? That makes no sense.
It is not misguided to think the stock price of a company can be driven by factors other than economic performance of the company. That is just a fact. There’s a laundry list of things that regularly influence share prices outside of economic performance.
If you don’t think Apple trading at an abnormally high p/e while revenue has stalled the past few years you’re not thinking about this rationally. It’s great that services growth is helping offset the decline in iPhone sales, but that’s not a recipe for the kind of growth which needs to happen to support of multiple of 40 times earnings. That’s just treading water.
And why am I still a holder of Apple stock even though I have concerns it’s inflated based on current earnings and near-term product roadmap? It’s because I’ll have a massive capital gain when I sell, so I’ve gotta factor in if it’s worth paying 20% of the gain in taxes and then investing far less in something else as a result. So, what do I to offset this? I regularly sell calls against the shares in order to generate cash flow without exiting the position.
Siri is currently better than the peanut gallery claims.
No, it is not.
Siri, play Tom Petty. Siri: Playing music by MC Hammer. Siri, play 'name of playlist'. Siri: Sorry, I can't do that. Siri cannot even play a playlist because she can't figure it out. and my favorite Siri, give me directions to 'address'. Siri: I cannot do that while you are driving. WHAT? That is the whole point of Siri and that is the message that came up in CarPlay.
Sorry, but Siri is not any better than day one. So many basic things that Siri can't do. Here is what I found on the internet. Yeah, whatever Siri. And the AppleTV Siri is even worse, and so is the Mac Siri. You don't even know what to ask it because Siri is different on all devices.
I’ve asked Siri all of the above and got the correct results.
The other day in the car I asked Siri to play the album Play by the band Squeeze, and got random results, but that’s a bit of a who’s on first situation, and I fully expected what I got. I tried the request several different ways, but I don’t know was always going to be on third.
The point is, Siri is not perfect, and it’s not uncommon to get wild card results, but it’s also even more common to get useful, correct results. If Siri was actually as useless as the peanut gallery claims, no one would be using it at all by now.
The truth is that none of the digital assistants are going to give C-3PO level answers until the advanced machine learning AI currently in its infancy is better developed and implemented. Even then it’s worth remembering that C-3PO can be incredibly annoying.
Perhaps this should all serve as reassurance that, despite all the amped-up hype over the past several years, we are not about to be taken over by sentient, malevolent AI overlords.
It goes far beyond Siri. Apple has a delivery problem under Cook. He has iterated the company to new financial heights but with a massive workforce and wealth, Apple can’t deliver new product that people want. They are great at chip speed increases, new cameras and all things emoji. But the car, new health features in the watch, social media (Ping?), cloud, VR, AI, new designs and form factors, new products etc. just can’t capture the public. If they really have spent 7 years on AI then they should be fired! Just look to Chinese companies to see how they are delivering new products quickly. It is not just Apple though - Tesla, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, and maybe even Nvidia and Microsoft are all iterating not creating new exciting products that capture the public’s imaginations. But at least Amazon is delivering Alexa 2 which seems to be a big jump over v1 and Siri. Let’s do shots in how many times Cook says “amazing” and “exciting” as they roll out another tired launch video shot on iPhone + a million dollars worth of ad ons! /s
Honestly, it’s remarkable how long Steve Jobs’ reality distortion field remains in effect after his own death.
The perception that he introduced new, fully-formed, instantly successful category killer products on an annual basis continues unabated. This is, of course, the driving force behind the perpetual lamentations about incrementalism at Apple.
Turn off the RDF, and you’d realize everything at Apple has started at a slow burn and moved along at an incremental pace thereafter. Even the iPhone took years to become an instant success.
The gloomy predictions in this article seem largely based on some features not showing up yet in the current iOS beta. I personally wouldn’t recommend selling your stock based on that. Either way, this stuff takes time to get right, and then when it does, everyone forgets about the half-baked competition that was supposed to be ahead of the curve.
Siri is currently better than the peanut gallery claims, and in my experience, the occasional regressions where Siri stumbles on something that used to work usually turn out to be the result of back-end updates that come before a boost in Siri power or features.
Lost in the grousing about iPhone 16e and MagSafe is the fact that the included hardware didn’t skimp on its ability to handle ‘Apple Intelligence.’ That’s because that’s what’s coming in the immediate pipeline, and they’re not going to sell a new iPhone that can’t handle it. Apple’s decisions about the 16e likely would’ve been different if the delays predicted in this article are accurate.
I think that it's fair to say that people have a right to be frustrated here. You've got to remember that Siri first shipped in 2011, Apple had first mover advantage and it failed to deliver on the original promisses. In 2014 it was eclipsed on day one by Amazon's Alexa and was further pushed into also-ran status when Google Assistant launched in 2016.
Yes, for super basic queries, Siri does just fine. But, after nearly 14 years of being on the market, you'd think that they'd have caught up by now.
Think of Apple Maps. When it launched, it was rightly called out for being a mess and for being an inferior replacement for Google Maps. It took a few generations, but I've not heard the average person bitch about Apple Maps for years now.
Consider where iOS is today and what it can do now against iOS version 5. Yes, Siri has moved on a bit from iOS 5 too, of course it has. But it's still absurdly basic and poorly received by the masses in comparison to the competition.
...note that Apple has indicated that its AI will in the future be able to engage with apps on the users' devices. This potentially expands its capability to legitimately tap into user-paid content so that Siri can read or otherwise conveniently provide that content to the user on demand, all while respecting IP and user privacy and security.
Because google doesn't have nearly as much control over the hardware that runs Android, they couldn't begin to do what Apple is preparing to do, even if they wanted to. Instead, Android assistant will have to be farmed out to AI running on google's servers.
Google will be doing that thing you say they can't do, beginning with the Pixel 10. Personal "Assistant" (it will be rebadged, possibly Pixie) data is processed privately, securely, and on-device. No "AI running on Google servers" required.
Honestly, it’s remarkable how long Steve Jobs’ reality distortion field remains in effect after his own death.
The perception that he introduced new, fully-formed, instantly successful category killer products on an annual basis continues unabated. This is, of course, the driving force behind the perpetual lamentations about incrementalism at Apple.
Turn off the RDF, and you’d realize everything at Apple has started at a slow burn and moved along at an incremental pace thereafter. Even the iPhone took years to become an instant success.
The gloomy predictions in this article seem largely based on some features not showing up yet in the current iOS beta. I personally wouldn’t recommend selling your stock based on that. Either way, this stuff takes time to get right, and then when it does, everyone forgets about the half-baked competition that was supposed to be ahead of the curve.
Siri is currently better than the peanut gallery claims, and in my experience, the occasional regressions where Siri stumbles on something that used to work usually turn out to be the result of back-end updates that come before a boost in Siri power or features.
Lost in the grousing about iPhone 16e and MagSafe is the fact that the included hardware didn’t skimp on its ability to handle ‘Apple Intelligence.’ That’s because that’s what’s coming in the immediate pipeline, and they’re not going to sell a new iPhone that can’t handle it. Apple’s decisions about the 16e likely would’ve been different if the delays predicted in this article are accurate.
I think that it's fair to say that people have a right to be frustrated here. You've got to remember that Siri first shipped in 2011, Apple had first mover advantage and it failed to deliver on the original promisses. In 2014 it was eclipsed on day one by Amazon's Alexa and was further pushed into also-ran status when Google Assistant launched in 2016.
Yes, for super basic queries, Siri does just fine. But, after nearly 14 years of being on the market, you'd think that they'd have caught up by now.
Think of Apple Maps. When it launched, it was rightly called out for being a mess and for being an inferior replacement for Google Maps. It took a few generations, but I've not heard the average person bitch about Apple Maps for years now.
Consider where iOS is today and what it can do now against iOS version 5. Yes, Siri has moved on a bit from iOS 5 too, of course it has. But it's still absurdly basic and poorly received by the masses in comparison to the competition.
...note that Apple has indicated that its AI will in the future be able to engage with apps on the users' devices. This potentially expands its capability to legitimately tap into user-paid content so that Siri can read or otherwise conveniently provide that content to the user on demand, all while respecting IP and user privacy and security.
Because google doesn't have nearly as much control over the hardware that runs Android, they couldn't begin to do what Apple is preparing to do, even if they wanted to. Instead, Android assistant will have to be farmed out to AI running on google's servers.
Google will be doing that thing you say they can't do, beginning with the Pixel 10. Personal "Assistant" (it will be rebadged, possibly Pixie) data is processed privately, securely, and on-device. No "AI running on Google servers" required.
The rumored new google assistant you're referring to is of course also delayed, and now apparently re-branded to allegedly go on the pixel 10. It is said to run on-device, though the descriptions don't actually say it will run exclusively on-device. (That might be splitting hairs, except for google's reputation for going to great lengths to extract and sell user data.) It is also said that the assistant will pull user data from a list of a dozen or so google apps, which, amusingly, all live on google servers, where they are scraped for marketable user data. So, at least as far as user privacy and security goes, running it on-device seems like closing the barn door after the horse has left the farm. Additionally, there's nothing here about this new assistant working across the google ecosystem, running only on-device to serve all your AI assistant needs at home or out on the town. So once again, this seems more like the repeating pattern of others getting to market first with a type of feature, but not with the category-killer implementation that changes the paradigm.
It goes far beyond Siri. Apple has a delivery problem under Cook. He has iterated the company to new financial heights but with a massive workforce and wealth, Apple can’t deliver new product that people want. They are great at chip speed increases, new cameras and all things emoji. But the car, new health features in the watch, social media (Ping?), cloud, VR, AI, new designs and form factors, new products etc. just can’t capture the public. If they really have spent 7 years on AI then they should be fired! Just look to Chinese companies to see how they are delivering new products quickly. It is not just Apple though - Tesla, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, and maybe even Nvidia and Microsoft are all iterating not creating new exciting products that capture the public’s imaginations. But at least Amazon is delivering Alexa 2 which seems to be a big jump over v1 and Siri. Let’s do shots in how many times Cook says “amazing” and “exciting” as they roll out another tired launch video shot on iPhone + a million dollars worth of ad ons! /s
Honestly, it’s remarkable how long Steve Jobs’ reality distortion field remains in effect after his own death.
The perception that he introduced new, fully-formed, instantly successful category killer products on an annual basis continues unabated. This is, of course, the driving force behind the perpetual lamentations about incrementalism at Apple.
Turn off the RDF, and you’d realize everything at Apple has started at a slow burn and moved along at an incremental pace thereafter. Even the iPhone took years to become an instant success.
The gloomy predictions in this article seem largely based on some features not showing up yet in the current iOS beta. I personally wouldn’t recommend selling your stock based on that. Either way, this stuff takes time to get right, and then when it does, everyone forgets about the half-baked competition that was supposed to be ahead of the curve.
Siri is currently better than the peanut gallery claims, and in my experience, the occasional regressions where Siri stumbles on something that used to work usually turn out to be the result of back-end updates that come before a boost in Siri power or features.
Lost in the grousing about iPhone 16e and MagSafe is the fact that the included hardware didn’t skimp on its ability to handle ‘Apple Intelligence.’ That’s because that’s what’s coming in the immediate pipeline, and they’re not going to sell a new iPhone that can’t handle it. Apple’s decisions about the 16e likely would’ve been different if the delays predicted in this article are accurate.
I think that it's fair to say that people have a right to be frustrated here. You've got to remember that Siri first shipped in 2011, Apple had first mover advantage and it failed to deliver on the original promisses. In 2014 it was eclipsed on day one by Amazon's Alexa and was further pushed into also-ran status when Google Assistant launched in 2016.
Yes, for super basic queries, Siri does just fine. But, after nearly 14 years of being on the market, you'd think that they'd have caught up by now.
Think of Apple Maps. When it launched, it was rightly called out for being a mess and for being an inferior replacement for Google Maps. It took a few generations, but I've not heard the average person bitch about Apple Maps for years now.
Consider where iOS is today and what it can do now against iOS version 5. Yes, Siri has moved on a bit from iOS 5 too, of course it has. But it's still absurdly basic and poorly received by the masses in comparison to the competition.
...note that Apple has indicated that its AI will in the future be able to engage with apps on the users' devices. This potentially expands its capability to legitimately tap into user-paid content so that Siri can read or otherwise conveniently provide that content to the user on demand, all while respecting IP and user privacy and security.
Because google doesn't have nearly as much control over the hardware that runs Android, they couldn't begin to do what Apple is preparing to do, even if they wanted to. Instead, Android assistant will have to be farmed out to AI running on google's servers.
Google will be doing that thing you say they can't do, beginning with the Pixel 10. Personal "Assistant" (it will be rebadged, possibly Pixie) data is processed privately, securely, and on-device. No "AI running on Google servers" required.
The rumored new google assistant you're referring to is of course also delayed, and now apparently re-branded to allegedly go on the pixel 10. It is said to run on-device, though the descriptions don't actually say it will run exclusively on-device. (That might be splitting hairs, except for google's reputation for going to great lengths to extract and sell user data.) It is also said that the assistant will pull user data from a list of a dozen or so google apps, which, amusingly, all live on google servers, where they are scraped for marketable user data. So, at least as far as user privacy and security goes, running it on-device seems like closing the barn door after the horse has left the farm. Additionally, there's nothing here about this new assistant working across the google ecosystem, running only on-device to serve all your AI assistant needs at home or out on the town. So once again, this seems more like the repeating pattern of others getting to market first with a type of feature, but not with the category-killer implementation that changes the paradigm.
Kudos for acknowledging Google probably can do the thing you said they couldn't, and will. As for being "delayed" I don't think it is. Assistant is already passe, with Google Gemini the current replacement. That is a true delay, since the Gemini features were expected before now. "Pixie", what we'll call it for now, is a new feature being finalized for the Pixel 10, and destined to other Pixel models. It's not behind AFAICT.
You going overboard with the hand-wringing and false claim that Google sells user data diminishes your otherwise valid question marks. You're right, the proof will be in the implementation. At least as of now we know more about Google plans for protecting and processing user data on Google's smartphone lineup than we do Apple's.
EDIT with additional context:
“Personal predictive suggestions: Takes notes to suggests personal data like places, products, and names, right when you need them.”
“Complete tasks faster: Learns how you use your phone to help you complete tasks and routines faster.”
“Adapting to your interests: Learns which topics are important to you and keeps evolving with you.”
As indicated by the original report, the feature will run fully on-device: “Experience fast and intelligent help, no matter if you are online or offline”, “Your data stays private—visible only to you, not even Google can see it.” Presumably, this means it will rely on Gemini Nano.
Honestly, it’s remarkable how long Steve Jobs’ reality distortion field remains in effect after his own death.
The perception that he introduced new, fully-formed, instantly successful category killer products on an annual basis continues unabated. This is, of course, the driving force behind the perpetual lamentations about incrementalism at Apple.
Turn off the RDF, and you’d realize everything at Apple has started at a slow burn and moved along at an incremental pace thereafter. Even the iPhone took years to become an instant success.
The gloomy predictions in this article seem largely based on some features not showing up yet in the current iOS beta. I personally wouldn’t recommend selling your stock based on that. Either way, this stuff takes time to get right, and then when it does, everyone forgets about the half-baked competition that was supposed to be ahead of the curve.
Siri is currently better than the peanut gallery claims, and in my experience, the occasional regressions where Siri stumbles on something that used to work usually turn out to be the result of back-end updates that come before a boost in Siri power or features.
Lost in the grousing about iPhone 16e and MagSafe is the fact that the included hardware didn’t skimp on its ability to handle ‘Apple Intelligence.’ That’s because that’s what’s coming in the immediate pipeline, and they’re not going to sell a new iPhone that can’t handle it. Apple’s decisions about the 16e likely would’ve been different if the delays predicted in this article are accurate.
I think that it's fair to say that people have a right to be frustrated here. You've got to remember that Siri first shipped in 2011, Apple had first mover advantage and it failed to deliver on the original promisses. In 2014 it was eclipsed on day one by Amazon's Alexa and was further pushed into also-ran status when Google Assistant launched in 2016.
Yes, for super basic queries, Siri does just fine. But, after nearly 14 years of being on the market, you'd think that they'd have caught up by now.
Think of Apple Maps. When it launched, it was rightly called out for being a mess and for being an inferior replacement for Google Maps. It took a few generations, but I've not heard the average person bitch about Apple Maps for years now.
Consider where iOS is today and what it can do now against iOS version 5. Yes, Siri has moved on a bit from iOS 5 too, of course it has. But it's still absurdly basic and poorly received by the masses in comparison to the competition.
...note that Apple has indicated that its AI will in the future be able to engage with apps on the users' devices. This potentially expands its capability to legitimately tap into user-paid content so that Siri can read or otherwise conveniently provide that content to the user on demand, all while respecting IP and user privacy and security.
Because google doesn't have nearly as much control over the hardware that runs Android, they couldn't begin to do what Apple is preparing to do, even if they wanted to. Instead, Android assistant will have to be farmed out to AI running on google's servers.
Google will be doing that thing you say they can't do, beginning with the Pixel 10. Personal "Assistant" (it will be rebadged, possibly Pixie) data is processed privately, securely, and on-device. No "AI running on Google servers" required.
The rumored new google assistant you're referring to is of course also delayed, and now apparently re-branded to allegedly go on the pixel 10. It is said to run on-device, though the descriptions don't actually say it will run exclusively on-device. (That might be splitting hairs, except for google's reputation for going to great lengths to extract and sell user data.) It is also said that the assistant will pull user data from a list of a dozen or so google apps, which, amusingly, all live on google servers, where they are scraped for marketable user data. So, at least as far as user privacy and security goes, running it on-device seems like closing the barn door after the horse has left the farm. Additionally, there's nothing here about this new assistant working across the google ecosystem, running only on-device to serve all your AI assistant needs at home or out on the town. So once again, this seems more like the repeating pattern of others getting to market first with a type of feature, but not with the category-killer implementation that changes the paradigm.
Kudos for acknowledging Google probably can do the thing you said they couldn't, and will. As for being "delayed" I don't think it is. Assistant is already passe, with Google Gemini the current replacement. That is a true delay, since the Gemini features were expected before now. "Pixie", what we'll call it for now, is a new feature being finalized for the Pixel 10, and destined to other Pixel models. It's not behind AFAICT.
You going overboard with the hand-wringing and false claim that Google sells user data diminishes your otherwise valid question marks. You're right, the proof will be in the implementation. At least as of now we know more about Google plans for protecting and processing user data on Google's smartphone lineup than we do Apple's.
EDIT with additional context:
“Personal predictive suggestions: Takes notes to suggests personal data like places, products, and names, right when you need them.”
“Complete tasks faster: Learns how you use your phone to help you complete tasks and routines faster.”
“Adapting to your interests: Learns which topics are important to you and keeps evolving with you.”
As indicated by the original report, the feature will run fully on-device: “Experience fast and intelligent help, no matter if you are online or offline”, “Your data stays private—visible only to you, not even Google can see it.” Presumably, this means it will rely on Gemini Nano.
Well I sure hope you're right and google has become a user-privacy-focused company. Do you think they'll bring back their don't be evil motto? What do you suppose they'll be charging for that Pixel 10 in order to make up for lost revenue?
Comments
I use Siri successfully every day. I have an idea what it can and can't do, and I have a basic sense of what the back end is probably doing to respond to requests and queries, so perhaps my expectations are different than others.
No, it is not.
Siri, play Tom Petty. Siri: Playing music by MC Hammer.
Siri, play 'name of playlist'. Siri: Sorry, I can't do that. Siri cannot even play a playlist because she can't figure it out.
and my favorite
Siri, give me directions to 'address'. Siri: I cannot do that while you are driving. WHAT? That is the whole point of Siri and that is the message that came up in CarPlay.
Sorry, but Siri is not any better than day one. So many basic things that Siri can't do. Here is what I found on the internet. Yeah, whatever Siri. And the AppleTV Siri is even worse, and so is the Mac Siri. You don't even know what to ask it because Siri is different on all devices.
When the HomePod came along Siri suddenly became the primary UI, not a nice-to-have. In terms of doing Music Pod'y things it worked well enough for me most of the time considering the huge variation in human speech even within large populations of users speaking a single language. If I spoke to Siri using my native central Massachusetts R-Less English, I think Siri would be thoroughly lost. Same thing probably applies to Scottish users, which I find completely indiscernible as being any form of English at all. Thankfully I've learned to speak generic US English so Siri worked okay for me as long as I stayed within the scope of the product Siri was designed to control. Speaking to Siri like you're interacting with a kindergartener or a Labrador Retriever helped too.
One disappointment with Siri may have been that Apple inferred that it was more than a voice based UI. People thought it was a bonafide Magic 8-Ball living in their iPhone. Asking Siri about general topics, the meaning of life, meatloaf recipes, or anything too far outside the realm of voice UI could be very spotty at best. When it first arrived on the iPhone 4s we peppered Siri with questions about very important life topics and world knowledge, many of which concerned things related to Monty Python movie and TV show dialog. When the seriousness of the questions fed to Siri only involved silly matters it didn't really have to be accurate. It was fun. Staying inside the lines like asking for it to play a song worked most of the time but resulted in hilarious results more than a few times. Maybe if we hadn't challenged it early on with mindless drivel it would have grown and learned not to resent us for abusing it.
Maybe Siri would have provided better answers or actually did what we asked it to do if we were not so mean and condescending, or in many cases, called it the c-word. Yeah, that was bad. Crazy users like me and my colleagues, and Monty Python, obviously ruined Siri early on, so we quit using it very much. Lacking input from humans Siri ended up being socially stunted, spent years mindlessly ordering stupid stuff from the Home Shopping Network, and languished in obscurity. Maybe Apple didn't feed it properly and it became malnourished?
I am not really disappointed at the slow progress or low level of AI infusion in Siri. I'd be fine if all it ever became was a better and much more accurate voice-based UI. I'd rather have a tool that does one thing extremely well and for an intended purpose rather than a tool that tries to do too much and ends up not doing any one thing particularly well. My expectations are low, they're simply constrained to a few things that I would find very useful, like being an amazing voice based controller.
Personal "Assistant" (it will be rebadged, possibly Pixie) data is processed privately, securely, and on-device. No "AI running on Google servers" required.
Your third sentence is self-contradictory.
You going overboard with the hand-wringing and false claim that Google sells user data diminishes your otherwise valid question marks. You're right, the proof will be in the implementation. At least as of now we know more about Google plans for protecting and processing user data on Google's smartphone lineup than we do Apple's.
EDIT with additional context:
As indicated by the original report, the feature will run fully on-device: “Experience fast and intelligent help, no matter if you are online or offline”, “Your data stays private—visible only to you, not even Google can see it.” Presumably, this means it will rely on Gemini Nano.
Been around too long to trust google with anything. I even use an alternative search engine.