avon b7

AppleZulu said:

avon b7 said:

AppleZulu said:

avon b7 said:

AppleZulu said:

All the hand-wringing about Apple being late to the AI party is predictably nonsensical. 

The key premise at the root of this lament is that the competition is delivering world changing AI products and features while Apple flounders. Poppycock. The reality is that, across the board, AI is a half-baked, overhyped hot mess. 

To the extent that it could be unusual that Apple’s marketing folks were allowed to rebrand the existing machine learning pipeline as Apple Intelligence, the rest of the story is following a familiar pattern. Others hit the market first with a New Big Thing that’s hyped to be great, but is, in reality, unfinished and poorly implemented. Meanwhile, Apple hangs back and really works on it. Pundits declare Apple to be doomed and call for Tim Cook’s resignation, because, you know, he’s no Steve Jobs. 

Eventually, if the New Big Thing was even a thing, Apple rolls out with an implementation that comes with a twist that makes it somehow… different. Apple makes a big introduction, and the pundits receive it skeptically. It’s too little, too late, they say, and Apple will never catch up. 

But then there’s a slow burn. The twist that made it different turns out to be the thing that consumers find indispensable. Then while the pundits aren’t looking, Apple’s take becomes the obvious implementation that everybody wants, and the competition has to try to replicate it. 

Finally, the Apple version retroactively becomes an instant success, and there was actually no party before Apple showed up. The pundits pretend this was always a foregone conclusion and forget what they said before. They’ve moved on anyway. 

The pundits are now focused on decrying Apple’s annual updates to the instant success as too-slow incrementalism. Tim Cook is no Steve Jobs, after all. Didn’t Jobs launch a new, instantly successful category killer product like every six months? Also, there’s this new New Big Thing that the other companies are doing, and Apple is lagging so far behind that they’re doomed. Tim Cook should resign. He’s no Steve Jobs. 

If that were the case, Apple would have sat back and continued its refusal to even pronounce the letters 'AI'. 

It didn't and for good reason. Not only did it not do that, but it chose to 'talk it up', promise features, but 'later' and then not hit the mark with what it managed to ship.

You are free to describe the current state of AI how you please but one thing is unquestionable: the buzz around AI hasn't died down. The opposite is true.

That means, whatever its state, people are using it and getting results. Results they are perfectly happy with. Drawbacks included.

That is why Apple couldn't wait a few years to deliver its own take.

There are hundreds of LLMs out there doing amazing things.

I'm very happy with Perplexity Pro and get results I could never get from something like Siri.

Now 'Manus' is getting all the news and proving useful:

https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/03/11/1113133/manus-ai-review/

Just one of many popping up all over the place. 

You seem to be unwittingly reinforcing my point. First, I didn’t suggest that buzz around AI was dying down. I said it’s a hot mess. You say people are using AI and getting results “they are perfectly happy with. Drawbacks included.” That is no doubt a true statement. You also mention the “hundreds of LLMs out there,” and name a few as examples. That’s exactly the hot mess I’m referring to. There are lots of not ready for prime time examples out there, none of which are poised to individually alter the landscape and set a new paradigm. This is the pattern that repeats. There are lots of unripe examples of a thing in the marketplace. Apple hangs back and figures out an implementation that isn’t just novel, interesting, or innovative, but is actually indispensable. 

Microsoft made a smartwatch in 2004, and they weren’t even the first. A decade later, Samsung had one, and Fitbits were well known. More commonly, though, people had mostly quit wearing watches, because they all had a phone in their pocket that would show them the time. Then Apple introduced their watch, to much skepticism. A few years later, it was an “instant success,” and nobody remembers how Apple was hopelessly late to the smart watch party. Now, everywhere you go, people wearing Apple Watches, not because they’re a fashion statement or status symbol, but because (unlike what their competition was making before the Apple Watch) they are useful. 

That’s why all your examples of “many [AI models] popping up all over the place” should tell you to wait and see what Apple actually does. If the pattern repeats again, all those other examples will become Wikipedia footnotes as Apple’s competitors are forced to react to and replicate Apple’s approach that actually makes AI into something indispensable.

Re-read my reply, especially the first two paragraphs. 

You made a blanket statement that AI was a 'hot mess'. It actually isn't but, like I said, you are free to your opinion.

AI is enabling advancements all over the place and a lot of that is as far removed from a hot mess as you can get.

You didn't mention that some solutions were providing solutions whereas others weren't and as a result that was a hot mess. This is what you said:

"The key premise at the root of this lament is that the competition is delivering world changing AI products and features while Apple flounders. Poppycock. The reality is that, across the board, AI is a half-baked, overhyped hot mess."

That ("across the board") is a blanket statement and is incorrect. Apple is floundering because it has promised a lot (and made those promises late), and delivered very little (and to limited audiences) and is delaying a tent pole feature (the Siri improvements). 

Nothing Siri can currently achieve is anywhere near what some solutions can achieve. That has led my wife and I to simply not use it all. 

'Waiting and seeing' what Apple does won't change anything. It will still be late and in any case the competition might still be ahead when it does deliver. Right now, that's simply wishful thinking. The whole point is that it's not here now, and pointing to some uncertain future point in time doesn't cut it. They played that card at WWDC 2024 and said to look out for the next iOS release. Well, that release came without a single Apple Intelligence feature. Not good.

As for being indispensable, that is already the case for many users who use AI solutions and, far from 'hanging back', Apple has done the opposite (see my first paragraph). 

Apple will never reach the 'world changing' solutions because it is a CE company. You need to look outside that bubble to see true world changing AI based results. 

https://www.huaweicloud.com/intl/en-us/cases/pgywdf.html

https://technative.io/can-ai-assisted-drug-design-make-antibiotic-breakthroughs/

Yes, there are moral and ethical issues facing some branches, and depending on what you are trying to achieve, YMMV, but clearly for a lot of people the results are what they are looking for or close to it. That is reality today and with each new day those solutions are advancing. 

Yes, I understand that AI is apparently more useful in researching folding proteins and such things, but you’re just trying to change the subject. Apple is indeed a consumer electronics company, and this site and accompanying forum are about that consumer electronics company. The artificial intelligence being discussed here is AI for consumer electronics. That stuff is a hot mess. 

I'm not changing the subject. AI is AI but if you want to limit things to a purely consumer sphere we are back to square one. Consumer AI isn't a 'hot mess across the board'.

Like I said, YMMV, from problematic areas like Apple's attempts to summarise news  or image generation of people with six fingers, to amazing results in multi modal AI. 

Google's AI Studio is a perfect example. No one who has used it would walk away calling it a hot mess even if the results weren't perfect. 

The same can be said of most of the tools available at the moment. For general information I use Perplexity Pro and haven't had a single incorrect result. 

I've given you some examples of solutions in previous posts. 

Let's go back a few years ago to a scientific text I had to review. It was originally planned for inclusion in a Spanish language scientific journal as the original text was in Spanish. 

It was later rewritten and adapted for inclusion in some English speaking journals so I stepped in to review the English language side. Months of work back and forth adapting different areas to cater to the reviewers' comments in terms of content. 

As the deadlines for official presentations neared, we were running out of time and decided to pump some sections into ChatGPT to give the English a bit more polish. 

Remember this is a couple of years ago (not current versions). The results blew me away. We reviewed everything and all we had to do was change the 'tone' because it was too 'effusive' in parts. That was it. We would never have met the deadline without it. 

The content was scientific but we are talking about the English language generation here. 

Then there is the blurry line between industrial and consumer AI. 

A car is a perfect example. Self driving cars can't operate safely without GOD networks but object detection isn't limited to cars. Nor is the Natural Language Processing/Generation for the driver and passengers. 

Using an mmWave detector in a consumer setting is used for object detection, fall detection and breathing detection. Examples have been shipping for a while now but improvements are coming. For example, pet detection but if you have no roaming pets that is a non-issue. These are examples of where and industrial use-case is perfectly adaptable to a consumer use case. 

In 2030 we will have 6G network sensing (mmWave detection is basically a precursor to this). The entire network will be able to 'sense' what is within its bounds. Obviously, for things like ZE-IoT in an industrial setting it will be a boon but in a consumer setting it will be equally useful and probably be used to substitute current active devices. 

With AI moving forward in leaps and bounds and providing real-world solutions, Apple wasn't in a position to sit back and wait. What we are witnessing is its attempts to get on the train. There will be pain points along the way. 

Apple can go portless if it wants.

If there are reservations about EU regulations and they feel it would be problematic then all they have to do is not release it in the EU or release with a port. 

That said, the common charging initiative might reach other markets and eventually lead to the same doubts.

I definitely wouldn't get a phone that could only charge wirelessly if it was limited to current conductive charging. 

I wouldn't call for his resignation over this.

There have been many strategic errors along the way and they can be pointed out but it's unreasonable to expect zero strategic errors. In any years' long stint things will sometimes not work out as planned but if things work out overall then the impact of errors is mitigated. 

The whole reason for a strategy is to hope it works out. Whether it actually does or not is mostly out of the company's hands and there are many factors involved.

Going all in with Tsmc for example was a huge risk but it has paid off. The car project probably made some sense when they signed off on it. The Qualcomm situation was terrible on one hand and a huge strategic error on the other but it wasn't like the TSMC situation where a devastating earthquake could have really been a problem. After all, even without Intel, Qualcomm was there to actually provide a solution.

I have serious reservations about its OS platforms and their ability to move forward over the next 15 years filled with AI and IoT but for that we'll have to wait and see.

For AI specifically, there is no doubt that Apple was caught with it pants down but Yikes! moments aren't new for Apple. 

I disagree with the 'long game' part.

In a long game scenario this would be just water off a duck's back. Business as usual. No need at all to take the route they took. Just sit back and release a product when it was ready.

Being 'forced to release early' isn't the same as ignoring criticism and even then, Apple is susceptible to criticism when it hits multiple media outlets. Famously Apple didn't ignore the complaints that they couldn't 'innovate'.

Folding phones hit the ground running (save for the Samsung pre-release review units fiasco) and have done very well ever since. Yes, there is a crease but even in the very first folding phones, you couldn't see it unless you looked for it at a weird angle or with the screen turned off. Since then every generation has improved on the previous one. The sole issue is price and even those are coming down on some models. 

The reason we didn't have a folding phone from Apple five years ago could also be that they just didn't have one far along in the design process to release.

Apple also 'ignored' criticism about Android features (famously customisation) but is now making customisation a key focus of each new iOS release. In fact, each new iOS major release seems to bring a swathe of Android/HarmonyOS features that have been around for years. Often those features are now the main features on show. 

Reacting to AI isn't really the exception, and 'the long game' isn't worth much when we see the company behind the competition on so many levels. From pin hole cutouts (to replace the notch), to cameras (all kinds), modems, graphene, batteries and charging, screen refresh rates, folding and flip phones and of course now AI.

In 2025, there isn't really a decent reason for an iPhone to be stuck with a 60Hz refresh rate for the asking price. That isn't the long game, it's just unnecessarily holding features back for upsell and a few dollars more profit. Drip feeding features to users just because it can get away with it. The same can be said of memory which has historically been held back (again for upsell and profit).

Given how AI was progressing (at lightning speed) and all the buzz around it, there was a point where Apple just couldn't 'ignore' it. They tried for one year (in hindsight an error because it simply drew more attention to the situation) and then found themselves in an ever deeper hole. They had to do something and with every passing day it looks like they were simply overwhelmed by what they decided to promise. They bit off more than they could chew. 

The specific case of Siri will definitely be put down to years of poor management.

If they were blindsided by AI in general, they should have had Siri fixed and had it on a solid roadmap years ago. Right now it looks like they were simply kludging things to keep it going. That is pretty serious if that is the case Tim is ultimately responsible for that. 

However, Apple - overall - is still satisfying shareholders and if they get bitten by geopolitics (tariffs etc) I'm not going to blame Tim Cook for it.

I think he has been planning to step aside for a while (long before all this blew up) and imagined it happening during the Trump term so if he does go, it won't be because of the current situation.

Who fills his shoes is a mystery. 

Late to the game, burnt out, not fully working, other software/hardware priorities, no real time line for delivery ...

It reads terribly but I think they have spread themselves way too thin and maybe just don't have the resources to juggle everything they have on the table. That would be a worst case scenario. 

On the other hand, being so late, while embarrassing (given all the marketing), makes things just a question of time (assuming the resources are in fact available)  They will get there - eventually. Maybe the best case scenario? 

The only problem with 'time' is that competitors aren't standing still so it could turn out taking longer to catch up. 

My guess is that those high priority software solutions are related to serious foundational changes to their OSs to get them ready for a fully IoT world. Something that would require even Apple Intelligence to take a back seat. 

Gruber shouldn't be blaming himself for not knowing what was possibly happening.

Only the people 'in the know' could see that (Apple) and, as every day passes, things do get somewhat clearer if only because of the delays. 

All he (or we) could do is speculate. Others were lapping everything up and trying to push the 'Apple isn't behind, AI was always in the oven and waiting to be fully baked' line. Siri is possibly the biggest tent pole feature for AI at Apple. 

Count me definitely in the sceptical camp. 

IMO, Apple has always been behind on the AI (or ML or whatever you want to call it) side. 

Right from day one (2017 and the Neural Engine) both in terms of performance and scope. 

Only time will tell if a pre-Covid perfect storm was brewing all along. 

The car project was rumoured to be years into development and was eventually abandoned at an expensive write-off cost and had engineers dedicated to that. 

Intel failed to deliver a 5G modem so Apple had to kiss and make up with Qualcomm, purchase the Intel division and hire and dedicate resources to that. Another year's long, expensive project. More billions. 

Then 'AI' hit the charts and started seeing multi-billion dollar investments in both software and hardware in both the industrial and consumer spheres. 

There is no doubt in anyone's mind that the last two and a half years have all been about AI and on the consumer side, Gen AI, LLM's and multi-modal AI efforts. Parallel to that, robotics were also making huge strides with Integrated and cloud based AI. 

I can give Apple a pass on the industrial side of things because it's a CE company. The problem there is that the industrial side does have a trickle down effect into the consumer side. 

I think they were just spread too thin on resources for too long and scrambling to get things into a workable state. There also appears to have been management issues on the AI side. 

Warning signs appeared at the WWDC where Apple literally refused to even utter the letters 'AI'. That was picked up on fast by the tech media but mostly people were joking about it more than thinking Apple's AI cupboard might be bare. 

In a hugely uncharacteristic move the AVP was presented (basically as a finished product with shipping timeframe but for a later date). 

My opinion is that this was a result of an all hands meeting and they decided they had to make some noise with something. Something to buy time in terms of mindset. 

Finally Apple Intelligence was presented as a suite of possibilities but only as part of future releases on both the software and hardware side. 

This is where some people (myself included) began to think things were possibly worse than we thought. There was no definite immediate delivery schedule. It was more like 'some now and some later but don't ask about the quality of what we deliver'. 

The latest version of iOS basically shipped without any of the tentpole advertised AI features. More red lights in the eyes of sceptics. When some of them did come they weren't received to accolades. Also the previous year's iPhones weren't really ready for Apple Intelligence.

It's difficult to remember a time when iPhones from just the previous year were so out of sync with what had been supposedly cooking for a long while behind the scenes.

That just cements my view that AI was a rush job of the 'let's promise now and deliver later' approach. 

Apple has had to up its hardware base specs to make its AI promises usable on more devices. It tried to put the onus on 'on-device' processing for privacy reasons which was an option they brought onto themselves. 

Everyone has been doing on-device processing for privacy and latency reasons since 2017. The only question was about how much could be done. Apple made a rod for its own back on that. 

The ethical debates about what data is trained on was almost like an excuse for being behind. 

There are literally hundreds of LLMs out there trained on 'clean' data often for very specific ends (science, health, industry, climate, pharma...). 

Apple has a ton of clean data that can be used with Siri to make it the perfect interface for technical support issues. For low hanging fruit that is something that should have been done years ago. 

It is clear that Siri has back end problems. When different devices have different Siri capabilities we should understand why the average consumer might scratch their heads and think 'why?'. 

At this point in time I'm leaning towards Siri being such a mess behind the scenes that previous attempts to 'fix' things have simply made them worse and now users are expecting to have 'conversations' with AI, which in turn, puts more pressure on the teams working to deliver a competitive product.