Javert24601
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Behind closed doors, Apple is embarrassed by its slow Siri rollout, too
This is why Apple shot itself in the foot by limiting themselves to being on the device. I strongly suspect there is not enough "horsepower" for a AI assistant to be able to "reason" the request, come up with an avenue to accomplish the tasks, and then execute the tasks. I personally use Grok3 (I have not used ChatGPT because of it usage limitations), and I really like the way that it shows you how it breaks down the request, shows you how it figures out the answer, and then explains the answer while also explaining the limitations and pros and cons of the answer. And, how much "horsepower" is behind Grok3 compared to our iPhones? Apple should have gone with the "privacy on the server" route as it worked to putting it on the device. Don't get me wrong as I fully appreciate the privacy/security emphasis, but it was the wrong call at the wrong time. Apple already squeezed a LLM into 8 GB of RAM, but that doesn't mean the 8GB is enough to make an AI assistant that is 99.99% accurate. Whoever made that call should be fired.mpantone said:Two-thirds of the time is horrid. Even 90% is useless.
Put it in perspective using an actual real world comparable scenario: a human personal assistant.
Let's say you give your human P.A. three tasks:- pick up dry cleaning (via TaskRabbit for the AI assistant),
- e-mail vendor that their account will be past due tomorrow thus incurring a 1.5% service charge, and
- book round trip flight on April 17th from Los Angeles to San Jose (SJC in California)
Your AI assistant only correctly accomplished two of the three tasks. Now if it's the dry cleaning, that's maybe not a big deal. But the other two are. And there are plenty of ways the AI assistant can screw up. Maybe they told the vendor they would be fired tomorrow. Maybe the AI assistant quotes a 2.5% service charge. Maybe the AI assistant books you to SJO (San Jose, Costa Rica) instead of SJC.
The problem is you don't get to choose which task the AI assistant fails at.
Now if you had a human personal assistant, you'd fire them for effing up #2 or #3.
Realistically a useful AI assistant (or human assistant) really needs to be about 99.8% accurate. Assistants need to be reliable, accurate, and private. And not just two of those three attributes.
What if your cellular provider didn't deliver 40% of your text messages? Your transit card fails at 40% of fare gates. Your car won't start three days a week? Your credit card fails to authorize a couple times a day?
Hell, what if the Tokyo Metro subway payment system screwed up 0.02% of transactions every day? That's literally thousands of rides. Or if ATMs gave the wrong amount of cash withdrawals that many times. If you had a Pasmo subway transit card that only worked 40% of the time, you'd probably give up and just buy paper tickets from the ticket vending machine.
Apple knows this. An AI-assisted assistant needs to be way better than current Siri. It needs to at least be as good as a really, Really, REALLY good human assistant because going back to clean up someone else's mess (AI or human) takes too much time. And you lose trust in that assistant very quickly.
"Fake it until you make it" is not a credible business plan in the real world. That's something Elizabeth Holmes would do.
Apple cannot afford to put out an AI-assisted Siri that only gets things right two-thirds of the time and promise that it'll get better. We already have way too many LLM-powered AI chatbot assistants that dole out garbage on a regular basis. The world is not going to be any better with Yet Another Lame Assistant.
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The EU is betraying iPhone users and weakening privacy for political gain
Thank you. I agree with what you wrote. I think the free market does work, so if another smart watch were selling well, I suspect Apple would support it. I do believe Apple is open to competition and even sells competitor's items, just look at the Logitech keyboard for the iPad on their website.Wesley Hilliard said:
Nothing I said contradicts what you said here. I'm not sure what you mean by saying my posts are some kind of church gospel. As I've said on Bluesky and other places, more than one thing can be true.neoncat said:Mr. Hilliard, you're a fine writer and I enjoy your articles. But your increasing need to challenge readers with parochial arguments in the comments is a bad look (not that my opinion matters, of course.)
I have no real skin in this game—I don't live in the EU. I tend to like more open systems than more closed, but I get the advantages Apple's approach brings, even if it also brings tremendous baggage and restrictions that deserve to be challenged. More importantly, however: Dominos have an interesting way of continuing to fall. The longer Apple digs in its heels, the less control it will have over outcomes. Which is such classic Apple behavior: Kick and scream until the terms are fully dictated and then they have zero chance to represent their viewpoint, whether on behalf of their customers or their own financial goals. They should let go of the App Store before the whole thing, bad *and* good, gets burned to the ground.
Apple digging in its heels isn't great. It's in a troublesome issue of its own making. However, the EU is overstepping by making demands it doesn't always seem to understand. Compel Apple to open up, but on its terms and timeline. Don't force hastily made changes that could be compromising to users.
My comment was directed at the original poster's comment about envying alternative app stores, which I do not. I'm happy that regulations enabled things like emulators without much trouble, but asking Apple to destroy its business model to make way for competitors that can't keep up, now that's an issue.
People like me that buy Apple for the closed ecosystem of products like that it's built on privacy and security first, then opened up in certain ways to allow more third-party interaction later. It's time for Apple to allow more smart watch functionality outside of Apple Watch, for example. But asking Apple to open up AirPlay and other proprietary systems is incredibly short sighted.
What's the point of competition if the EU regulates all the competitors to operate identically. That's not user choice, that's the kind of dystopia where all the brands in the store have been removed in the name of equality. I don't want to have an Android phone, so I didn't buy one. I don't want the EU to force Apple to make iOS into Android.
That said, regulations are helpful in pushing companies into making consumer-friendly decisions.See, more than one thing can be true. In this case, I think the EU is pushing too far. I'm sure some compromise will be made and consumers will ultimately benefit.
Isn't AirPlay open? I see the protocol offered by various companies. -
EU will force Apple to totally expose its iPhone features to all who ask
Apple only has 22-24% of the market in Europe. Yet, the EU determined that it was a "gatekeeper". The EU keeps shifting how the rules are defined and applied by the DMA, which had been a consistent complaint about that legislation even before it was enacted. Apple is known to be a closed ecosystem, and it has never made a secret of that. And, there is an alternate phone competitor, which actually does have the majority of the market. Despite this, Apple has created these thousands of API's for outside companies to interface with its products whether it is because of benevolence or because of free market demands. The EU hasn't "worked" with Apple; Apple has asked for clarification and replied as the article states, but the EIU has disregarded Apple's concerns, especially as they relate to privacy and proprietary technology.ClownAbuser said:"The European Commission is forcing new rules on Apple -- and only Apple" - huh? Every Gatekeeper in EU has to abide by the rules. Apple thinks it is uniquely exempt from the law, so the EU worked with Apple, and competitors, to assist Apple to understand what it would need to do to comply. Whether or not Apple likes those rules, or whether Apple Insider likes those rules, is immaterial; if you want to do business in the EU, obey EU law. If I want to do business in the USA, I must obey US law - I'm sure even Mr Trump would agree. Why should Apple be above the law of 27 nations?As the article also points out, Spotify, which truly does control a majority share of the market, isn't even held to the same standard. So, it isn't a matter of Apple not following EU law; it is a matter of the EU selectively applying the law, trying to wring money out of Apple with its massive fines (10% of international revenues, really? how is that even a fair penalty?) and hamstring another American company because the EU cannot innovate.
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EU will force Apple to totally expose its iPhone features to all who ask
The issue with this approach is that they will have to fork iOS development again. I already wonder if there aren't already too many iOS versions that Apple uses for itself. And, what would be the point of offering new hardware?lotones said:There's a real simple solution here: Apple should just make a separate model, the iPhone eu, sold only in the EU, with it's own version of iOSeu, that has no privacy protections, very few features, and complies with their stupid DMA, but doesn't give away any intellectual property. When it becomes riddled with bugs, malware, spyware, let it crash and burn.When they see the rest of Apple's customers worldwide moving on, EU customers will have to make their choice, and remove those responsible for this obnoxious DMA policy, and repeal or modify the DMA to be more practical.
