blastdoor

A fresh coat of paint can make all that is old seem a little less old. And it generates buzz as people debate whether they like the new look better than the old look. 

But I'm becoming convinced that folks who have used the Copland analogy for AI are right and I was wrong to be dismissive of that analogy. While Apple's current difficulties with AI don't threaten the company the way difficulties with Copland did, there are still a lot of similarities. With Copland, apple promised to bring a lot of cutting edge OS features -- preemptive multitasking and memory protection -- to MacOS. Those were features present in other operating systems, but the approach Apple took to adding those features to classic MacOS failed miserably for project management/leadership reasons as much as technical reasons. 

Today, the AI features Apple desperately wants and needs to bring to their products exist in products from other companies but Apple's project management/leadership appears to be failing big time. Apple can turn it around, and I bet they eventually will. But for the time being, this really looks like a mess. 

When I first read that Apple executives wouldn’t be talking to John Gruber this year (https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/05/29/the-talk-show-live-tickets-2025) I interpreted it as a snub. But now I wonder if the Apple executives are just going into hiding. 

I have now fully come around to agreeing that It’s time for Tim Cook to go. 

fred1 said:

The reasons given that prevent iPhones from being made in the US - “there is not the required skilled labor, there is not a supply of the rare minerals needed, and there are no facilities.” - can be dealt with, but would take years to implement. It’s not impossible, but the overnight change the Orange Man wants can’t happen.  Does he really not understand this? 

Agreed. Stating that’s it’s physically impossible to manufacture iPhones in the US is over the top absurd and ultimately benefits Trump because it makes him look relatively less dumb than he would otherwise look.

of course it’s possible. It would just be more expensive to do that than pay the tariff, especially given that the tariff might not be there by the time the US supply chain is built.

I wonder if in China the iPhone is now more a symbol of Donald Trump than of Steve Jobs.