How Apple Fell Behind in the AI Arms Race
wsj.com
wsj.com
model-as-service companies can have all the features they want, their models can't do anything meaningful without the data Apple, MS, Google have.
Apple is at zero risk that someone else will have your notes, entire app library with data, mail, calendar, messages. They hold so much leverage. Even if you use some other (so far nonexistent) secret all-model, what are you going to access it with?
Literally none of that ended up mattering to the actual success of the product, a pattern that has been repeated with a lot of Apple products. My first MP3 player, smartphone, tablet, laptop, etc, were not Apple products but that's what I own now (well except for the MP3 player which is essentially a dead product category).
Right now everyone is setting incomprehensibly expensive amounts of compute on fire, for basically free, in the hopes utility emerges
Microsoft Office? That's not Apple (and it's got AI a-plenty).
Adobe Photoshop? That's not Apple (and it's got AI a-plenty).
Autodesk Maya? That's not Apple (and it's got AI a-plenty).
Logic Pro? It's... Oh, that one is, in fact, Apple — and it's got AI features unrivaled in other DAWs, as of last month's release [1].
Final Cut Pro? Got me there, I don't know much about it, but at least we can be specific.
In any case: most "creatives" are using software that's not made by Apple to create.
And the creative software Apple does make is not their top priority.
So, to my knowledge, presence or lack of AI in Apple software is not affecting most people using Apple hardware as creative professionals.
[1] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/05/whats-coming-in-majo...
They're not interested in staying competitive. It's not in their blood. They define markets and dominate them. If there's even a whiff of Jobs-era thinking left at the company, they're working on something that will make all of the "competition" irrelevant. Even if it takes them a few years. Do I expect it? No, but the last thing they'll do is chase the crowd/tulip mania.
Either it becomes an essential part of workflows, in which case it becomes commoditized and we're worried about whether or not they'll someday support the mouse, or it's hype and it doesn't matter if/when they implement it
Do they actually?
The only truly creative software they sell is Final Cut and Logic.
And both target professionals who aren't interested in generating low quality GenAI content.
It's Adobe and Canva who care more about those features.
Anyway, Apple is rarely the first mover in a given technology space, so I wouldn't be too concerned yet.
It's all just examples of how poor the publishing industry has become
Edit: hot damn I just learned double clicking the crown skips the track, later Siri!
Some people just can’t be bothered read.
If AI was real, Siri would tell me I can simply triple press the crown when I ask it to skip the track while wearing airpods. Or at least be able to answer when I directly ask it “how to skip a track when wearing airpods max”. As is, it just runs a google search and tells me to figure it out myself. Thanks.
That you know of
Weird that its not listed in the settings menu with all the other shortcuts.
I hope you have recovered from this truly hard pressing moment in your life.
Same could likely be said for Apple. They might be just where they want to be.
I thought EVs were on track to outsell hybrids this coming year for the first time.
Gosh. This is an enormous claim that's going to need more than a simple citation. On the surface it seems very obviously wrong, and sounds more like propaganda.
Instead we pursued an entirely unproven technology that required (and still requires) ridiculous infrastructure investment (charging network, energy grid improvements, chargers at home, etc) and isn't as green as people might want depending where you live in the world (externalities of power production). Electric is still not ready to replace all vehicles, and may never be - nor is it going to be willingly mass adopted anytime soon. The drawbacks, which proponents like to handwave away, are severe and real.
Over the past couple decades we could have gradually improved MPG's on hybrids to astonishing (and impactful) levels. The crowd that fawned over Musk and his fantasies (the same crowd that now vehemently hates him, cuz politics...) would not accept hybrids or anything short of full electric vehicles.
Well, you all were fooled... and here we are with the average real-world 2023 vehicle fuel economy still less than 30 MPG's...
My unwillingness to burn dinosaur juice is reason enough for me to believe that hybrids are not "better" than BEVs, but BEVs are also (a lot) more efficient per watt, they require less maintenance, the running costs are lower, the performance is better, and in the long run, they're more future proof.
In fact it's hard to think of any reason why a hybrid would better except for "there are gas stations everywhere", but this reason is temporary at best, and ignores the fact that I can "fill" my EV at home, so I always leave the house with a full "tank". It's very rare that I have to visit a public charger.
And hey, even when I do, my hands don't stink of gasoline anymore.
You are unwilling to accept a significant reduction in "dinosaur juice" therefore we still burn about as much of it per day today, as we did 20 years ago[1]. You are not alone in this misguided opinion - which has stunted environmental efforts.
Going from a 300 mile range to a 600+ mile range on the same fuel input is really significant.
Instead, a tiny portion of the population drives an electric vehicle...
> I wasn't "fooled", and this is vaguely insulting.
It was designed to be insulting.
People like yourself with this viewpoint that hybrids are not acceptable are the reason we do not have more hybrids. The tech was already there two decades ago to make all cars hybrids... best of both worlds - significant reduction in emissions, extreme range between "fill ups", and fast turn-around time at the pump. No new infrastructure needed to be built to support a "hybrid revolution".
Instead, we have self-righteous electric vehicle owners touting how their environmental impact has been outsourced and reduced - failing to see the global environmental impact of electric vehicles has been essentially zero for two decades.
Forest meet trees...
[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/282716/oil-consumption-i...
For example it's expected there will be better text summarisation in the existing Notes app rather than replacing it entirely with some LLM chat bot centric UI.
tl;dr just because everyone is running in the same direction doesn't mean it is the correct direction.
Some people today think that squeezing an AI image generator into Bing and Facebook is what innovation looks like.
Except: With LLMs the race has recently basically restarted. I hope Apple does better in this round.
There’s no way they’d leave it to get this bad unless they’re working on a complete replacement.
I hope they don’t even call it Siri. Siri should be left to die like it deserves.
Having on device ai that good will be amazing for so much stuff
One of the pillars of Apple marketing is that they don’t collect or sell your data.
I consider Apple to be a hardware company first—they give me a thing, I give them money. That’s it.
Yes, the software makes up the ecosystem and features, but I’m paying for a tangible product, and they’re not selling me.
I think this ethos is a significant part of why they have become as successful as they are.
https://www.kantar.com/inspiration/technology/consumers-embr...
Even when AI is expected to be littered through the next OS update previewed in 3 days I imagine it's going to be interesting but largely inconsequential in the long term.
It may offer better photos, better Siri, better translation etc but not enough to move product.
At some point there needs to be compelling, innovative use cases.
The one thing is though - does this need to be something Apple sells? I like my iPhone for the hardware. I don’t care if they don’t make all the software.
And it's unquestionably been useful in certain niches e.g. research, image generation.
But that's very different from it transforming everyone's lives like the hype suggests.
People will catch on to the useful things it can do for them soon enough.