Apple Intelligence, Apple Intelligence, Apple Intelligzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

daGUY said:

The rumor going around currently is that the “real” LLM-based Siri isn’t going to be released until an iOS 19 point update sometime in the spring of 2026. I think Apple knows they’re running behind here, and updating the UI early is a quick and easy way to make themselves look like they’re on par with their competitors.

Similar type of thing with the commercials for Apple Intelligence. I saw one where they were advertising the iPhone 16, and when they mentioned “Apple Intelligence,” all they showed was the glowing border around the screen. They didn’t actually show it doing anything or even explain what it was!

I agree it’s a big mistake, though – the new UI implies that Siri itself is new, but then you find out once you use it that it isn’t any different. This makes me think when they really do improve it, it won’t be obvious (unless they change the UI again?) and people won’t notice because they’ll have already given up on it.

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Kind of reminds me of iOS 7 where they overhauled the UI one year and then changed all the nuts and bolts on other years. I think by staggering it out it makes it less jarring for people and covers up if the new feature is full of bugs. Plus there's only so much Apple can really do on a year-to-year basis. In fact, I read there's already complaints that engineers are still having to work on all these major point releases for 18 instead of moving on to 19 like they normally would this time of year.

My guess is iOS 19 will appear to be somewhat lacking in features except a lot of enhancements to AI. It might not even really be advertised and 19 will be plugged as a "snow leopard" release with few user facing features. It's under the hood where it'll be a major update.

Rocketpilot said:

Well, this is bleak: BBC complains to Apple over misleading shooting headline. I don't think we need Apple Intelligence just making up headlines and attributing them to a reputable news operation.

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Seems like it would be an easy fix for the notification API to include a means to disable summaries. It's not like Apple's 1st party notifications always get summarized.

Bonusround said:

Autonomous self-driving is such a different challenge than whatever we'll choose to define/accept as "AGI"... no connection, IMO.

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That’s sort of the problem, isn’t it? AGI to laymen is the Matrix. A system that can beat a human at anything. Sure for you and I the metric will be an expert system that’s better than a human at something, but that’ll be hard to sell to the public as general intelligence.

Even then, just like autonomous airliners or driverless cars, the bar to clear is impossibly high. The moment a pilotless airliner crashes or even a self driving car moves over some old lady it’ll be all over the news. No amount of “well ashkully! Statistically speaking they’re still safer than a human!” Will overcome that. People will clutch their pearls and demand self driving to be so absurdly safer than a human it may never make it into the real world.

Edit to add: this is the problem with Apple intelligence and the current batch of AI solutions. They never quite come close to human level. Every glitch in search results, every oddly written paragraph, every Siri brain fart is really obvious to humans. It’s the Uncanny Valley of thought. I can spot a LLM written email a mile away. It’s hard to justify using these tools when you’ll ultimately be caught red handed by a savvy reader.

In a way I feel bad for Apple in that I feel like the AI gold rush caught them by surprise. I think they might have hoped to let the tech mature or even see if it’s something they want a part of. But when Microsoft and Google shot to the moon with their LLMs, Tim Cook made the (unusual) panicked call to get Apple Intelligence out ASAP.

That kind of move just never works out for them (see: Apple Maps 1.0).

One thing that Jobs never had to deal with was Apple being the largest market cap, most profitable company in the world. Steve worked best when Apple was a pirate ship and could afford to kiss off their doubters on and off Wall Street (helped that early Apple had a true cult following that kept the place afloat at it's darkest hour).

Tim just doesn't have that. If he stood tall and said "we think all this AI stuff is stupid and we simply aren't going to stand for it" hundreds of billions of dollars would have vanished when the Reality Distortion Field turns into a black hole. Yes, CEOs should be in it for the long haul and not beholden to Wall Street but those are real dollars in real people's retirement and investment accounts. Apple needs to be rock steady and seen as an innovative player in Silicon Valley.

I'm not really sure where the issues with Apple Intelligence leaves Apple at the moment. I suppose the closest disaster was Apple Maps. While Maps is really quite good today the reputational damage is still felt today. However, with the creepiness and privacy issues surrounding AI at the moment, Apple has very solid grounds to simply declare the tech not quite ready and unwilling to go further until they get it right. Perhaps sunlight is the best disinfectant and Tim Cook addresses the issues soon.

Or he's going to sit back, let the whole AI hype machine implode with the stock market's current gyrations and get to say "we told you so" in the end...

I think what keeps Apple execs and engineers up at night is if they somehow miss the boat with AI and it ends up replacing conventional computing. Essentially Apple's entire current product line is at risk of becoming obsolete.

After all, the hype promise of all this LLM stuff is a Star Trek style computer you can simply converse with and have it magically configure itself to whatever problem you assign it. "Siri, I'd like to do a dinner party tonight. See if any of my friends are available and make a 3 course menu based on their preferences." Doing all that with today's MacOS/iOS UI would be a lot, but what if that simple sentence put the device to work on everything all at once?

The fear here is that OpenAI, Google, etc. crack that nut and suddenly the whole concept of computing changes out from under Apple. Especially if the tech is just not something Apple can acquire or develop easily after the first movers work out all the kinks. Building an iPod after Creative and Sony fumble around until the hardware is matured is one thing. LLMs apparently (pre DeepSeek, at least) need a lot of effort to develop and essentially require a ton of users to effectively beta test on the fly. So in that context, I can see why Apple panicked a little. Apple Intelligence needed to be shoved out the door before they became woefully behind, even if the product was barely passable to start.

I just find it hard to believe Apple is keeping the Mac Pro around just for the handful of users that still use PCI for...things. Makes more sense that the current M2 version is a placeholder until they get Apple Silicon to a spot where they can realize it's full potential. Personally I go with the Studio-on-a-Card idea at least in principle. Especially with Apple investing in personal cloud compute the business model makes more sense. Might as well sell that tech to power users instead of reserving it only for the datacenter.

d'oh!