Apple Intelligenc
What if we’re looking at the Apple Intelligence issue in reverse? Apple’s AI strategy appears to be in disarray. It promised too much on future iPhone capabilities, teamed up with dubious third party AI vendors, and didn’t deliver for so long that it’s had to switch strategies altogether. There’s even a threat of a lawsuit.
We can fault Apple’s leadership and doubt its devotion, but I believe the issue is not Apple at all. The issue lies with AI.
Since I have been reporting on Apple, I’ve had it in my head that it won’t ship a product that doesn’t hit some point of ‘finish.’ The first iPhone was shipped without GPS to use as a navigation device or for recording video using the Camera app.
Yet, it had the most comprehensive and refined user interface yet on a phone, and Safari, a mobile browser as sophisticated as a desktop browser, something that was unimaginable.
Even Apple Vision Pro, a flop that disappointed critics, had a full-baked experience. Perhaps Vision Pro lacked sufficient features at launch to excite potential customers, but the features present worked seamlessly.
And Vision Pro is the most heavily-criticized Apple release in recent history, long before Apple Intelligence burst.
That time Apple released a product that didn’t exist. yet
Apple Intelligence provided a strange iPhone 16 launch in a multitude of ways. For veteran Apple users, it seemed completely out of character for the company.
First, there was the ChatGPT partnership, which saw Apple offloading important features to an upstart, untested partner – loudly. That move set off some warning bells.
Then, the iPhone launched, and billboards worldwide were plastered with marketing for Apple Intelligence. The new AI was the standard-bearer for the phone, the OS, and the whole company.
New features – who? Camera Control button? Never heard of it.
But Apple Intelligence features were not there! Features that had been advertised as coming were the majority Coming Soon.
Even to this day, I can’t inform you exactly how much of that Soon really came. Always we have remained in doubt on what is ultimately coming soon and what will still be coming down the road to far.
The final reason for employing Apple Intelligence
Infamously, a series of ads starring Last of Us actress Bella Ramsey has apparently vanished from Apple’s YouTube channel. Apple Intelligence and the iPhone’s capacity for email summaries and remembering conversations seemed to advise Ramsey as she made choices about her acting career. Ramsey uses Apple Intelligence’s interpretation of a character to determine whether to take on a role.
When I watched those commercials, I sort of felt sorry for Ramsey. I wouldn’t make significant career choices based on an AI synopsis, and the Apple Intelligence commercials made Ramsey out to be sort of amateurish, quite a far cry from the person I get when I watch Ramsey do interviews.
So now that the ad is removed, does that mean Apple Intelligence won’t be scanning my emails? Will it be suggesting my next large Hollywood role? Will it assist in making choices about what job to accept?
I hope not because that is horrible justification for using AI.
When AI features failed, the industry rallied around them.
The reason why Apple made such a huge splash when it said that OpenAI’s ChatGPT would be answering questions for Apple Intelligence, and why it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Apple Intelligence is not doing so great right now, is that no product could be less complete right now than AI.
Apple delivers refined products that have the potential to make an impact. There has seldom been a less impressive product than artificial intelligence on phones. We have been promised things from phone manufacturers for two years that never came to pass or hyped things that are appallingly bad.
My phone AI still cannot decipher my email and create a calendar for my football team from the emails my child’s coach forwards to me. That was a straightforward AI guarantee. Instead, we have now AI picture creators that will produce racist and stereotypical images of individuals, gory images of copyrighted characters, or realistic images of cons.
Even the most basic AI feature is not just bad, it’s scary. Apple Intelligence’s headline summary feature generated fake headlines that were the exact opposite of what was true. When AI is spreading lies, it’s not just an offensive feature that we can just turn a blind eye to. It’s a dangerous feature that we need to battle.
I don’t care if Apple wins or loses, I just want a good phone
So Apple has not succeeded with Apple Intelligence. So what. Perhaps we quite literally dodged a bullet. Apple over-promised with AI, but it will not be if Apple drops a bad feature that provides no value and possibly could provide harm instead.
Why isn’t that obvious? Let go of the rat race of whether Apple succeeds or fails. Let go of frustration in the market regarding a lack of innovation.
We need to step back and ask whether these AI capabilities on smartphones are a positive or negative, and when a company like Apple puts its AI plans on hold, we should be praising its caution, not lamenting its lack of vision.
