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Every year between 2015 and 2024, at least one Apple executive agreed to be interviewed by Daring Fireball's John Gruber for a special WWDC episode of his podcast, The Talk Show. Last year, for example, Apple's software engineering chief Craig Federighi, marketing chief Greg Joswiak, and top AI researcher John Giannandrea joined Gruber on stage at the California Theatre in San Jose to discuss Apple Intelligence and more.

Craig-Federighi-No.jpg
Apple's response to Gruber's interview request (context)

That decade-long tradition abruptly came to an end last month, when Apple declined Gruber's invitation to speak for this year's special episode.

A few months prior to that, Gruber published a blog post that was heavily critical of Apple. In that piece, the well-known Apple pundit said that the company "pitched a story that wasn't true" at WWDC 2024, when it previewed a more personalized Siri that was not close to being ready and is now delayed. He said that the situation damaged Apple's credibility, and he expressed concern that it could be a sign of bigger problems inside the company.

Unsurprisingly, Apple did not like the commentary.

In the latest episode of the Channels podcast, Gruber told Business Insider's Peter Kafka that Apple was "not happy" about the blog post and felt it was unfair.

However, Gruber said Apple's absence was actually a net positive for him.

"I'm not trying to lack humility here — but I feel them deciding not to do my show this year is a total win for me and was a huge loss for them," he said.

Why does he believe that?

"I think it asserts my independence," he argued. "And I think more than making me look good, I think it makes them look bad."

For his WWDC 2025 episode, Gruber ended up interviewing The Wall Street Journal's Joanna Stern and The Verge's Nilay Patel.



Article Link: John Gruber Reacts to Apple Declining His Interview After His Criticism
 
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I’m sure that this will be a totally sane and well thought out discussion thread 🤣

With that said, I’m not surprised that Apple would retaliate and am even less surprised that Gruber would proclaim victory. Two stubborn entities that don’t like admitting a potential weakness.
 
I love Joanna and Nilay more after seeing them up on the stage with Gruber, especially Nilay for making it a point to console and pointing out the same fact about his independence and doing it all without the backing of a newspaper or a large tech site.
 
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hat decade-long tradition abruptly came to an end last month, when Apple declined Gruber's invitation to speak for this year's special episode.

A few months prior to that, Gruber published a blog post that was heavily critical of Apple. In that piece, the well-known Apple pundit said that the company "pitched a story that wasn't true" at WWDC 2024, when it previewed a more personalized Siri that was not close to being ready and is now delayed. He said that the situation damaged Apple's credibility, and he expressed concern that it could be a sign of bigger problems inside the company.

Unsurprisingly, Apple did not like the commentary.

In the latest episode of the Channels podcast, Gruber told Business Insider's Peter Kafka that Apple was "not happy" about the blog post and felt it was unfair.
It’s not just that. I’m hearing rumors that Gruber’s been banned from all future Apple events for foreseeable future after that article was published. If it’s true, then Apple wants to have nothing to do with Gruber going forward, and I feel this is going to damage Apple’s reputation further.
 


Every year between 2015 and 2024, at least one Apple executive agreed to be interviewed by Daring Fireball's John Gruber for a special WWDC episode of his podcast, The Talk Show. Last year, for example, Apple's software engineering chief Craig Federighi, marketing chief Greg Joswiak, and top AI researcher John Giannandrea joined Gruber on stage at the California Theatre in San Jose to discuss Apple Intelligence and more.


Craig-Federighi-No.jpg


Apple's response to Gruber's interview request

That decade-long tradition abruptly came to an end last month, when Apple declined Gruber's invitation to speak for this year's special episode.

A few months prior to that, Gruber published a blog post that was heavily critical of Apple. In that piece, the well-known Apple pundit said that the company "pitched a story that wasn't true" at WWDC 2024, when it previewed a more personalized Siri that was not close to being ready and is now delayed. He said that the situation damaged Apple's credibility, and he expressed concern that it could be a sign of bigger problems inside the company.

Unsurprisingly, Apple did not like the commentary.

In the latest episode of the Channels podcast, Gruber told Business Insider's Peter Kafka that Apple was "not happy" about the blog post and felt it was unfair.

However, Gruber said Apple's absence was actually a net positive for him.

"I'm not trying to lack humility here — but I feel them deciding not to do my show this year is a total win for me and was a huge loss for them," he said.

Why does he believe that?

"I think it asserts my independence," he argued. "And I think more than making me look good, I think it makes them look bad."

For his WWDC 2025 episode, Gruber ended up interviewing The Wall Street Journal's Joanna Stern and The Verge's Nilay Patel.



Article Link: John Gruber Reacts to Apple Declining His Interview After His Criticism
The only reason anyone knows who tf he is, is that he has made milking Apple his entire identity. He hasn’t created anything that I’m aware of.
 


Every year between 2015 and 2024, at least one Apple executive agreed to be interviewed by Daring Fireball's John Gruber for a special WWDC episode of his podcast, The Talk Show. Last year, for example, Apple's software engineering chief Craig Federighi, marketing chief Greg Joswiak, and top AI researcher John Giannandrea joined Gruber on stage at the California Theatre in San Jose to discuss Apple Intelligence and more.


Craig-Federighi-No.jpg


Apple's response to Gruber's interview request

That decade-long tradition abruptly came to an end last month, when Apple declined Gruber's invitation to speak for this year's special episode.

A few months prior to that, Gruber published a blog post that was heavily critical of Apple. In that piece, the well-known Apple pundit said that the company "pitched a story that wasn't true" at WWDC 2024, when it previewed a more personalized Siri that was not close to being ready and is now delayed. He said that the situation damaged Apple's credibility, and he expressed concern that it could be a sign of bigger problems inside the company.

Unsurprisingly, Apple did not like the commentary.

In the latest episode of the Channels podcast, Gruber told Business Insider's Peter Kafka that Apple was "not happy" about the blog post and felt it was unfair.

However, Gruber said Apple's absence was actually a net positive for him.

"I'm not trying to lack humility here — but I feel them deciding not to do my show this year is a total win for me and was a huge loss for them," he said.

Why does he believe that?

"I think it asserts my independence," he argued. "And I think more than making me look good, I think it makes them look bad."

For his WWDC 2025 episode, Gruber ended up interviewing The Wall Street Journal's Joanna Stern and The Verge's Nilay Patel.



Article Link: John Gruber Reacts to Apple Declining His Interview After His Criticism
Honestly, it was the best podcast Gruber’s done.. and of all the other WWDC podcasts that week, this was truly amazing. I honestly can’t wait for their next year’s WWDC podcast!
 
He's right though. Apple heavily promoted the iPhone 16 Pro with personalised and improved Siri, not just at their keynote but with big physical ads, and what do we have nine months later? Absolutely sod all to show for it, same old dumb Siri with a few AI tools thrown in.

Apple should be sued for selling the iPhone 16 on false promises.
 
It’s not just that. I’m hearing rumors that Gruber’s been banned from all future Apple events for foreseeable future after that article was published. If it’s true, then Apple wants to have nothing to do with Gruber going forward, and I feel this is going to damage Apple’s reputation further.
What did he expect Apple to do? Why would you bite the hand, that has so provided you with much in your life. Apple know that how he gets his information, is questionable, yet humours him with interviews etc...
 
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He's right though. Apple heavily promoted the iPhone 16 Pro with personalised and improved Siri, not just at their keynote but with big physical ads, and what do we have nine months later? Absolutely sod all to show for it, same old dumb Siri with a few AI tools thrown in.

Apple should be sued for selling the iPhone 16 on false promises.
People should not be buying on the promise of future features. Things change fast in tech and they would most likely have been sued if they released a flawed product.
 
I love Joanna and Nila’s more after seeing them up on the stage with Gruber, especially Nilay for making it a point to console and pointing out the same fact about his independence and doing it all without the backing of a newspaper or a large tech site.
Being praised by Nilay Patel is not something to be proud of.


Goober can cope however he wants, but Apple was right to cut him off after he acted so unprofessionally.
 
I think both sides are petty here.

Criticizing Apple for not putting out an advertised feature is one thing, but Gruber’s way of calling them out and stating things were rotten inside the company is stretching it out too far.

Was the talk show entertaining this year? Yes. But also, no other journalist wrote an article with such a title and neither did Gruber have any valid confirmation about features being vaporware.

I don’t care that Apple intelligence isn’t fully out yet. I appreciate the features that are working. AI isn’t really a race that anyone should be running to finish without actually knowing the consequences and improving it, rather than throwing out some half baked features.

On a related but somewhat different note: As a researcher, I still use AI for formulating things and for pointing me in the right direction, but AI isn’t really capable of doing my job. I have to be smarter than it and what’s worrisome is people have this weird case of “turning their brain off” and letting AI do their work for them.
 
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