John Gruber Says 'Something is Rotten' at Apple

[bollman]

I think Apple is in more trouble than what Gruber states.
The "concept" that Apple has shown us is not a small thing. And managing to do this on device with a low-power, albeit fast CPU, 8GB RAM and 128GB storage is a bigger feat than what I think most realize.
Sure, they may "handoff" to their server farm as stated, but that will surely degrade the experience having to send off stuff, AND, they said that they wouldn't have to.
I think they've realized that the hardware is not nearly capable and this will be a HUGE problem. They have promised it to work on iPhone 15 Pro and newer. 16 is sold with it as a main feature. So, if it never materializes and people feel like they've been tricked, that will hurt Apple a lot.

 

[patent10021]

That 'More personal Siri' image scared the bejesus out of me. Definitely the Tim Cook era. Steve Jobs would *not approve of these images that subconsciously push you know what narratives.

 

[KPOM]

Hmm, weird take. I think a lot of big tech companies are quietly in a little shock as the realization that AI is a bust feature begins to set in. Microsoft’s CEO said as much recently.

Combine the stalled positive impact of AI with the lack of Siri power users, and I’m guessing Apple is having second thoughts. Sucks for Apple, but doesn’t really upset me as a customer.

AI is where the Internet was in 1995. No one has figured it out yet. We all know it will be big but not sure who will be the winners and how it will change things long term.

 

[RickDEGH]

Totally agree with Gruber. They mislead the public into believing they’d get some great AI features a few months down the road - but only if they upgraded their iPhones. Analysts went as far as calling for an iPhone upgrade supercycle due to these great AI features. Most prominent/exciting being a Siri that knows about you. And that is the exact feature that turns out to be vaporware - for the entire iPhone 16 cycle! So the trust is broken. You can no longer believe what Apple tells you.

This!!! They simply misled consumers by making false promises. Think about someone who bought an iPhone 16PM in September in Europe based on false information. We’re heading into April, WWDC is around the corner, heck even the next iPhone model is around the corner. Yet, the 16PM was just a 15PM after all.

 

[Velli]

....this is the thing that did it for him?

Not over 10 years of dropping the ball on Siri?
Not the ever-more buggy iOS platforms?
Not a business model that is increasingly built on rent-seeking?
Not selling commodity storage and memory for 5x or more than the industry standard because they know their customers have no other choice?
Not several years of selling defective macbooks who's keyboards couldn't be typed on?
Not billions wasted on a car that never made sense and never came to market?

None of those things have potentially company-breaking impact, and some of them are the opposite (like “a business model that is increasingly built on rent-seeking”). The car debacle can actually be seen as strong leadership - it’s an area that Apple had to pursue seriously, because it’s the only place outside their current offerings that has enough potential to rival the iPhone business in revenue. But it’s strong leadership to recognize that even after diving deep into it, they were never going to make mo et on it. The hardware business is, except for crazy upgrade pricing, killing it. So no, none of these things are meaningful reasons to ask a CEO of a financially hugefully successful company to step down.

But missing the AI train may well be a company breaking failure, because it actually impacts the core business (which the car debacle does not), and yes it would be normal for the CEO to step down after that. Just like what recently happened at Sonos.

I’m philosophically against the rise of AI. But even still, I’ve increasingly been using Gemini lately, and found it helpful for certain tasks. And every time, I’ve asked myself “why can’t I use an Apple product for this?”, because I hate handing over my data to Google (although I prefer it over ChatGPT). If I, an Apple fanboy who dislikes AI, is missing AI in Apple products, something is deeply wrong. I agree with Gruber’s take.

 

[KPOM]

Mr. Gruber is mad. I thought this is where he was going, but then he didn't, so I will. Maybe the decision to announce things they weren't sure they could deliver had two motivations. One, they needed to join the AI party in a serious way. And two, the ideas on the table for the iPhone 16 were a slightly better camera, and nothing else. So they plopped Apple Intelligence on the table and thought this would get them caught up to ChatGPT and give them a selling point for the 16 lineup.

Gruber also suggests he knows of people within Apple who knew they couldn't deliver this stuff.

The fiasco is that Apple pitched a story that wasn’t true, one that some people within the company surely understood wasn’t true, and they set a course based on that.

Is he speculating here? Or is he dropping a hint that people within Apple knew they couldn't deliver on this?

Gruber is the smartest guy in the room. Just ask him.

 

[TechWhisperer]

Boomer tim needs to let go. These guys hang on and destroy places. Dude call it good and let someone else run the show. You did great things for the stock. Take care

Tim Cook = “You either die a hero or you live long enough to become the villain.”

 

[KPOM]

This!!! They simply misled consumers by making false promises. Think about someone who bought an iPhone 16PM in September in Europe based on false information. We’re heading into April, WWDC is around the corner, heck even the next iPhone model is around the corner. Yet, the 16PM was just a 15PM after all.

Apple basically said AI isn’t coming to the EU because of regulation.

 

[Takeo Apple]

I completely disagree with the article. It just shows that the writer has no clue about LLM/AI and how that should be done with hardware/privacy in mind, rather than pushing everyhting into the cloud, like Google/Samsung/Microsoft...
Apple just launched the craziest AI/LLM beast ever with the Mac Studio M3 Ultra and 512 GB RAM, but he seems to ignore that.

 

[Virinprew]

I didn’t realize people needed AI so badly in their lives… 🤔

You are already using it everyday. You just don't see behind the scene. Youtube video recommendation, Facebook feed, ads, language translation, image enhancement, treatment adaptation, ...etc

 

[MyAppleWorld]

Where can we watch the concepts?

 

[Ctrlos]

Whilst they shouldn’t be marketing features until they are ready for consumer release, you’d think from the way the commentary had gone on that Apple had demoed the ability for the iPhone to end world hunger and not delivered on it.

If anything we should be celebrating less AI in our lives! Contextually aware Siri sounds great but it doesn’t do anything that we can’t just look up our selves. “What time does mums flight arrive?” This is knowledge I should already bloody well know!

AI aside, Apple’s software issues are nothing that doesn’t already plague Android to a much greater extent or the train wreck that is Windows 11. They are not unique in wanting to varnish the surface rather than get rid of the termites within.

iOS and MacOS are not perfect but neither of them, say fail 50% of the time when I try to pay for something or need me to execute a command line script to actually make the damned thing useable.

 

[Bungaree.Chubbins]

I couldn't bring myself to read this comment section; it'll be a playground for all the haters and doomers, who will be out in full force.

I have no comment on the central point of the argument. I don't know what the state of the upgraded Siri is behind the scenes. I'll judge it if/when it comes out. As I don't use Siri or any voice assistant apps, my judgement will always be a resounding *MEH*. I did enjoy the arrogant 'if I don't like it, no one should have it' nature of some of his arguments, though. Very amusing.

Apple still has some credit with me. I like Apple's philosophy on implementing AI features, using it as a bunch of tools and techniques to make other functions work better. That's the way to build a solid future, not just shoving another stupid chat bot in every crevice. Apple has made some dumb moves over the years, but they're outweighed by the good ones so far.

 

[KPOM]

The choices made after the Steve Jobs era led to this … unfortunately Steve is no longer here to save the company again … It happened to IBM . Sony and many more … It is time to revoke Tim Cook before it is way too late. His CFO abilities were exceptional to support Steve effort and creativity but not sure he is the right fit as of today

By Tim Cook’s own words a few years ago he won’t be CEO for much longer. I think they were grooming Craig Federighi for the role but may also be considering outside leaders given the state of AI.

 

[Velli]

I think the issue is that, well... AI kinda sucks, and Apple doesn't want to release something that's going to be crap.

Apple Intelligence has already shown to not be as great as it was pitched, and the company has gotten some criticism over that. Rather than release something that's crap, they're maybe waiting until they get it right?

Again and again GenAI is showing itself to be unreliable and error-prone. I personally refuse to use it. I'd honestly prefer if Apple would admit this was the wrong path to take and innovate in other ways.

That’s all good. But read Gruber’s post. The problem isn’t the not shipping the AI, it’s the promising a product that isn’t shipping. If Apple had stood on stage and said “we believe the best strategy for Apple is to work together with third party AI suppliers rather than building our own”, it would have been a sign of weakness, but not a fiasco. Coming out as the company pushing against AI would have been interesting, but a losing strategy. Saying that “AI is not ready yet, and we will ship products when they are ready” could even have been a position of strength. Promising that “oh, we’re on top of this whole AI thing, we’re ready to ship any day now”, to appease shareholders, and then not shipping - that is a fiasco.

 

[chineseguy38]

That's Tim Apple. He has to go. He only cares about getting more money. He has to issue an official apology for lying to his customers about getting the improved SIRI.

 

[Jensend]

I completely disagree with the article. It just shows that the writer has no clue about LLM/AI and how that should be done with hardware/privacy in mind, rather than pushing everyhting into the cloud, like Google/Samsung/Microsoft...
Apple just launched the craziest AI/LLM beast ever with the Mac Studio M3 Ultra and 512 GB RAM, but he seems to ignore that.

Did you even read the article? It wasn’t about praising or criticizing AI, it was about Apple promising a feature that was nowhere near ready.

 

[Naildown]

This is a marketing department fail, not a fail by Craig's team. I've worked in big tech and marketing departments always want to pull crap like this whilst the actual developers are screaming "no, it's not ready!". If heads roll over this, it shouldn't be on the development side.

 

[Edgecrusherr]

I truly believe that Apple currently has the best hardware they’ve ever had, but one of, if not the worst, software they’ve ever produced.

It doesn’t ever feel like they know what they’re doing anymore on the software side of things. I see a lot of change for the sake of change. A lot of buggy, unfinished, and poorly executed software releases. I see things that have worked for decades not work at all anymore. And I suspect that a lot of decisions are made with marketing people looking over the shoulders of the software teams (and the hardware teams on this one as well).

I don’t really know who’s to blame, but if I’m just going by who’s running the department, I would say it’s time for new leadership in the software division, services division, and possibly CEO position. And overall, someone needs to tell marketing they’re not in charge.

Apple needs to focus on being the best, and making their customers happy, not finding ways to bleed us dry and under deliver. It doesn’t feel like they’re honest with themselves, which is I believe the main point of this article. It feels like Apple tells themselves and everyone else that they’re the best, but aren’t actually delivering on that in many key areas.

Apple needs to stop promising us new stuff, spend a year fixing everything they have out now, then look at how they got themselves in this position.

 

[zxski]

Apple need to stop focusing on AI and hardware releases and FIX SOME BUGS.

Instead of mediocre AI stuff, I'd like to mention, from the top of my head:

- Safari history / going back often shows the wrong page.
- Safari most visited shows old websites I only visited once.
- Safari cloud tabs are not synced and missing on some devices.
- Safari botching automatic fill of phone numbers and postal codes.
- Safari showing empty screen / refusing to start loading when tapping a link from outside of Safari.
- Safari crashing when zooming in / out on pages like Reddit
- Safari randomly launching either the app store or the correct app, you can never tell
- Safari losing correct scroll position after switching tabs
- General selecting text to copy/paste and the accompanying menu has a 50/50 chance of not working, not appearing or having missing options.
- Mail always shows the wrong unread count over multiple accounts.
- Mail search never finds what I need.
- Mail does not mark as read when deleting something unread, but sometimes it does
- Mail filters not showing all appropriate messages
- Mail sending all outgoing messages twice on Microsoft accounts
- Contacts not syncing across devices
- Contacts suggesting useless data "found" somewhere else, like empty strings
- iMessage UI/UX hell
- iMessage not syncing correctly across devices
- iMessage some options / settings not present on some devices
- iMessage messing up the sequence of messages so older messages are shown AFTER newer ones.
- iMessage randomly keeping or not keeping audio messages
- iMessage notifying you someone else is keeping audio messages days after they did it
- iMessage stops recording audio message as soon as you scroll
- iMessage audio messages taking minutes to send even if they are seconds long
- iMessage stickers not appearing in the same place you put them at the recipients end
- FaceTime missed call badge keeps showing even when no one calls
- FaceTime switching over to other devices even if you do not want to
- System settings UI/UX hell
- System settings search never finds the correct thing
- Rearranging icons on the home screen UI/UX hell
- Calendar notification sounds often not playing
- Calendar National holidays showing incorrectly when using for example English language in Dutch locale
- Calendars not syncing across devices
- CarPlay refusing to record audio messages over 60 seconds.
- CarPlay randomly restarting music if you don't want to play music.
- Passwords gets confused when you have multiple accounts for the same website.
- Passwords seems to think there is a passkey set up even if you do not use passkeys
- Passwords not recognising correct fields on websites
- Notes not syncing across devices or very slowly
- Notes when deleted show up again after a few days
- App Store search never finds the correct app
- System notifications appearing twenty times in a row
- System storage statis incorrect storage size used
- System settings resetting themselves after installing an update.
- iCloud backup stating incorrect storage size used
- iCloud backup refusing to backup even if there is space
- iCloud sync settings not being remembered
- iCloud sync suddenly makes deleted photos or other data appear
- Siri being so dumb I want to disable it but cannot because it is required for CarPlay

I am very sorry but Tim Cook seems to not care about end user experience, only about shareholder value. I am shocked and horrified that this year I have considered twice to maybe try Android.

 

[Velli]

What normal person actually cares.

What I see out in the real world are a surprising number of “normal persons” using the **** out of ChatGPT. Including my 75-year-old mother in law. Normal people don’t know enough to resent AI, they just use it. Which should be Apple’s home turf.

 

[btrach144]

Apple deserves to be sued over the ads about AI but never releasing said features.

Further, as a stock holder, I would feel livid that Apple misled investors on their capabilities to deliver world class AI in a timely manner. It was all a lie to boost their stock price.

Siri has been horrible for over a decade with little effort to make it better.

Apple is entering into its Intel era as it’s clearly fallen asleep.

 

[Stuwil]

Agree. They had to have known this before launching the 16

Exactly I don’t even think Apple intelligence was actually meant for iOS 18
I suspect it was a last minute attempt to put AI on the OS so it looked like they hadn’t fallen behind other companies

 

[OS X Dude]

They need Scott Forstall. They need that Steve-esque abrasiveness and obsession with perfection.

 

[Fuzzball84]

Wait, Hans Gruber? Wasn’t he in the Die Hard films? 🤔😆