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The Apple Intelligence features that Apple introduced with iOS 18 are not pushing people to upgrade their iPhones, Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo reiterated today. Apple's recent Siri failures are also going to have an impact on 2025 iPhone shipments, which the market is beginning to realize.

Sad-Siri-Feature.jpg

As early as last July, Kuo said expectations that Apple Intelligence could drive iPhone upgrades were likely "too optimistic," and in January, he was even more explicit and said that the appeal of Apple Intelligence had "significantly declined" because of the delay between when Apple showed off Apple Intelligence features in June and when they launched starting in October.

Kuo is maintaining his cautious view in light of Apple's Siri debacle, which has seen the company delay heavily advertised Apple Intelligence Siri features that it initially said would come in iOS 18.

According to Kuo, Apple is already aware of Apple Intelligence's "underwhelming performance," and has provided suppliers with conservative iPhone shipment forecasts as a result.

The negative public sentiment that Apple is facing due to the Apple Intelligence Siri delay could further impact sales of the iPhone 16 and iPhone 17 models in the coming months. Apple last week said that Siri personal context and App Intents are being pushed back until the "coming year," and it doesn't seem like the company expected such a critical reaction from the tech community and its customers.

Longtime Apple reporter John Gruber, for example, recently published an in-depth report calling out Apple's Siri shortcomings, and his commentary has resonated with many who have the same feelings about Apple's longtime struggle with Siri improvements.

Many others have also spoken up on the very public demonstrations of Apple Intelligence Siri features that Apple provided over the course of the last year and the subsequent delay that has shaken public confidence in the company's ability to deliver AI features that can compete with OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, and others.

Article Link: Kuo: Apple Knows Apple Intelligence is 'Underwhelming' and Won't Drive iPhone Upgrades
These tech writers are being way over the top over this. We don’t even know how far delayed it is. Heck, we don’t even know if it may still wind up in a later 18 update. Get a grip people. Besides, even if it is delayed into 19, I would much rather that than them rush out something with security/privacy issues or other major bugs. And everywhere Apple showed those features they did, in fact, have a disclaimer that those features would be coming in a later update. Even in the ads people are so upset about. Just get a grip… 🤦🏼‍♂️
 
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At this point, the only thing that could get me to upgrade is a new iPhone mini. But that's not going to happen.

For us it’s when our 13’s are either no longer receiving iOS updates, or fail altogether.

We were going to get a 16 for one of us when the battery in one of our 13’s was dying. But we just didn’t see any value in an upgrade. Nothing in the feature set is compelling, with or without AI. $89 for the a new battery for the 13 at the Genius Bar and we’re all set.
 
If one were only using this message board to know the state of AI for users they sure would get a mixed message. Combining all posts I get "I have little use for most of this AI stuff and I'm sure mad at Apple for not having it running well now". Most people wouldn't mind if a feature they never would use didn't work so well.
It's a great tool. It's available for free for Apple customers with OpenAI. I use it all the time. it's not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but it's the state of the art, and it's free to use. It's getting better and better every single day.

But as AI gets better and better, I'd rather have Apple focus on ONE thing in regard to AI. To keep our devices SAFE from AI. That should be their main focus with Ai.
 
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While disappointing that Apple Intelligence isn't ready for primetime, I agree that their assessment was too optimistic. What they should have done was roll out over 2 years, keeping the Beta tag on the features for as long as it was necessary (Google does it all the time). Though overall as others have mentioned in the past regarding AI, I think apple was pressured into providing some kind of AI features and got too ambitious.

Perhaps they should have tried to buy a smaller AI company and start from there? Even connecting to ChatGPT (noting its external source) and continue to develop their own solution. it could have been marketed correctly... ChatGPT is not guaranteed to be private etc (fine print stuff).

just my $0.02 worth.
Apple is already the latest in AI offerings and it’s also the worst while having great examples of other companies to do it right.

Seems like Apple has more marketeers and financial workers than programmers. And a total lack of vision from Timmy isn’t helping either.
 
And definitely not for those of us who turned it off, because we found it annoying. I don't use the camera button either. Nice work Apple!
 
I could not care less for Apple ‘Intelligence’. I was skeptical when they announced it hoping Apple would bring some value and I was very much let down. Just acts as bloatware on my devices.
 
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These tech writers are being way over the top over this. We don’t even know how far delayed it is. Heck, we don’t even know if it may still wind up in a later 18 update. Get a grip people. Besides, even if it is delayed into 19, I would much rather that than them rush out something with security/privacy issues or other major bugs. And everywhere Apple showed those features they did, in fact, have a disclaimer that those features would be coming in a later update. Even in the ads people are so upset about. Just get a grip… 🤦🏼‍♂️
I think, as much as I dislike him, John Gruber has the most eloquent take on this. It's not coming in 18, they had and continue to have nothing to show. And possibly they started over. It's smoke and mirrors. It's dishonesty. And I think a lot of us are stunned and in disbelief that Apple acted like this. Surely it's coming! They wouldn't do that. Give it time, it's gonna be last but best. I've seen all types of denial and it's only gonna make what comes next really jarring.

My money is on Apple pivoting and being a receptacle/front end for the GPTs of the world. Siri plugs in and leans on that. Maybe a semantic index is passed to the secure servers which have a local GPT model Installed and push it back. Maybe they pull out a rabbit and do some minimum viable product local LLM for system functions. I'd be surprised if what they showed, and how they described it working last year is what we end up with.
 
As an easily triggered person, AI summaries soften the blow and anxiety I feel when an email or message comes through that I’d rather not read immediately yet still know the gist of.

Very niche but it is a relief to hear bad news amalgamated by a robot first before actually diving in.

YMMV.
 
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Siri works perfectly fine for the great majority of people who use Siri to dictate and read text messages or tell HomeKit to turn on and off lights. I think the dictation is actually amazingly good these days. For the few that want to ask about football team statistics, maybe it's not so good.
Dear god she isn't perfectly fine. Literally 30 minutes ago my alarm went off, so I said "Siri, turn off the alarm". Usually, when you interact with Siri and an alarm is going off, she will automatically turn if off even if you don't specifically ask her to. This time, she said "What room do you want me to do that in"? And she wouldn't stop asking me, over, and over. No matter how I answered her.

Luckily, there's a work-around: If you use profanity when telling her to be quiet, it's an override that breaks her out of her loop she's stuck in. So I told her to shut the F up, and she finally, finally, listened. After asking me 5 times what room to turn the alarm off in. Like, it doesn't even make sense!

But this is 2025! Cortana came out somewhere around 2014, and Microsoft's TellMe was in Windows Phone 7 almost 15 years ago! Fifteen years, Apple had had to play catch up, and they can't even get the most basic of interactions to work right.
 
Apple stock is down over 12% in the last month. All these negative Apple Intelligence stories don’t help. At what point do we get an interview with Tim Cook (even with a friendly outlet)? Or does he just stay quiet?
 
To be honest, I'm still not even sure what it does. I'm not on the AI bandwagon so I don't pay much attention. I have never once used Siri. Not to search for anything or set a reminder for anything, like never in my life. All I know it does is that image playground thing that is mediocre at best but keeps my nephew entertained.
 
While disappointing that Apple Intelligence isn't ready for primetime, I agree that their assessment was too optimistic. What they should have done was roll out over 2 years, keeping the Beta tag on the features for as long as it was necessary (Google does it all the time). Though overall as others have mentioned in the past regarding AI, I think apple was pressured into providing some kind of AI features and got too ambitious.

Perhaps they should have tried to buy a smaller AI company and start from there? Even connecting to ChatGPT (noting its external source) and continue to develop their own solution. it could have been marketed correctly... ChatGPT is not guaranteed to be private etc (fine print stuff).

just my $0.02 worth.
I still would like to know how that iPhone 16 commercial with the more personalized Siri ever got approved. Apple had to know it was nowhere near ready to ship yet they’re advertising it with phones available to buy now? Who thought that was OK?
 
So iPhone 17 Pro/Max with 12GB RAM is very unlikely now. They keep it for the future, so they have something in their sleeve.
 
I guess we will need an iPhone 17/18 to fully enjoy Apple Intelligence.
There's a catch, though: customers may show more Intelligence than Apple.

I have a still functional iPhone 12. I don't need "improved" cameras because... I love real cameras. I wanted to upgrade last year for "battery life" reasons. But after the iPhone 16 / AI launch, I became suspicious and I decided to wait until 17. Now I'm not even sure about 17. All the rumors are about cameras and BS. And the AI fiasco is not reassuring... I have Apple so-called Intelligence on Macs and I couldn't care less about iPhone AI.

So, aside minor hardware "improvements" and software BS, does Apple have good news ?
 
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Apple stock is down over 12% in the last month. All these negative Apple Intelligence stories don’t help. At what point do we get an interview with Tim Cook (even with a friendly outlet)? Or does he just stay quiet?
I know this is rhetorical but I have come to firmly believe that Cook is shielded and/or ignores all critical feedback. That there exists at the C-suite level and above, and environment of toxic positivity. As a result there won't be a mea culpa or taking ownership. Not with modern Apple. I keep being reminded about how Apple sat silent when a large number of people had their iCloud accounts locked last year. Or when services go down but they don't update the status page.
 
It's so poor. The email summaries are risible, sometimes totally contradicting the actual email.
Yes exactly, which is why it relieves the anxiety of an anticipated email while still allowing me to hold off for a bit more on actually reading it. Kind of like a snooze.

AI dreams electronic mails electric.
 
Even if ai worked great many people just don't want it.
Depends how it is programmed, it’s usefulness and if it saves you time.

None of the above came out from Apple but I’ve seen conversational understanding assistants, very useful other AI things I only can look at with envy.

Understanding that Siri might get useful with iOS 19.4 that’s over a year from now and probably only in English first. I might switch to another brand that has already implemented the things Apple is promising for next year (if it might be working then)
 
No. Also a gimmick is something you might occasionally have fun with. Apple Intelligence is just hot garbage. Try using image playground, 70% of what you ask is denied even when its a general ask
Sadly true for the moment. ChatGPT’s image creation was far superior.
 
Depends how it is programmed, it’s usefulness and if it saves you time.

None of the above came out from Apple but I’ve seen conversational understanding assistants, very useful other AI things I only can look at with envy.

Understanding that Siri might get useful with iOS 19.4 that’s over a year from now and probably only in English first. I might switch to another brand that has already implemented the things Apple is promising for next year (if it might be working then)
I moved off iOS for my main phone. For what it's worth, and despite the rocky start Gemini is amazing now. It fulfills on the promises made. Plus there's some great and humane interface paradigms in other systems that iOS should wholesale copy.
 
I think, as much as I dislike him, John Gruber has the most eloquent take on this. It's not coming in 18, they had and continue to have nothing to show. And possibly they started over. It's smoke and mirrors. It's dishonesty. And I think a lot of us are stunned and in disbelief that Apple acted like this. Surely it's coming! They wouldn't do that. Give it time, it's gonna be last but best. I've seen all types of denial and it's only gonna make what comes next really jarring.

My money is on Apple pivoting and being a receptacle/front end for the GPTs of the world. Siri plugs in and leans on that. Maybe a semantic index is passed to the secure servers which have a local GPT model Installed and push it back. Maybe they pull out a rabbit and do some minimum viable product local LLM for system functions. I'd be surprised if what they showed, and how they described it working last year is what we end up with.
Agree with everything here.
Personally, wish they would have just announced things like “writing tools” as just system upgrades, there was no reason to give it this whole extra nonsensical weirdness.
I remember it being a big deal that at WWDC 2023, Apple didn’t say the words “AI” once, despite several of the features they introduced being powered by LLMs and the neural engine.
There’s been AI in apples operating systems for years now, even modern takes on it.
If they literally changed nothing about the feature set and it just introduced everything as new features and never said the phrase “Apple Intelligence” I think that there would be significantly less controversy about this.
Personally, that’s what I think they should do, even if new features in iOS 19 technically use LLMs… just call them new features. Say that they’re powered by machine learning.
Nothing more is needed, those who actually care about AI will know what it is, but the customers don’t have to deal with this.
 
Just get rid of AI, I couldn’t care less about it. One of the worst inventions of our time in my opinion, it’s made people more stupid, more unreliable, more lazy and a hell of a lot more gullible.
 
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Does anyone here use Apple intelligence on a regular basis? I don’t. Maybe a Genmoji once in a blue moon and a quick auto reply in iMessage once in a blue moon too.
Can I make a correction? Apple Intelligence ≠ AI. Apple Intelligence in its current state is laughable compared with AI available on the market today and often free to use.
 
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