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Kuo: Apple Knows Apple Intelligence is 'Underwhelming' and Won't Drive iPhone Upgrades

ab2c4 said:
Even if ai worked great many people just don't want it.
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"If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses." – supposedly Henry Ford
"A lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to them" – Steve Jobs

"many people" do not know what they want.
 
novagamer said:
This isn’t a normal software delay. LLMs and Generative AI is not “normal” software in the sense of if you work harder on it, pour more money into it, give it more time, things will always get better.

There is a Computer Science gap that needs solving for before these things will ever work properly in the way they were demonstrated. Apple may be able to do that, but it will take a long time. This is why the summaries suck. Anyone who works in the field and isn’t also benefiting from AI hype financially or career-wise right now knows this technology has fundamental faults.

You can look up Yann LeCun‘s writing on these topics (not Apple specifically) who is the chief scientist of AI at Meta and has been working with neural networks since the 1980s. I’ve worked with dozens of CS PhDs and there are uses for this technology, but what we’re being sold as consumers is mostly not ready and there are profit motivations behind what’s being released, instead of solving for actual problems in a deterministic and concretely repeatable way.

There’s a public perception that because “computers always get faster” more and better hardware will solve a lot of the issues, but that just objectively not true. Without the transformer breakthrough in 2017 we wouldn’t have LLMs at all, maybe something akin to them but not LLMs as they currently exist. The most impressive thing Apple has done so far with AI in my opinion is create Private Cloud Compute, and that’s mostly on the hardware / firmware / big data side of things, not the actual algorithmic novel CS work that needs to leverage that compute in order to accurately produce results.

There’s a long, long way to go. Because Apple isn’t being led by someone who has total control, nuanced taste, and technical acumen, there is a large problem. Steve Jobs would have demanded to understand the technology before he got on stage to announce it, and either that didn’t happen with Apple’s current leadership, or they said “we’ll figure it out” and did it anyway. That’s a huge problem and people need to lose their jobs over it, not because it’s late but because there are surely engineers inside Apple who know those limitations, shared them, and weren’t listened to.

A lot of people hold Apple stock, or have it in their retirement portfolios and don’t want to publish things that can severely hurt the company. For a long time I thought Gruber was one of those people but either he divested or grew some confidence because it’s about time he called this debacle for what it is. It’s great reporitng. Kuo is just following-up on that saying “Apple is aware” but that really is not enough, to John’s point there needs to be a mobileMe style reckoning internally, and if it hasn’t happened then Apple is already rotten.

It may have happened to some extent by shifting Kim Vorrath, but we haven’t gotten any detailed reporting about that. And even though she may stop Apple from screwing up pre-announcements in the future, and holding developer’s feet to the fire internally, she can’t undo what was already shown, promised, and released in a fundamentally broken or underbaked state.
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The Siri features are possible. Much of the framework for it already exists, just needs to be utilized correctly. With App Intents, already I can have Siri perform actions in apps and such. Today. What the new Siri features will do is expand on that, and make it easier to use that infrastructure. For example, if I ask Siri to text my friend John Smith my last note I wrote in Notes, Siri could collect the last note (already similar Siri actions exist in Shortcuts), get the contact for my friend from my Contacts app, and then text it with the Messages app. Literally a lot of this can already be done with preconfigured Siri Shortcuts. I don’t buy for a second that that isn’t possible, similar is already possible with Siri Shortcuts as I already said.

There is absolutely zero evidence that these features can’t work and don’t actually exist in development…
 
I’ve mostly turned off all the Apple Intelligence features - they’re not ready for prime time, and in many cases are simply an irritation - worst being the inaccurate summary and rephrasing of messages received.
 
btrach144 said:
Apple finally has something to stress iPad hardware but misses.

Apple lied to investors to sell iPhones and keep their stock price high.
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Apple is evidentely not reading forums here otherwise they would know AI will drive only M4 Max and M3 Ultra sales not phones especilly when working as it is working 😃 There are cases where AI helps really but it still far in some areas. But humanity do not need it if it wont really benefit from it. Mean all people nut just creators.
 
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Given that Apple Intelligence has only really been released in the USA and a couple of other English speaking territories, it isn’t really surprising that it isn’t having much impact on sales.

For various reasons I have had to upgrade my Mac, iPhone, iPad and Watch. None of them were replaced because of Apple Intelligence. The Mac was getting slow, my daughter needed a new phone and an iPad for her kids, so I was “forced” to upgrade and hand down my 13 Pro and old iPad Air. If it hadn’t been for that, I wouldn’t have replaced either of them this year.
 
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10anta said:
I’ve mostly turned off all the Apple Intelligence features - they’re not ready for prime time, and in many cases are simply an irritation - worst being the inaccurate summary and rephrasing of messages received.
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I don't see a need for Apple Intelligence or any other AI bovine excrement in my daily life. As long as we can keep it switched off then I'm ok with it. That said, I am sure that some people will find a use for it. As a writer, I work hard to keep any generated words out of my prose. I want what I create to be my own work and not that of anyone else. If I do use a reference in my stories, then I credit them honestly.
 
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Oh no! They might have to actually give iPhone new, actual features! And not drip feed changes, like upgrading 1 of 3 Pro camera each year… we’re all bored Apple, you hear it now?
 
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ghostface147 said:
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.
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I wonder how many people actually use any AI functionality in their devices. I have Apple Intelligence turned off on all of my devices, plus I have Copilot disabled through my registry on Windows 11 machine. I use DeepSeek once in a while, but don’t really see the need to have an AI assistant.
 
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progx said:
I wonder how many people actually use any AI functionality in their devices. I have Apple Intelligence turned off on all of my devices, plus I have Copilot disabled through my registry on Windows 11 machine. I use DeepSeek once in a while, but don’t really see the need to have an AI assistant.
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All the time throughout the day, over here.
 
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Chungry said:
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.
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Yup, me too, I’m hoping by next year I’ll get a OnePlus 13R on sale.
 
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They could focus instead on making the Translator app so much better in more languages.
 
picpicmac said:
So if the consensus is that "AI" in its currently available form across the industry has problems... why are so many toxic fans whining about the enhanced Siri being (perhaps permanently) delayed?

For those not following the simple syllogism:
1) A is bad;
2) We don't have A;
3) We are angry we don't have a bad thing.

That current LLMs have a problem with hallucinations is a well known thing.

It's why any computer today should not make such things as the default software product.
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Because it’s somehow important to be the “leader” in dead end technology.

NONE of the current transformer models and LLMs will ever be “intelligent” regardless of how many servers you train it on. It’s a dead end.
 
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Korito said:
There is one positive side of this “AI” bubble - we got more RAM and we weren’t charged as if it was made out of diamonds. 😁
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I pointed out in another thread, only half joking, that they keep turning on AI after point updates because otherwise you got RAM for free. I'd love to see Cook (try to) flip a table out of anger over giving people RAM for AI only for most folks to turn it off.
 
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I hope wwdc25 will fix this with new crazy AI features to make crazy videos, crazy photo editing from the photos app… new Siri this year… Crazy features like music creation from AI too…

AI could also make apps you just ask Siri and boom it creates you a game !! Something crazy we have never seen before to beat androids…
 
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Veinticinco said:
It'll be the 'redesign'.

"Prepare to be whelmed" in other words.
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Possibly... Apple would want to advertise it that way: "Buy this phone, unless you want people to know you can't afford the latest model" (and sadly, that is the reason a lot of people will buy one). Apart from the iPhone 17Air, I can't see the redesign offering the end user any tangible benefits that can be pushed via ads (e.g. the iPhone 15 Pro was sold via being titanium and therefore lighter).
 
I'm glad I didn't buy a 16. Not sure if I'll end up buying a 17 or not, probably will. Apple Intel wasn't a deciding factor anyway.
 
Mark my words: iPhone 16 Pros will not be able to run the new Siri that has been postponed to next years. Cause it needs an A19 Pro!
 
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