New High-Speed Technology Paves Way for Apple Intelligence Upgrades

[9081094]

It hasn't gone backwards, it stayed the same. Yes, it still sucks, 100% agree.

Siri based on an LLM foundation in iOS 19 (2025/2026) will be THE game-changer everyone's waiting for. And this is pure AI.
All of those saying this is wasted resources... can keep the current Siri if they want.

Can you blame me that I’m a bit sceptical at this point? Siri was introduced 13+ years ago and Apple threw commercials at us what it is able to do. As of today it still can’t live op to those commercials 13+ years ago.

Last year Apple mentioned that Siri would get a big overhaul with iOS 18. Now iOS 18 is out and Siri is still braindead. I’m getting sceptical about a useful Siri with iOS 19. Than Apple is rolling out Siri in English first and we see it slowly able to speak other languages. 2027?

Google in the meantime is rolling out Gemini 2.0 with capabilities we can only dream off. By the time Siri might be reanimated and might be somewhat useful, Gemini 4.0 will be out and running.

When considering how much devices are crippled today without a smart Siri (personal assistants, CarPlay, HomePods, AVP, Apple Watch, etc.) you might wonder why throw billions down the drain for failed project titan and forget to invest in the key element Siri actually is.

Apple is years and years behind and I’m sceptical they will overcome this problem.

 

[Oblivious.Robot]

I have disabled Apple Intelligence on my iPhone 15Pmx, was draining way too much battery for too little of the supposedly intelligence.

 

[gmanist1000]

Sorry, but Apple, AI, and High-Speed, do not go together. Apple is SO far behind.

 

[9081094]

People complain that Apple Intelligence isn't good enough and the same people are also complaining that Apple is investing money to make it better. What a world.

I didn’t hear anyone complaining pouring R&D into their hard- and software. When you consider how less Apple money Apple is investing into R&D, its percent wise the least of all tech companies.

If Apple has invested more in their R&D we would have normal upgrade cycles of every product category yearly based.

Now we only get processor swaps and some color changes year after year. Incremental changes with older technology (iPad mini, iMacs, iPads, AirPod max, you name it)

Total neglect on their software side as well. And 13+ years of no change to Siri. That is an embarrassing of output for a multibillion company.

No wonder why iPhone slipped from 19% to 17% worldwide.

You probably think we all hate Apple by complaining and spreading this news. But in reality we see a beloved company slide into a profit focused business that has become lazy and not customer focused anymore.

 

[NufSaid]

This is the dumbest AI out there.

At least I can get my memoji faster.

 

[9081094]

The flaw with AI lies in the software, not hardware.🧐 All this means is you get the wrong answer faster.😁

It’s Apple Intelligence that’s flawed. There are many examples of very good working AI that is definitely helpful and saves you lots of time.

 

[Frantisekj]

The flaw with AI lies in the software, not hardware.🧐 All this means is you get the wrong answer faster.😁

Or it will be able to lie much more sophisticatelly lol.

 

[adrianlondon]

The best thing about AI so far, is that my base M4 MBP comes with 16GB RAM and cost the same as the base M3 with 8GB at launch.

I have AI disabled (technically, it was never activated in the first place) so I just get the ram for "free" 😁

 

[Osxguy]

I just want my camera app to open and not lag on my beautiful brand new iPhone 16 Pro… tried all the basics clean install etc. Was in Hawaii in real use situations and my friends Samsung sure took beautiful pictures by the time my camera app opened up and had a usable screen…

 

[rungxanh2901]

Don't care unless they bring it to older iPhone models

 

[mdriftmeyer]

Good. Apple joins AMD, HP Enterprise and others finally backing what they should have backed two years ago.

 

[thebeans]

Apple has backed a technology that could contribute to future Apple Intelligence advancements.

The consortium behind the "Ultra Accelerator Link" or "UALink" technology today announced that Apple, Alibaba, and Synopsys have joined its Board of Directors. The three companies will contribute to further development of the technology.

UALink is described as a "high-speed, scale-up interconnect for next-generation AI cluster performance." The consortium is aiming to release UALink 1.0 in the first quarter of 2025, and it will enable data speeds of "up to 200Gbps per lane."

The technology could pave the way for faster and more efficient Apple Intelligence servers.

"UALink shows great promise in addressing connectivity challenges and creating new opportunities for expanding AI capabilities and demands," said Becky Loop, Director of Platform Architecture at Apple. Loop added that "Apple has a long history of pioneering and collaborating on innovations that drive our industry forward."

It is not clear if or when Apple will adopt the technology, or if it is merely interested in helping out the overall AI industry.

Apple Intelligence servers are currently powered by the M2 Ultra chip, and they are expected to start using M4 series chips this year. In an eventual move away from Mac chips for server use, The Information recently reported that Apple has been developing a new AI server chip that will offer even faster performance for AI workloads.

Article Link: New High-Speed Technology Paves Way for Apple Intelligence Upgrades

And yet Siri still can’t translate a spoken text without randomly putting in capital letters for no reason. It’s astounding that simple things like that are still an issue. Actually, it used to be better. This is a relatively new issue. Not related to Apple Intelligence”. It was around before Apple Intelligence was introduced.

 

[contacos]

I am too old for all of this

 

[surferfb]

I didn’t hear anyone complaining pouring R&D into their hard- and software. When you consider how less Apple money Apple is investing into R&D, its percent wise the least of all tech companies.

If Apple has invested more in their R&D we would have normal upgrade cycles of every product category yearly based.

Now we only get processor swaps and some color changes year after year. Incremental changes with older technology (iPad mini, iMacs, iPads, AirPod max, you name it)

Total neglect on their software side as well. And 13+ years of no change to Siri. That is an embarrassing of output for a multibillion company.

No wonder why iPhone slipped from 19% to 17% worldwide.

You probably think we all hate Apple by complaining and spreading this news. But in reality we see a beloved company slide into a profit focused business that has become lazy and not customer focused anymore.

I don't think you hate Apple, but I do think some on here (not saying you, to be clear), have a misunderstanding of how Apple works and has always worked. And I disagree in the absolute strongest terms that Apple is lazy and not customer-focused anymore. I think Apple is absolutely customer focused, just their idea of what they should be focused on is different than yours (and many who post on MacRumors).

I think those who claim Apple doesn't innovate anymore are forgetting many of the upgrades that you call incremental, when put together, have actually made products significantly better despite perhaps none of them on their own being "WOW!" upgrades - but you put them together and WOW!

The fact of the matter is that while I agree Siri could be significantly better, just because you haven't seen "Conversational Siri" yet doesn't mean Apple isn't working on it. You also say "13+ years of no change to Siri" but that's patently false. We've gotten third party integrations, improved voices, the ability to distinguish between voices, better at false activations, more content (things like sports scores), etc. That's just off the top of my head. Has it turned into Jarvis? No, of course not. But it has definitely improved.

 

[kamyk35]

It hasn't gone backwards, it stayed the same. Yes, it still sucks, 100% agree.

Siri based on an LLM foundation in iOS 19 (2025/2026) will be THE game-changer everyone's waiting for. And this is pure AI.
All of those saying this is wasted resources... can keep the current Siri if they want.

Siri lags more than before, especially in maps & car play, no improvement what so ever in finding locations in maps gets it wrong 8 out of 10, however today my son asked Siri which bond films Daniel Craig played in, no way the old Siri answers that, however it offered chat GPT and after approx 15 sec came back verbally listing the 5 films, I would say that's an improvement!

 

[rikki_t]

While your phone remains nothing more than a dumb client terminal pinging and retrieving info from a remote server no matter how hard they try it'l still suck, R&D needs to go into better faster chips with much better bandwidth, problem is how are you going to charge subscriptions if you can do everything locally on you phone ?

 

[PsykX]

Siri lags more than before, especially in maps & car play, no improvement what so ever in finding locations in maps gets it wrong 8 out of 10, however today my son asked Siri which bond films Daniel Craig played in, no way the old Siri answers that, however it offered chat GPT and after approx 15 sec came back verbally listing the 5 films, I would say that's an improvement!

ChatGPT's foundation is a LLM.
This is what I'm talking about. Siri will become 100X better when it will switch to this technology.

The ChatGPT integration is just a temporary bridge IMO to make things seem like they are better. But they're not.
Siri is still the same.

 

[PsykX]

Apple is years and years behind and I’m sceptical they will overcome this problem.

I know what you mean, I feel you, every time I use Siri I regret it and I end up being frustrated.

I've used the ChatGPT app and it seems like they're so many years ahead, it's impossible. It talks in any language and can switch if you ask it too, it can simulate accents, the voice is very natural, it can interpret images, PDFs, text, etc. It even seems like they have feelings. It seems like it knows the answer to every question*.

Apple looks like they are years and years behind, but once Siri will switch to a LLM, it will be harder to say how many years behind they are. They will surely still be a few years behind, but that's because the LLM will be on-device; it will need to be miniaturized and will not have the same capabilities as ChatGPT. But it will suddenly get much, MUCH better.

*That's actually a trap!

 

[9081094]

Apple looks like they are years and years behind, but once Siri will switch to a LLM, it will be harder to say how many years behind they are. They will surely still be a few years behind, but that's because the LLM will be on-device; it will need to be miniaturized and will not have the same capabilities as ChatGPT. But it will suddenly get much, MUCH better.

I really hope you’re right about this. If Siri doesn’t live op to the hopes Apple is promising 13+ years, I’ll break open my costly build Apple ecosystem and will never look back again.

You still have faith, Tim Cook has made lost my faith in Apple.

 

[doobydoooby]

It hasn't gone backwards, it stayed the same. Yes, it still sucks, 100% agree.

Siri based on an LLM foundation in iOS 19 (2025/2026) will be THE game-changer everyone's waiting for. And this is pure AI.
All of those saying this is wasted resources... can keep the current Siri if they want.

Mine has definitely deteriorated. It used to be able to do simple tasks like sending messages…. These days even that fails about half the time. Sometimes Siri just shuts off half way through a thread! It’s definitely gone downhill

 

[alphaod]

Don't worry we can still rename this to Skynet.

 

[Razorpit]

Can you blame me that I’m a bit sceptical at this point? Siri was introduced 13+ years ago and Apple threw commercials at us what it is able to do. As of today it still can’t live op to those commercials 13+ years ago.

Last year Apple mentioned that Siri would get a big overhaul with iOS 18. Now iOS 18 is out and Siri is still braindead. I’m getting sceptical about a useful Siri with iOS 19. Than Apple is rolling out Siri in English first and we see it slowly able to speak other languages. 2027?

Google in the meantime is rolling out Gemini 2.0 with capabilities we can only dream off. By the time Siri might be reanimated and might be somewhat useful, Gemini 4.0 will be out and running.

When considering how much devices are crippled today without a smart Siri (personal assistants, CarPlay, HomePods, AVP, Apple Watch, etc.) you might wonder why throw billions down the drain for failed project titan and forget to invest in the key element Siri actually is.

Apple is years and years behind and I’m sceptical they will overcome this problem.

And don't forget there was at least one, and I want to say two OS releases in there, where a Siri "overhaul" was part of the update. Personally I think Siri has gotten worse over the years. We hit peak Siri about a year after Apple purchased them. Once they finished up all the projects in the pipeline things started getting worse.

I don't think you hate Apple, but I do think some on here (not saying you, to be clear), have a misunderstanding of how Apple works and has always worked. And I disagree in the absolute strongest terms that Apple is lazy and not customer-focused anymore. I think Apple is absolutely customer focused, just their idea of what they should be focused on is different than yours (and many who post on MacRumors).

I think those who claim Apple doesn't innovate anymore are forgetting many of the upgrades that you call incremental, when put together, have actually made products significantly better despite perhaps none of them on their own being "WOW!" upgrades - but you put them together and WOW!

The fact of the matter is that while I agree Siri could be significantly better, just because you haven't seen "Conversational Siri" yet doesn't mean Apple isn't working on it. You also say "13+ years of no change to Siri" but that's patently false. We've gotten third party integrations, improved voices, the ability to distinguish between voices, better at false activations, more content (things like sports scores), etc. That's just off the top of my head. Has it turned into Jarvis? No, of course not. But it has definitely improved.

Everything to Apple now is a sales opportunity. It's like Verizon, T-Mobile, AT&T, they no longer have tech support. They have someone who's going to try and sell you on the new version of whatever it is you have, while they're trying to support you on whatever your current issue is. Used support the other day to look up and order from two years ago and they were trying to sell me a new Apple Watch. 🙄 I felt like I needed to take a shower after I got off the phone with them.

 

[NT1440]

Apple's apparent failure to capitalise on the potential offered by artificial intelligence represents a significant opportunity cost for the company. In an effort to mitigate the risks associated with this missed opportunity, Apple is currently exploring avenues through which it can invest before competition in the sector intensifies and potentially limits its options.

Has anyone “capitalized”? I think Apple has it right in treating this as a feature of the platform because no one is actually profitable in the AI space. Tens of billions of Capex spent on infrastructure with NO business plan to come anywhere close to recouping it.

 

[eifelbube]

Apple does nothing, people complain. Apples puts more into R&D, people complain.

If Apple had done nothing with Apple Intelligence, I would not have complained.

 

[surferfb]

If Apple had done nothing with Apple Intelligence, I would not have complained.

You may not have, but shareholders and the tech press absolutely would have. Apple was already getting eaten alive with “Apple has no AI” prior to WWDC last year; I’m convinced they actually announced Apple Intelligence a year before they originally planned because of it.