NYT: Apple's AI Struggles Began with 2023 Chip Budget Dispute

[bluecoast]

Happens when you have weak management or management that is unsure of itself. Cook is way over his head.

It seems that cook is an amazing COO in a CEO’s job who has been executing on Steve Job’s product vision and his way of doing things.

However, he seems to lack Job’s aptitude to ‘skating where the puck is heading’ as Jobs liked to say.

It feels time now for some of the Jobs old hands to gracefully step down as they’re parr of an older era.

I’m not sure that their ways of seeing things - globalised supply chain mostly in SE Asia, adherence on skimming money from all economic activity in the App Store - is going to serve them well as GenAi becomes the primary computing interface and the era of globalisation starts to close.

And Apple desperately needs some product vision at the top.

 

[bluecoast]

Yep. But Tim is the goose that lays the golden egg. He ain’t going anywhere.

I’m not sure that he is for much longer.

See my other comment here for why I think this.

 

[I7guy]

I’m not sure that he is for much longer.

See my other comment here for why I think this.

I think he is until 65. There’s a plan in place for his succession and he’s leaving on his own terms. IMO, of course.

 

[bluecoast]

Nope. I don't think you even understand what an LLM is.

The future will always be everyday familiar UI that has the power of AI behind it, invisible in the background. The future is not chat bots. They are a proof of concept for the AI's capabilities. They can replace search engines sure, but that was ripe for replacement.

Im not sure about that. Computing Ux has always been about progressing the way that we interact with our machines and reducing the abstraction in this process toward our primary way of communication (voice).

First it was printed cards. Then magnetic tape. Then a CL interface. Then the GUI.

We are humans who primarily interact with other humans using voice (if we are able to do so).

So I’m suggesting that voice will be our primary UX with text as a back up, with the results given as voice too & displayed using a GUI if required / needed (depending on the mode).

We only had GUIs because the voice interface has been terrible (ahem, Siri right now!)

 

[amartinez1660]

Yeah I'm far from an AI expert but a lack of GPUs is pretty clearly not the problem. This is a standard software development issue, not a resource issue.

Yeah exactly!

And weren’t they right to not burn droves of cash on this after all? the DeepSeek debacle seems to have proven that extreme brute force isn’t needed anymore and that a fraction (single digit percentages) of what OpenAI, Google, Meta, Nvidia were investing in resources can be enough to move AI forward.

 

[nt5672]

...
First it was printed cards. Then magnetic tape. Then a CL interface. Then the GUI.
...

Yep, and all of those were accurate, detailed, determinate, and predictable. Voice is none of those because it is based on statistics. Voice might be acceptable for simple things like (excluding Siri of course) setting timers, turning lights on/off, etc. but not for any more detailed tasks.

Imagine the extreme example of the difference between pushing the break pedal and screaming "Stop the car". Or the false positive of saying "did he really stop the car there" and the car slamming on the breaks, of course for safety and just in case.

 

[jlc1978]

Yep, and all of those were accurate, detailed, determinate, and predictable. Voice is none of those because it is based on statistics.

Voice communications can be very difficult when you add in things like accents, variations in word choices for the same objects, speech impediments, contextual impact on meaning, etc. People are good at figuring such things out based on experience, location, knowledge of the speaker, etc.; and don't need a huge data set to cover almost every speaker they may encounter, unlike a computer that may be used by two vastly different speakers.

Not that it can't happen but it is not as easy as it may seem.

 

[thebart]

The bean counter got bean counted

 

[bluecoast]

Yep, and all of those were accurate, detailed, determinate, and predictable. Voice is none of those because it is based on statistics. Voice might be acceptable for simple things like (excluding Siri of course) setting timers, turning lights on/off, etc. but not for any more detailed tasks.

Imagine the extreme example of the difference between pushing the break pedal and screaming "Stop the car". Or the false positive of saying "did he really stop the car there" and the car slamming on the breaks, of course for safety and just in case.

I know what you mean. But I think j that’s where we are all headed to whether we want it or not wort the advent

And with all the bugs in iOS I’m not ever sure if my swipes and presses will do what they’re meant to do!

 

[Digital Dude]

I’ve been using Apple products since 1983, but I’ve been seriously tempted to jump ship lately. If Apple can finally get its act together with Siri by this fall—before Samsung rolls out their 2025 lineup—I might stick around a little longer. 🤷‍♂️

 

[Doomtomb]

Craig Federighi couldn't Hello World his way out of a cardboard VR box

 

[vantelimus]

Yep. But Tim is the goose that lays the golden egg. He ain’t going anywhere.

This isn't just Apple. This happens a lot company. I worked at a company in the mid 90s where the CEO was so horrible, people at the company were going to the board pleading for him to be replaced. Key people at the company were leaving. However, the NASDAQ was a rocketship and the stock kept rising. The board was concerned that if they replace the CEO, it would signal problems at the company and the stock would tank. It took two quarters of falling stock prices before they replaced him.

Trump induced stock-market instability won't be held against Tim. As long as they can continue to buy back stock to increase the value, Tim is safe.

 

[garranhado]

All this comes from the management culture the company has taken since the Steve Jobs. In recent years I have seen many pathetic things in the presentations. I still remember when "mother earth" appeared, I put my hand to my head and asked myself if Apple was a technology company or a circus 🤡.

Many things needs to changes in Apple, starting with Tim Cock. Sorry but I can't see Tim Cock in the presentations anymore, he looks ridiculous.

 

[Jmausmuc]

Apple should have went all in on AI. LLMs directly threaten Apple's business.

Eventually, LLMs might get good enough that you do most of your things inside it, and not in iOS.

I doubt that this will happen in the near future. Speech interfaces are already good enough for many things yet people don’t use them.

 

[Ramchi]

Situation More like a bankrupt state department struggle for budget & not like ₹3 trillion corporation making 50% margins and ₹25 billion quarterly profits with ₹300 billion cash reserves! Clearly , Finance, Shareholder dream vs innovation!

 

[rviets]

I understand what you meant but now I can't help picturing someone leaning over to their Echo Dot, whispering lovingly to it "You're better than Siri."

Haha I just try to keep it quiet to not bother the roommate, but who needs context??
I'm definitely going to whisper lovingly to it now, though.

 

[CarAnalogy]

Haha I just try to keep it quiet to not bother the roommate, but who needs context??
I'm definitely going to whisper lovingly to it now, though.

Ha yeah I've whispered to mine plenty because it works surprisingly well. But now I'm gonna add a husky voice.

 

[Adam Warlock]

Um, kinda disagree here. Compute power is really quite essential to AI.

To be clear, I am talking about developing AI, not using the final product, which for sure is better with more horsepower.