Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

The MacRumors Show: Apple Intelligence Comes Under Fire

One thing they missed discussing is the fact OpenAI pirated a whole bunch of material to train their LLM's, and did Apple go down this route or tried to train their modules legitimately? What if they didn't have enough material to really train their module and that is the problem and they didn't want to resort to piracy?

Anyway interesting show and even though Dan copped all the hate (for being wrong), good on you for making the show interesting.
 
  • Like
Reactions: noanker
MacRumors said:


On this week's episode of The MacRumors Show, we talk about Apple's recent announcement that several of its most highly anticipated Apple Intelligence features are to be delayed.


Last week, Apple quietly announced that it is further delaying some of Siri's Apple Intelligence features that it expected to release in iOS 18. The functionality includes wide-reaching enhancements to Siri that leverage personal context and onscreen awareness to take complex actions in apps. It was unveiled as a key part of Apple Intelligence at WWDC in June last year, but has yet to be seen outside of Apple's pre-recorded demo videos and a series of now-pulled TV ads.

This week, Daring Fireball's John Gruber penned a blistering attack on the missing features and Apple's management decisions, triggering a wave of subsequent criticisms and calls for Apple CEO Tim Cook to directly acknowledge the situation. We reflect on the delay and the unusual circumstances surrounding the features, pondering how this happened and what it means for Apple going forward. The MacRumors Show also has its own YouTube channel, so make sure you're subscribed to keep up with new episodes and clips.



You can also listen to The MacRumors Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, or your preferred podcasts app. You can also copy our RSS feed directly into your podcast player.

​

If you haven't already listened to the previous episode of The MacRumors Show, catch up to hear our discussion about all of Apple's latest announcements for the iPhone, iPad, and Mac lineups.

Subscribe to The MacRumors Show for new episodes every week, where we discuss some of the topical news breaking here on MacRumors, often joined by interesting guests such as Kevin Nether, Jon Prosser, Luke Miani, Matthew Cassinelli, Brian Tong, Quinn Nelson, Jared Nelson, Eli Hodapp, Mike Bell, Sara Dietschy, iJustine, Jon Rettinger, Andru Edwards, Arnold Kim, Ben Sullins, Marcus Kane, Christopher Lawley, Frank McShan, David Lewis, Tyler Stalman, Sam Kohl, John Gruber, Federico Viticci, Thomas Frank, Jonathan Morrison, Ross Young, Ian Zelbo, and Rene Ritchie.

The MacRumors Show is on X @MacRumorsShowhttps://twitter.com/macrumorsshow, so be sure to give us a follow to keep up with the podcast. You... Click here to read rest of article

Article Link: The MacRumors Show: Apple Intelligence Comes Under Fire
Click to expand...
Dan, nice job creating a great show by playing the losing side on the argument. Very fun listening. Yes you are roasted lol. And I do use the camera button and do like it most of the time. Apple is not doomed. But they are a disappointment now and the culture and precedent is headed in a dangerous direction..... Are the Project Managers etc. at Apple afraid to raise the alarm flag when vaporware is being "sold" and the effort it takes to really develop complex software?
 
  • Like
Reactions: 01cowherd, UpsideDownEclair, arkitect and 2 others
Shere Khaan said:
One thing they missed discussing is the fact OpenAI pirated a whole bunch of material to train their LLM's, and did Apple go down this route or tried to train their modules legitimately? What if they didn't have enough material to really train their module and that is the problem and they didn't want to resort to piracy?

Anyway interesting show and even though Dan copped all the hate (for being wrong), good on you for making the show interesting.
Click to expand...
allllll the hate...sheesh. just wanted to offer a different perspective hahaha
 
  • Like
  • Love
Reactions: Shere Khaan, subjonas, I7guy and 1 other person
Shere Khaan said:
One thing they missed discussing is the fact OpenAI pirated a whole bunch of material to train their LLM's, and did Apple go down this route or tried to train their modules legitimately? What if they didn't have enough material to really train their module and that is the problem and they didn't want to resort to piracy?
Click to expand...
Then they should have known that before announcing the feature, it doesn’t excuse false advertising in any way. You don’t just fantasize features, you first make proofs of concept to validate their viability.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 01cowherd and arkitect
Living the Dream said:
The amount of defense and deflection that the left man on thumbnail is doing is gross and any amount of journalistic integrity this guy has should be unequivocally revoked. I can’t believe what I just listened to in his complete arrogant defense of apple AI.

It’s even more hilarious when he is asked questions and you can listen to the volume of his voice that he knows he can’t answer the question truthfully. His voice always goes quite quiet.
Click to expand...
I am not sure anyone has ever said I was quiet before? lol

As I said a bunch of times in the episode - I am trying to play "devils advocate" for the sake of this episode not being two guys agreeing with each other the whole time
 
  • Like
Reactions: UnknownTechGuy, That70sGAdawg, Seamaster and 3 others
Dan Barbera said:
90% to get a discussion going. I can see both sides to an extent but as I said before, Apple should NOT have run those ads on a feature set that doesnt exist. That is indefensible. Is it going to ruin these features or Apple? No, of course not
Click to expand...
But Apple did promise a Siri 2.0 and all the other AI related things with iOS 18.X (not iOS 19 and up). Also Samsung is already delivering what Apple is promising. It’s really time to put all in perspective and Apple would feel some pressure to up the ante a bit.
 
  • Like
Reactions: That70sGAdawg and arkitect
lots of good points here but…
1. We want Apple to be that company that announce products when they are ready and perfect
2. We want apple to show us a glimpse to the future hoping they are on course compare to competition.
It doesn’t work both ways…

Now about the future products. Yes I would love to wear these meta-rayban glasses that can help me with everything like translating, photos and videos, explaining me what I see. But I’m not ok to let meta monetize my whole life to some advertising company.
 
  • Like
  • Haha
Reactions: HighwaySnowman and subjonas
Dan Barbera said:
As I said a bunch of times in the episode - I am trying to play "devils advocate" for the sake of this episode not being two guys agreeing with each other the whole time
Click to expand...
To be fair, for this topic you had a very tough job there.
 
Nice episode! I guess I’m not taking this AI stuff as seriously as some people here. I can’t even bring myself to feel sorry for people who bought a product based on what it was expected to offer. Looking forward to next week’s special guest! Have a great weekend everyone.
 
Apple just had their best quarter ever, and their stock is basically free right now. This could be the best thing to happen to Apple in years. Maybe this will finally wake them up from their software slumber.

Although I only use the writing tools, which I couldn’t live without, I get why people are upset with the AI shortcomings. I’m curious what missing features other people couldn’t live without.
 
  • Haha
Reactions: HighwaySnowman
cutlub said:
Apple just had their best quarter ever, and their stock is basically free right now. This could be the best thing to happen to Apple in years. Maybe this will finally wake them up from their software slumber.

Although I only use the writing tools, which I couldn’t live without, I get why people are upset with the AI shortcomings. I’m curious what missing features other people couldn’t live without.
Click to expand...
Tom cook saiid they don’t do things for stock price.
 
Hartley's argument is weak. Who cares if Apple takes longer to launch Intelligence features. iOS upgrades are free.

Gruber could be getting paid by Google to turn against Apple.

I had to stop watching mid-way. Too much complaining for a Friday. 🥳
 
  • Haha
Reactions: HighwaySnowman
anthogag said:
Hartley's argument is weak. Who cares if Apple takes longer to launch Intelligence features. iOS upgrades are free.

Gruber could be getting paid by Google to turn against Apple.

I had to stop watching mid-way. Too much complaining for a Friday. 🥳
Click to expand...

I think the issue is using the software that is free to market features designed for the new very expensive hardware.

But as you say… it’s Friday!
 
Well I enjoyed the show.

Personally, I find the whole AI subject hyped. I've used ChatGPT and Grok a few times and been mildly impressed...for a glorified search engine.

I do think Tim Cook is past whatever prime he had. $100 million a year to give the company a black eye is not good management. Steve Jobs must be spinning in his grave.
 
The software side of Apple has been in bad shape for years. Clearly the loss of talent and possibly the pandemic has hurt internal communication and there seems to be no honest evaluation of product from the inside. Look at the fact that the iPhone and the iPad do NOT have matching apps after all these years. It took YEARS for the calculator to hit the iPad. That division is under staffed and poorly managed IMHO.
 
  • Like
Reactions: That70sGAdawg and 01cowherd
“What makes Apple special now?”

Dan had the perfect response—“Define special”. Apple is special in that it has a spectacular track record relative to other companies, and its success is a consequence of making good important decisions most of the time. Its special-ness is not an intrinsic quality, but just a current unique position resulting from a series of mostly good decisions by mostly smart people, and timing as well. But there is nothing that says it’s meant to continue in that path unwavering, even if Jobs was still at the helm. In other words, Apple is NOT special in the way that question asks because it has never been. How could it be? Take a step back and ask objectively, who or what in this world is not just better in some or most or even all ways at the moment, but is of a different intrinsic quality than literally EVERYTHING else that it can be compared to? People use that word “special” loosely, but truly asking what makes Apple special (intrinsically) is basically asking what makes Apple transcendent or divine. It’s not, it’s only special in that it’s the best at certain things, and only for the time being.

Yes, Apple messed up pretty big by advertising a feature in order to sell a product—a feature that they ended up not delivering on time, and who knows, possibly not ever. Like everyone/everything, Apple has no limits to its fallibility.
For what it’s worth, in my opinion there are much much worse things than being foolishly or recklessly optimistic. If say, Apple reversed their position on privacy and started selling my personal data, I would immediately look for a new company to buy my devices from, because that would be a very purposeful and indefinite change in the company’s direction. But this is a mistake I know they would want to take back, which to me is relatable if nothing else. Also it’s one example. Future behavior is only somewhat reliably predicted based on repeated patterns, not single examples. Yes, on WWDC announced features, Apple has long been known to stretch timing expectations or be explicitly late, so I’ve learned long ago to expect those later than sooner. But being late on features actually advertised to the public, especially to sell hardware, I believe this is a precedent, which is why it’s such a controversy. If it happens again, that’s when it’ll start to be a pattern and start to suggest (but not determine) Apple’s path. But it’s also highly possible that Apple is embarrassed right now and taking measures to prevent this from ever happening again.

By the way, Hartley’s use of the Apple Car was not an appropriate example of Apple failing to deliver on promises. Unless I understood his point wrong? Obviously the crucial difference was that the Apple Car was never advertised nor even announced nor mentioned. It was just another one of the many R&D projects that don’t end up as products, albeit it was a very large expensive one that was hard to keep secret and that apparently got rather far, but this was why the tech community found out about it.

Also Hartley talks about “all the innovation happening elsewhere” and gives the examples of AI and Meta Raybans and Orion, but those products don’t convince me at all that Apple is lagging behind.
Regarding AI, all these companies clawing to get to the top of the AI mountain seem to have zero regard for personal privacy and intellectual property. They hoover up anything and everything they can get their hands on, ethically or not, to train their models. They also don’t have good guardrails for hallucinations. They essentially pushed out quasi-liar chatbots and let people get used to them so that when the next version is more accurate people will be impressed with the progress. Apple’s stance however is valuing personal privacy and IP, and they likely want to prevent hallucinations altogether. These are probably huge disadvantages to them in the AI race. If so, I’ll gladly accept Apple’s limited functionality and slower pace, particularly if they’re keeping our data private.
Regarding Orion, it’s not a viable product, it’s a prototype. While Meta may present prototypes openly, Apple has a policy of secrecy, so we don’t know what prototypes they’re working on now and what they’ve gone through.
Regarding the Raybans, I’m not a fan of constantly pointing cameras at everyone I meet, and I suspect neither is Apple.

In all these cases, the likely reason for Apple’s apparent “lagging” is that Apple plays by different rules—rules that—other than secrecy—I wish all companies would play by. Whether or not Apple is innovative is a discussion to be had, but I just don’t see these examples as convincing arguments.

All in all though, a very interesting discussion and show—enjoyed it.
 
  • Like
Reactions: UpsetTheAppleCart
Well done Hartley, and thank you for providing the user and customer perspective on Apples abject failure with its current AI product. While there may be a conversation to be had here on Apples side, Dans head shaking and pitiful defence of Apples position seemed more like an Apples executive trying to justify probably one of the worst product launches Apple have ever had, it was painful to watch. Really hope future MacRumours shows that he presents are not tainted with such obvious bias going forward.
 
  • Disagree
  • Like
  • Sad
Reactions: UpsetTheAppleCart, subjonas, I7guy and 1 other person
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back