The MacRumors Show: Apple Intelligence Comes Under Fire

[gigatoaster]

Great episode although I would have stayed only 30 minutes on the whole devil’s advocate convo. In the next 30 minutes, I would have loved a discussion on the BIG PICTURE like the young bloke with the old voice mentioned adequately: the change of culture at Apple and over promising but under delivering.

 

[leifp]

M3 Ultra: I would love to see use cases and application(s). If you’re just running benchmarks for photo and video work I think we all know that the M4 Max is superior for most potential Mac Studio buyers. Had Apple released an M4 Ultra it would be less confusing.

On device LLMs, obviously, but what else? Power while running VMs, perhaps Asahi Linux. Gaming performance (silly? I game on my work machine when I’m not near my gaming PC), app development that requires this level of power, etc.

I realize that’s probably asking a fair bit from a general tech rumour site…

 

[3goldens]

The one thing Dan said that was correct was that sadly Apple is not the same company as it was when Steve was alive. Apple Intelligence is a total waste of time IMO and a memory whore. I turned it off and Apple should do the same, scrap it.

 

[DELLsFan]

...Their Apple car was about here in the cycle. Fortunately for us, that the product died because Apple could not solve all the problems. How relevant is that thought to Apple and AI?

Apple hasn't been 'Thinking Differently' for a long time. Other companies have. Companies like Tesla have confronted and arguably solved their software problems for example.

I haven't tried out AI. What exactly can it do RIGHT NOW besides take up 5gb of my storage space?

Ask any college student with a term paper due next week.

... The general public is wanting AI to be aware of their data and information, in a private secure way, so it can have a conversation and provide personalized information...

Some people want this. Some people do not because there simply isn't a 'private and secure way' to aggregate one's personal information anywhere in the world.

Is that true? I have no idea what the general public wants.

I'll pass on personalized Apple Intelligence. Can I upgrade my SSD and Unified RAM after-market instead?

Tom (sic) cook saiid (sic) they don’t do things for stock price.

Was I the only one that laughed out loud at this?

Great episode although I would have stayed only 30 minutes on the whole devil’s advocate convo. In the next 30 minutes, I would have loved a discussion on the BIG PICTURE like the young bloke with the old voice mentioned adequately: the change of culture at Apple and over promising but under delivering.

Only one topic (Apple Intelligence) today because there really wasn't anything else to talk about. And that's the problem. If Apple was innovating the way many feel it really should in the year 2025, we might be talking about Apple Car 2.0, fold-able iPhones, comfortable Vision Pro glasses, the return of Boot Camp for the Mac, and Apple's apology for decades of iTunes bloat.

 

[PowerButton]

I haven't tried out AI. What exactly can it do RIGHT NOW besides take up 5gb of my storage space?

Intelligence honestly sucks. The only feature I tried to use was the Writing Tool and more times than not it could tell me “Writing Tools aren't designed to work with this type of content.” — Just like asking it to rewrite this comment in a more friendly tone.

 

[PowerButton]

... The general public is wanting AI to be aware of their data and information, in a private secure way, so it can have a conversation and provide personalized information...

Some people want this. Some people do not because there simply isn't a 'private and secure way' to aggregate one's personal information anywhere in the world.

Gemini has been doing this with client-side encryption.

 

[ronno]

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. 🥳

Telling people to buy the new iPhone 16 based on lies is the issue here. They had to know it wouldn’t be ready anytime soon when they couldn’t even show a demo.
Thus the class action speculation.

It’s not merely a matter of software being late… they made ads and sold hardware based on falsehoods.

If you buy a product with a list of features on the box and then the features are not present, you can return the product for a full refund.

 

[anthogag]

Telling people to buy the new iPhone 16 based on lies is the issue here. They had to know it wouldn’t be ready anytime soon when they couldn’t even show a demo.
Thus the class action speculation.

It’s not merely a matter of software being late… they made ads and sold hardware based on falsehoods.

If you buy a product with a list of features on the box and then the features are not present, you can return the product for a full refund.

I would say they were telling people to buy he new iPhone 16 based on ‘look what’s coming’…

 

[AxiomaticRubric]

Prune is not the appropriate word. The word should be bush hog the whole place down to 6" stubble and start over.

The only way this is possible is if Apple stops relying on contractors for the great majority of the maintenance work. Contractors have no incentive to write quality code. They get work done to a bare minimum of functionality and move on to the next project.

 

[Black Belt]

Gee finally someone other than me acknowledges the ineptitude of Tim Cook to get products out the door. The AI hem haw on unreleased features has gone on for years now. It’s still a glorified Siri and hasn’t improved like every other assistant. But he got those new emoticons and rainbow watch bands. Steve Jobs is screaming from the grave.

 

[DELLsFan]

Gemini has been doing this with client-side encryption.

Nice. Ask users in the UK how all their end-to-end encryption is working out.

 

[subjonas]

Telling people to buy the new iPhone 16 based on lies is the issue here. They had to know it wouldn’t be ready anytime soon when they couldn’t even show a demo.
Thus the class action speculation.

It’s not merely a matter of software being late… they made ads and sold hardware based on falsehoods.

If you buy a product with a list of features on the box and then the features are not present, you can return the product for a full refund.

How do we know that Apple put out the commercials specifically knowing that they couldn’t deliver? Why is it not possible that Apple believed they could deliver? In other words, why is the accusation necessarily deceit rather than incompetence? Obviously both are bad, but one is much worse than the other in my opinion and seems less likely.

Has Apple always had all software features ready to go before advertising them to sell hardware? That seems unlikely. I could be wrong but it seems more likely that it’s a common occurrence but that usually the features are closer to ready. So then I speculate that what sets this apart is not qualitative but quantitative. They’ve gambled in the past but with better odds (more of a sure thing). This time the odds were worse, and they lost.

Of course the thing with gambling is you could lose with good odds and win with bad odds. So I wonder if people are more upset that Apple played with bad odds or that they lost. In other words, what if we learned that Apple gambled this big with a feature in the past but won? Or in the future had a “sure thing” but lost? Which would illicit more criticism?

 

[ronno]

I would say they were telling people to buy he new iPhone 16 based on ‘look what’s coming’…

They sold the 16 based on “Look what’s coming” for the iPhone 17 (maybe)…

 

[ronno]

How do we know that Apple put out the commercials specifically knowing that they couldn’t deliver? Why is it not possible that Apple believed they could deliver? In other words, why is the accusation necessarily deceit rather than incompetence? Obviously both are bad, but one is much worse than the other in my opinion and seems less likely.

Has Apple always had all software features ready to go before advertising them to sell hardware? That seems unlikely. I could be wrong but it seems more likely that it’s a common occurrence but that usually the features are closer to ready. So then I speculate that what sets this apart is not qualitative but quantitative. They’ve gambled in the past but with better odds (more of a sure thing). This time the odds were worse, and they lost.

Of course the thing with gambling is you could lose with good odds and win with bad odds. So I wonder if people are more upset that Apple played with bad odds or that they lost. In other words, what if we learned that Apple gambled this big with a feature in the past but won? Or in the future had a “sure thing” but lost? Which would illicit more criticism?

I think they have enough experience to know that if they could not even demo the thing, no way it could be ready three months later. Or even have it running reliably six months later.

Remember the launch of the first MacBook Air? Did they start talking about it a year out, and trot out some half baked version with broken software & non-working track pad way ahead of time?
No.

 

[Serrafemme]

Apple is sitting squarely in class action lawsuit territory with the amount of pushing they did of Apple Intelligence to try and sell the newest hardware with it as a feature. Nobody gives a crap about making the same cartoony faces. Gemini is running away with this competition. The only thing Apple can fall back on is doubling down on its hackneyed “privacy” features…

 

[mlayer]

I normally agree with Hartley, but the AI issue is not now an existential crisis for Apple nor will it be in 2028. For AI companies, yes, not a consumer hardware maker. If anything I'm glad Apple is unintentionally exposing how difficult this personal level of AI is to execute in terms of accuracy and legality, not to mention cost. On the Hard Fork podcast they talked about how Apple may be getting to 80% accuracy in its results and the last 20% is the hardest to achieve, which is a tale as old as technology itself. If people can't reliably trust in the results what are they dealing with? A beta at best, an easily ignored and incredibly expensive experiment at worst. Give me a killer app and you might change my mind. Or give me an accuracy score with every result and an explanation of how that was achieved. That could engender trust.

 

[Fred Zed]

Apple needs new leadership. I don’t see Tim Cook in its future.

 

[Seamaster]

I haven't tried out AI. What exactly can it do RIGHT NOW besides take up 5gb of my storage space?

I’m reminded of the (very) old joke about ISDN: “It Still Does Nothing”.

 

[ChrisChaval]

deleted

 

[HighwaySnowman]

I’m reminded of the (very) old joke about ISDN: “It Still Does Nothing”.

And ISDN worked, and delivered exactly what was promised. 128kbps synchronous data was actually really nice in the 56k era. It's what I had for a home internet connection for several years. (It helped that I lived in a state where ISDN service was cheap and I worked for an ISP so my internet connection was free.)

AI is mostly useless. LLMs are never going to deliver what they're hyped to be able to do.

 

[Expos of 1969]

Great episode although I would have stayed only 30 minutes on the whole devil’s advocate convo. In the next 30 minutes, I would have loved a discussion on the BIG PICTURE like the young bloke with the old voice mentioned adequately: the change of culture at Apple and over promising but under delivering.

@Hartley now known as the young bloke with the old voice. I am used to his voice now but a year or two ago on first hearing it, it certainly got my attention. "A voice for radio" as they say. Don't worry Hartley, an insult would be "That fellow has a face for radio".

 

[BK109]

Though not every show needs to be a debate, this topic was perfect for that. Dan had the harder job by far to defend Apple in its current state. I thought Apple had “lost it” when it ADDED a new physical button to the iPhone (the camera button). Such a gimmick. Hmmmm, what can we ADD to this thing to try to sell more of these? But the AI debacle shows total desperation. And for us Apple fans, sadness.

 

[mlayer]

ISDN was very reliable in the pre-DSL days, and not crazy expensive like fiber/cable. It wasn’t fast. It did allow users to have data and voice simultaneously and its audio quality was superb, as radio stations loved callers who used it. IYKYK

 

[That70sGAdawg]

Hartley is right! I feel totally misled by updating last September from a 15 pro to a 16 pro when it’s absolutely no different but a minor screen size and a useless camera button…

 

[That70sGAdawg]

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.

Well, Timmy did go to Auburn so there’s that…