Absolutely. He thinks so highly of himself. I had a casual email exchange with him back in 2003 and he came off as a condescending, uh, blue origin rocket
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The MacRumors Show: John Gruber Talks Apple Intelligence and the Future of the Company
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The real challenge for Apple at this point isn’t building the smarter Siri and AI features, it’s changing the modus operandi of shipping something and then letting it rot until it’s irrelevant. Prolonged commitment is the actual innovation needed here.
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I believe it is in the long run. Founder CEOs care deeply about customers more than other stakeholders. For example Jobs didn’t give two cents if a shareholder was upset. He cared more about making things truly great for customers. I think Jobs also cared more about individual employees. He may have been hard on those he worked with but it seemed more like a disappointed father when things didn’t go well.
Tim Cook is focused on shareholders solely. As the board is happy with Tim when the shareholders are happy. That’s what gets Tim $100m annually in stock grants. The whole executive team does well. Everyone who’s not a shareholder in the top 1% is essentially lost in translation. Greed is good said Gordon Gecko!
That means customers get what they want not what the leader can envision for the future. Ford said people wanted a faster stronger horse if he listened to them. So the MacBook Pro is an example of that with an SD card slot? I mean I am into photography but CF Express is what I use. What does Tim want? To make happy customers by ripping them off but giving them what they want. Any leader would want all stakeholders to find greatness in AAPL.
Nothing Apple has created has been great that wasn’t in Steve’s pipeline or vision other than maybe the SoCs. Tim has no vision other than to maximize shareholder value. This type of thinking leads to problems when the costs get hit by tariffs as all the jobs are overseas. I remember Steve saying it couldn’t be done in the USA. The bigger problem is that innovation will surpass the anticompetitive ecosystem of Apple and when it does, Apple’s days are numbered.
I want a creative who understands products and people. Not just supply chains and numbers. The whole thing about the AI guy wanting resources but it was cut by Lucca. Sad days at Apple. Nokia was dominant so was Blackberry. Apple can go away but probably not that fast. If anything, I would say the SoC in Macs and iPads/iPhones show what Apple is great at now.
Gruber is all about politics now. And he can’t stand Bloomberg for reporting about the Chinese chip hack of Apple servers. Apple surely needs people like Gruber to spin the narrative at times. What he says doesn’t really reflect all users but only half of his base and he’s just like someone who’s famous right now for not caring how much money it costs him to say what he wants. I quit following him but his take on tech is interesting at times. That’s what I care about. Cannot control anything politically so why focus on it so much? Don’t get it. Maybe his audience wants to read 95% of articles about politics now??? He hasn’t had a legit take on Apple in a while.
Dude lost it 6-7 years ago, a bitter reflection of his former self. I haven’t been to his blog or followed him for over 5 years.
Dalrymple was pretty bitter and miserable by the end too. At least he knew when to quit, more than can be said for Gruber.
I used to enjoy loopinsight but haven’t been there in a while too. It’s all clickbait bitter angry stuff these days and gone are those real insights and scoops.
Gruber isn't a journalist. I'd argue he's not a great writer either because he has no economy of language. His angry screeds read puerile and childish.
I think it's fairly obvious he's a useful idiot playing up several roles for which Apple is surely grateful. Mainly. That of a limited hangout/controlled opposition sort of character that Apple "uses". His piece on AI? A relief valve to blow off the steam so folks feel like some anger is directed at Apple. But he conveniently inserts this sort of mea culpa CYA, saying he should have called it earlier. Ok bud. Folks WERE calling all of it earlier. But when the time was right, and it was safe to bandwagon over the disgruntled sentiment he hopped right on and doesn't impact his income stream (by way of Apple execs at his live shows). It sort of dissipates the angst and he becomes more of a focus. Smart move. I'm sure it earned him Apple execs to interview at WWDC for years to come.
Yep. Funny thing is did anybody really care about AI from Apple? Anybody that bothered about AI was already using ChatGPT/Deepseek etc.
They panicked because a few Wall Street analysts were starting to question it. Shows how little plan there is for anything other than minor iteration on current product lines.
The Steve Jobs and (like him or hate him) Elon Musks of this world work on the things they think are important, they aren't waiting for someone to tell them what that is
Apple will be fine. "Apple Intelligence" is the MobileMe of this generation.
They're going to have to buy OpenAI before it's too late
Really? Do you what makes Apple shareholders happy? It starts with happy Apple customers who love to purchase Apple products year after year after year, causing huge product sales volumes and company revenue.
Apple has 2+ Billion active and repeat customers causing the above to occur. As just one example, Apple manufactures and sells roughly 600,000 iPhones per day, every day of the year (on the average). Helping to make Apple one of the most successful tech companies in the world.
Thus for the above to occur, it's paramount that Apple create products its customers love to repeatedly purchase. If that were not the case, there would be very little Apple sales and revenue. Which would cause Apple stock to tank, and make Apple shareholders very unhappy, causing them to no longer invest in Apple.
In simpler terms: Apple creates outstanding products their customers love ---> Outstanding Apple revenue ---> Apple shareholder happiness.
Anticompetitive practices make Apple what it is. If everything was interconnected, Apple would be much less of a player. IMHO, regulation should stop companies like Apple just like they should stop sending all production and IP elsewhere.
Edit: greed is what ruins Apple. Things like blue bubbles, any Apple device can only connect to Apple devices, how about NFC lockdown for so many years to ensure Apple Pay would win out Apple users. These are all greed-focused-anticompetitive practices by Tim Crook’s AAPL.
From a share price point of view - yes. Doubtful Apple will continue its high P/E ratio if it cant start to get some runs on the board with new tech. Its milked the existing client base and range for all its worth. It now needs growth.
It’s not going to get growth with the current executive team. They’re old and have no innovation in them. Just like the whole team is a bunch of sellouts. Tim fired or let everyone go who could have made Apple great again.
People have been saying that for many years. Yet Apple appears to limp along with its 2+ Billion active and repeat customers who love to purchase and use Apple products.
See my above post. 2+ Billion active/repeat customers continue to open their wallets and purchase the Apple products they love.
The good news, for you, is there are plenty of Apple competitor companies waiting to win you over.
Judging from many of the comments, a lot of people still think Apple Intelligence is just Apple’s project to turn Siri into another chatbot. That’s just one of Apple’s goals, since Siri’s main purpose is to be integrated into the operating system and apps so it can do useful work for you with your data and inquiries, and not just do the things that ChatGPT does (even though on a good day, it can do a lot).
I agree that Siri/AI operating app functionality system-wide would be really useful. However, leading AI companies haven't been very successful yet in letting AI operate browsers, desktops, or apps in general. It's difficult and unreliable with the current state of the art. Given how much Apple is already lagging behind with the AI functionality that does work, plus their on-device/privacy focus imposing a substantial extra handicap, I have little hope that they'll accomplish that to a significantly useful degree anytime soon. If anything, there will be a gap like between original (2011) Siri marketing and Siri reality.
AI will deliver a text answer fast, but it can be right or totally wrong. I have no use for this. I could as well ask anybody at the next bus stop for anything.
I would not want some integrated system AI to spy on me to harvest my texts for AI answering elsewhere.
I would not want some integrated system AI to spy on me to harvest my texts for AI answering elsewhere.
He targets Gurman because he isn’t transparent when he makes a mistake. Gurman, along with the Bloomberg tech writers, lack accountability. It’s perfectly acceptable to call that out.
I don’t know where he all posts now but sometimes X surfaces me posts from him about Apple and wow they’re quite nasty. I don’t know if he was ever an Apple fanboy but he’s certainly not now.
Always has been high on his own supply
Ever since Bloomberg ran that supply chain hack story Gruber has crapped all over them. Gurman’s definitely good at getting scoops but I think he’s not as good at interpreting what the rumors mean or really understanding the company. I think Jason Snell does that better than anyone. Of course he’s been covering Apple forever. But he’s not afraid to call out the company when he thinks it deserves it. He’s been much more critical of Apple’s App Store policies than Gruber ever has. Gruber thinks the iPhone is equivalent to a console (and not a general purpose computer) and should be treated just like the Xbox.
I wish Apple would kick all general knowledge questions to ChatGPT automatically. Let Siri do specific things like setting timers, reminders, turning lights on/off, providing weather, sports scores. And eventually some of this personal context stuff. But Apple doesn’t need to be in the search engine nor the chatbot business. Provide the platform/APIs for others who are good at it to provide it.
Edit: delete my post as it was edited by someone who is not me. Thanks!
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You never read LoopInsight then I take it. The "Trio of Fanboys" consisted of Gruber, Rene Richie & Dalrymple. Jim never had a negative word to say about Apple no matter how bad a product was. His white knight-ing of the Apple iPhone Battery Case is a particular favorite of mine.
Up until he retired he was VERY slavishly pro-Apple