The MacRumors Show: Where Is Apple in the Generative AI Race?

[MacRumors]

On this week's episode of The MacRumors Show, we discuss Apple's place in the ongoing race to develop generative AI tools.

Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos​

Earlier this week, Apple held its annual AI summit for employees at the Steve Jobs Theater, the first fully live in-person event at the company's Apple Park headquarters since the pre-COVID era. The latest AI summit comes at a time of great excitement surrounding the Microsoft-backed ChatGPT artificial intelligence chatbot and Google's recent announcement that it is releasing its own LaMDA-powered AI chatbot, called Bard.

Google is adding the technology behind Bard to the Google search engine to enable complex queries to be distilled into digestible answers, and Microsoft is expected to follow a similar path by integrating ChatGPT into Bing Search. AI image generation tools such as DALL-E 2 have also captured public interest in recent months, alongside the technology's potential for music creation, video editing, and more.

In February last year, Apple purchased an AI start-up focused on auto-generated music, but the company is publicly missing from the current race to innovate in the generative AI space. We look at where Apple may have advantages that it could leverage for AI, potential integrations in features like Siri and Spotlight search, and where we could see the first Apple generative AI tools emerge.

We also talk through some of the week's biggest news, including the apparent delay of Apple's mixed-reality headset to June, the indefinite delay of the company's 27-inch mini-LED external display, iMac skipping the M2 chip, and the method Apple apparently has in store to authenticate iPhone 15 USB-C accessories. In addition, we look at the increasingly tangible 15-inch MacBook Air with the M2 chip, which Apple could launch as soon as April.

Listen to The MacRumors Show in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Pocket Casts, Castro, Google Podcasts, or your preferred podcasts app. You can also copy our RSS feed directly into your podcast player. Watch a video version of the show on the MacRumors YouTube channel.

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If you haven't already listened to the previous episode of The MacRumors Show, catch up for our in-depth discussion about the rumored "iPhone Ultra" model that could emerge next year with Andru Edwards.

Subscribe to The MacRumors Show for more episodes, where we discuss some of the topical news breaking here on MacRumors, often joined by exciting guests like Tyler Stalman, Jon Prosser, Sam Kohl, Quinn Nelson, John Gruber, Federico Viticci, Sara Dietschy, Luke Miani, Thomas Frank, Jonathan Morrison, iJustine, Ross Young, Ian Zelbo, Jon Rettinger, Rene Ritchie, and Mark Gurman. Remember to rate and review the show, and let us know what subjects you would like the podcast to cover in the future.

Article Link: The MacRumors Show: Where Is Apple in the Generative AI Race?

 

[macsplusmacs]

" held its annual AI summit for employees"

and nothing really leaked did it?

good on apple employees I guess. (but I want some leaks

 

[vegetassj4]

Here is where they are 😮:

 

[Realityck]

" they are a bit behind"

reference

Can Apple Keep Up With The Recent Artificial Intelligence Surge?

Is Apple prioritizing AI like Google & Microsoft?

screenrant.com

So, why have other companies been so quick to respond to AI shifts? Google's entire business model is based around its search engine, so making sure it can match or beat language models and conversational chatbots is a priority. Similarly, Microsoft sees language-based AI as a way to get ahead of Google in that category. Apple isn't rushing to add AI to all of its business models right now, but the company is doing much more than standing on the sidelines. It's holding an artificial intelligence summit for employees in February 2023 at its Apple Park headquarters, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.

Interesting discussion to where Apple is going with AI with what we know, and a lot we don't. Yes maybe a unique search engine in the future that is different than anything now. Imagine not having to need Microsoft or Google search engines any more.

 

[carrrrrlos]

I clicked because I thought the whole episode was going to be in ai.

 

[wowotoe]

I don't think Siri will gain significant AI improvements soon. But if you look at Microsoft's aggressive AI strategies, I'm not surprised if they are already talking to Apple to replace iOS default search engine. Or maybe come up a profit sharing model, such as Bing+ users with monthly subscriptions can result in faster and updated 'chatGPT' results.

 

[Remy149]

Here is where they are 😮:

View attachment 2160198

Siri isn’t truly an ai though non of the current voice assistants really are. They just have a voice interface that parses results

 

[jz0309]

" held its annual AI summit for employees"

and nothing really leaked did it?

good on apple employees I guess. (but I want some leaks

Check with Gurman, I’m sure he’ll share plenty in his next newsletter…

 

[Attirex]

ChatGPT created a chinese weather spy balloon that flew over the Rhianna and blew up a train in Ohio while doing the Wednesday dance on tiktok.

 

[TechnoMonk]

DALLE, chatGPT and dream booth are in embryonic stage. Apple should start with buying Midjourney, one generative AI cut above the rest and has scaled the best.

 

[ry-guy]

There were rumors about Apple getting into search. I think ChatGPT just killed Apple’s foray into that arena. The fact that they haven’t leveraged Siri to do anything in 12/13 years says it all. My guess is they are gonna watch the Microsoft/Google competition play out.

 

[Realityck]

DALLE, chatGPT and dream booth are in embryonic stage. Apple should start with buying Midjourney, one generative AI cut above the rest and has scaled the best.

Midjourney with AR? Actually a very interesting direction for Apple to look at.

The era of AI-generated artwork is upon us, and the internet is filled with users trying to create the perfect prompts to lead AIs to create just the right images – or sometimes, just the wrong ones. Sound like fun? One of the more common AI tools is Midjourney, which people use to create dreamlike landscapes and subjects with just a few words.

 

[mknelson]

Siri isn’t truly an ai though non of the current voice assistants really are. They just have a voice interface that parses results

And yet "journalists" and pundits (and Elon Musk) are reacting to the chatbots as though the chatbots actually understand the words being and the replies.

 

[redbeard331]

They seem way way behind unless they have something behind the scenes we don’t know about. But then I’m not sure it’s even necessary? I just know things like Siri and voice dictation are still pretty bad, and googles phone app seems to be like a decade ahead of Apples, which hasn’t really changed since the iPhone came out!

 

[purplerainpurplerain]

By this time next year nobody will give AF. The hype cycle will be over, people will be annoyed with AI just like they are annoyed with all the over hyped unicorn companies and software bugs and crashing products. Whatever works will just blend into the background and most people will not notice it even when they are using it.

Has anyone fixed auto type bugs and lags yet? Why does Adobe Premiere crash like a b and have terrible bugs after 30 years? The same fate and user anger awaits all this crap.

Btw Sam Altman is a dumb ass and just like Zuckerberg and Dorsey he is living in his hype cycle. In the end he will just be remembered as that kid who sold a failed social media app that nobody remembers and then used that money to buy himself into positions he doesn’t understand.

 

[Realityck]

Heres a direction Apple with AI could take since they are some much into content generation.

AI Image Generator: Turn Text to Image | Photoleap

Start your 7-Day free trial now! With Photoleap's AI image app, you can use text to generate artwork. From realistic to anime, explore AI images.

www.photoleapapp.com

This is where you tell the demo what you want drawn in words and it does just that. You could make use of an extensive spider bot and AI to gather from millions of images on the web. Consider how fast it is compared to using google search though thousands of images.

 

[purplerainpurplerain]

Hers a direction Apple could take since they are some much into content generation.

AI Image Generator: Turn Text to Image | Photoleap

Start your 7-Day free trial now! With Photoleap's AI image app, you can use text to generate artwork. From realistic to anime, explore AI images.

www.photoleapapp.com

This is where you tell the demo what you want drawn in words and it does just that.

I can do that with my hands better than it can and I don’t put six fingers and 7 toes on people I draw. I also don’t consume the energy of 50 RTX 4090 GPUs.

 

[Greenmeenie]

I love Apple and buy their ipads & iphones. But i always buy 3rd party cables, chargers & cases. Not drug store ones. But quality ones. I just hate buying a cable or case from Apple that costs 3 to 5x more than what it should. If Apple is literally going to start crippling 3rd party cables & chargers forcing people to buy their expensive usb-c cables and chargers… there is going to be a very public backlash.

 

[Realityck]

I can do that with my hands better than it can and I don’t put six fingers and 7 toes on people I draw. I also don’t consume the energy of 50 RTX 4090 GPUs.

Try multitasking while doing that. AI with AR could lead to being more productive. The fact that some are thinking about what we consider mundane doesn't mean it can't be marketed to people with less talent.

 

[TechnoMonk]

Midjourney with AR? Actually a very interesting direction for Apple to look at.

The era of AI-generated artwork is upon us, and the internet is filled with users trying to create the perfect prompts to lead AIs to create just the right images – or sometimes, just the wrong ones. Sound like fun? One of the more common AI tools is Midjourney, which people use to create dreamlike landscapes and subjects with just a few words.

Yep. If Apple had Pixar, that would have been a deadly combo. Apple+Midjourney+Pixar.

 

[TechnoMonk]

Heres a direction Apple with AI could take since they are some much into content generation.

AI Image Generator: Turn Text to Image | Photoleap

Start your 7-Day free trial now! With Photoleap's AI image app, you can use text to generate artwork. From realistic to anime, explore AI images.

www.photoleapapp.com

This is where you tell the demo what you want drawn in words and it does just that. You could make use of an extensive spider bot and AI to gather from millions of images on the web. Consider how fast it is compared to using google search though thousands of images.

I can do that with my hands better than it can and I don’t put six fingers and 7 toes on people I draw. I also don’t consume the energy of 50 RTX 4090 GPUs.

DALLE, Stable diffusion have poorly trained Models which need a novel of negative prompts to generate anything worth. Fingers, arms, toes and legs are big problem unless they are trained on custom models.

 

[Danfango]

Hopefully Apple are ignoring the crapfest.

 

[purplerainpurplerain]

Try multitasking while doing that. AI with AR could lead to being more productive.

LMAO

AI images WITH AR

Hahahahaha

it takes a minute for these image generators to output a 512x512 image with errors.

These things are not only slow, power hungry and buggy but they are so many years away from real time high resolution images. Without errors in real time and high resolution and consuming low enough energy to be used for “AR”?

Lol….please stay away from science fiction and learn how compute intensive and difficult these things are.

 

[floral]

There were rumors about Apple getting into search. I think ChatGPT just killed Apple’s foray into that arena. The fact that they haven’t leveraged Siri to do anything in 12/13 years says it all. My guess is they are gonna watch the Microsoft/Google competition play out.

I honor Apple for not jumping on this AI fad (by AI I mean the recent surge, not AI as a whole, that's existed for a long time), as it could just blow over and people (including me) are too put off by adding AI to their lives to give this stuff a chance.

 

[mannyvel]

Generative AI? Apple/MacOS can't even sync my photos library to my iDevices anymore.