I suspect the most significant thing holding Apple back in the realm of AI is the fact that Apple prides itself as a company that delivers revolutionary products with ‘wow factor’ that is leagues above the competition. Apple just doesn’t have anything like that with AI.
Furthermore, the challenge with AI is that even though it can deliver some shockingly impressive results, it also generates some bafflingly stupid responses, as well as answers that are seemingly correct but are never less wrong in ways that are hard to determine. Those hallucinations really shatter the illusion of quality and reliability, which ultimately undermines confidence in the functionality as a whole.
Given that, Apple is stuck trying to catch up to the rest of the products in the AI space while also realizing that everyday AI is nowhere near as polished as Apple would expect it to be. So the more Apple pushes AI, the more customers are likely to pick up on the errors and inadequacies of the product.
Even though other AI assistants suffer from the same fundamental problems, the ones from Apple Intelligence are going to seem more embarrassing because of Apple’s brand image.
That 'wow factor' is a thing of the past, very firmly. When I put next to each other say Iphone 16 pro max and Samsung S25 ultra, none sticks out, none has anything 'wow' for regular users. Just different styles of working with device and small + and - all over the place. Same for tablets, notebooks, and so on. Vision pro seems like a failed product even according to Apple.
Its doesn't mean that each product doesn't have something a bit special but competition caught up long time ago, sometimes went ahead (better batteries, bigger cameras etc). These days there is much more 'yawn factor', and its across whole industry.
They could add some “wow factors”, but the rate of error is still too big to ship it. Like, I don’t think it would be impossible for them to have a live language converter using LLMs when you call somewhere in a different language. But being responsible for stuff is just a can of worms that nobody wants to sign up for.
Gemini has access to your Gmail, Calendar, Docs, Drive, Keep, and Tasks, as well as Flights, Hotels, Maps, YouTube, YouTube Music, OpenStax, and of course the entire web more generally.
At the end of the day, personal context is king for useful AI.
Which means Google or Apple. Or Microsoft on the business side.
Nobody sane is going to share all their personal data (about everything) with a fly-by-night random AI app/company.
Apple has time, in the same way it did with Maps, because despite the marketing push no one is buying phones solely because of AI features these days. They're still an "Oh, that's nice."
>I suspect the most significant thing holding Apple back in the realm of AI is the fact that Apple prides itself as a company that delivers revolutionary products with ‘wow factor’ that is leagues above the competition.
I don't remember them ever doing that. Usually they start with something lacklustre then incrementally improve it until it is strong.
Maps is a great example, it was poor on launch compared to Google Maps but has now got to a level where most people don't bother with Google on the iPhone.
Google Maps largely exists because of Apple.
Do you remember when the iPhone was released?
AirPods? The iMac? The Mac? The Apple II?
Broaden scope a bit to understand what this comment meant. You’re right that Apple botches things in the small scale and especially in software, but they’ve been a great aggregator of amazing tech in the total lifespan.
Google Maps had already launched and had really surprised everyone at how much better it was than any other mapping tool a few years before iPhone launched. and just the interactivity of it in general independent of it being a “map” was a paradigm shifter.
Yes, the iPhone put it in everyone’s pocket, but if Apple had built a handheld device that was powerful enough to run any interactive mapping tool Google Maps was already the obvious choice.
It’s a minor quibble, but to say Apple played a majority role in Google Map’s success doesn’t ring true to me. In 2007 Google Maps was easily overtaking all other mapping tools with or without the iPhone.
It was great when I was visiting China. I only tried it because Google Maps was unavailable (nothing Google worked at all except push notifications, because those come from Apple), and was pleasantly surprised. Every train station and mall had detailed maps.
Apple Maps is also pretty good here in Canada, although I would never trust it to tell me with any accuracy what a given business's hours are, or whether it even still exists. Google is much better at that.
That is now, there was very little wow factor when Copland was being developed and they were at the edge of bankrupcy, long were the days of Mac Classic and LCs.
What is saving them this time around is the way they have been priting money with iDevices.
Furthermore, the challenge with AI is that even though it can deliver some shockingly impressive results, it also generates some bafflingly stupid responses, as well as answers that are seemingly correct but are never less wrong in ways that are hard to determine. Those hallucinations really shatter the illusion of quality and reliability, which ultimately undermines confidence in the functionality as a whole.
Given that, Apple is stuck trying to catch up to the rest of the products in the AI space while also realizing that everyday AI is nowhere near as polished as Apple would expect it to be. So the more Apple pushes AI, the more customers are likely to pick up on the errors and inadequacies of the product.
Even though other AI assistants suffer from the same fundamental problems, the ones from Apple Intelligence are going to seem more embarrassing because of Apple’s brand image.