iPhone's last stand? More like Microsoft's last stand. Nobody wants their garbage hardware and software outside of enterprise shmucks more interested in filling their pockets with fat contract money than delivering value.
> The reason is obvious when you think about it: enterprises are paying for their employees’ time, so of course they are willing to pay for tools that make those employees more productive
Is that why there are billions dollars wasted in useless Microsoft subscriptions and services?
> consumers, on the other hand, are mostly looking to waste time, which is why attention-harvesting advertising is the only software business model that works at scale for consumer services.
What a callous view of people. Who's your benchmark? TikTok addicted kids?
> What they do want to do is watch short-form video
> What a callous view of people. Who's your benchmark? TikTok addicted kids?
brother, we are all walking around with a supercomputer in our pocket thats capable of accessing the sum total of human knowledge and yet we're still stuck with people who think the earth is flat.
> yet we're still stuck with people who think the earth is flat.
Very few. They are louder online. I have never met one in real life.
Yes, the internet does spread misinformation, but I think its pessimistic to think it outweighs the benefits. A lot of the problems are economic and social at the core too.
This doesn’t make any sense. We have more access to entertainment, be it comics, porn, or films, than any period in history, yet we continue to make more substantial scientific progress than any point in history.
I think you have the causation backwards: we have people thinking the world is flat because they can access the sum total of human knowledge, both true and false. There’s so much available, with similar production values, that going down brainwashing rabbit holes like flat earth, anti-vax, and more is a lot easier than it has ever been before.
Let’s be real, some people are going to believe absurd things even if you strap them in a chair Clockwork Orange style and force them to consume your favorite propaganda 24/7.
There is no way to “align” human brains to your preferences. The Soviets tried it, the Chinese tried it, the Americans tried it. Nobody succeeded. The best you can do is attempt to sway the masses, but you’d better rely on positive messaging, because mass culture’s failure modes are even scarier than small subcultures.
Attempting to stamp out competing worldviews leads a certain kind of (relatively common) person to dig even harder for forbidden knowledge. If you’re not careful this will lead people directly to the arms of your geopolitical enemies, as it’s not possible to fully stamp out their narratives—they have a big budget!
> brother, we are all walking around with a supercomputer in our pocket thats capable of accessing the sum total of human knowledge and yet we're still stuck with people who think the earth is flat.
And even more people believe there's an old man on a cloud judging everyone, so what?
That is a strawman. Who believes in an old man on a cloud judging everyone? Far fewer people believe anything like that than believe. Even online I have never come across anyone whose beliefs could be reasonably characterised that way.
I’m not religious but there’s a significant difference here.
Burden of proof is on the person making the assertion in both cases, but we can’t prove without a doubt that god doesn’t exist even if we don’t feel there’s enough evidence to suggest he is. There is, however, concrete evidence the earth isn’t flat, so no matter who the burden is on it’s demonstrably false.
Put another way: You can concretely observe without a doubt that not only is the earth not flat, but also that it can’t be flat. We can’t confidently say god can’t exist.
and most people who believe in God will cite some evidence - religious experiences, or philosophical proofs or whatever. Whether you accept that evidence is sufficient or not, it is in an entirely different class.
I don't think you've thought through what you're trying to assert. A god could make you believe anything they wanted to about the earth. So if you cannot disprove a god, then you cannot disprove the theory that the earth is flat.
You can still believe that the scientific method works; and might leads you to 2 conclusions:
(a) "I can prove earth is not flat" (using this methodology)
(b) I cannot prove there is no God, though I may believe the prevalence of evidence does not support the hypothesis, there's no scientific test that I can design.
I have thought through this plenty but you’re still welcome to disagree with me. Just because you think I am wrong does not mean I have failed to think through the implications of my statement.
I can disprove that the Earth is flat with the incredibly concrete, observable evidence that it is not. On the other hand, I do not have concrete, observable evidence that God does not exist. That’s the thrust of my point.
I think Microsoft does have a point here: hosted services and thin clients are going to make money. (1) Their main focus is selling services, selling you, selling your data, and showing you ads. Children are being raised to think that asking chat to add two numbers is normal; they will enter the workplace in this state. Everything for MS is a service: this is going to work for them. And (2) because those hosted services will also replace some jobs, as the enterprise schmucks want.
The anger is real, but it's misguided (as anger mostly is). The benchmark is reality. Everyone is more "TikTok addicted kids" than not and the analysis is quite apt.
They see "thin is in" and I see remote servers now watching everything on your screen or within audio visual range. Eventually the only jobs will be at the intel agencies watching the data feeds from all the rabble so they can ascertain who is mouthy enough to whack and charge the others by the word for what used to be processed locally for free.
Of all the things they could build, why must they pick this future...
Seen from this perspective, the GDR was prescient: They had more than half of their population engaged in spying on all the rest. We can now take our cues from them an reshape our economies in their image.
i was under the impression that the 2024 apple intelligence rollout was something of a victory: Apple realized that the majority of people don't actually want this stuff forced on them at the os level, and the ai maximalists all used apple anyways via clawbot (including purchasing an additional apple device, the mini!) because of apples non-ai-specific commitment to phone computer interop.
Certainly the copilot button in ms paint did nothing to attract the clawbot ecosystem to windows
I say this every time: the average person never wants to hear the letters A and I. Not because it has a negative connotation, but because they don’t care how their phone gets them an answer to “when is my dentist appointment” they just want it to do it.
I think you're trying to say, the term 'AI' is _associated_ with chatbots being added in places (websites mostly) where they are more of a nuisance than added value.
OpenAI's ChatGPT is AI consumer software and is a hit, albeit mostly free tier users.
Yep, by using the terms intelligence, and occasionally Apple Intelligence and not AI[1], they get to talk about these features in a way that don't trigger an automatic mental gag reflex. The fact they cottoned on to this 2 years ago is actually pretty impressive.
Exactly. Even though Siri is completely lost today, my friend asks it a number of random things, all she wants is an answer. Currently it redirects to the web, it’s enough for her. I told her “next year it’ll work!” And boom. We’re in the EU. Sad.
you will be surrounded by an ecosystem of
devices, none of which stand alone, but are
more like portals to interact with your agents
I would be really happy with my phone + headphones as the device I use most. But only if I could use Gemini (or ChatGPT or Grok or any other chat agent) in voice mode and say "SSH into my GitHub Codespace soandso and implement feature soandso.". And it replies "Did it. I told copilot (or codex or whatever coding agent lives on that VM) to implement the feature".
And then a minute later I could ask it "Is copilot done yet?" and it replies "No, looks like it is still working on it". And then a minute later I ask again. It replies "Yes, it finished. It changed chart.py and styles.css. Do you want me to tell you what specific changes it made to the files?".
But it looks like none of the chat agents with voice interface have such a connector at the moment? An SSH connector would be the most useful. But a "GitHub Codespace connector" or something like that would also do.
I wonder if that will be a missing piece for long. If so, I would build an agent with voice mode and ssh connector myself. But I guess it should come out from the big guys any moment now?
I am still convinced that Apple is slowly working its way to smart glasses. And that *this* is the Next Big Thing. Frankly, the future is very good AR glasses that just work.
- iPhone Air to cram everything into a small space
- Vision pro - a new OS for looking at things and interacting
- Better Siri and AI that works with voice
- Smart local model / routing to big models in the cloud
- integration with wearables (air pods and watches)
I've valued Ben Thompson's opinions less over time. He was super into goggle-like devices and remote meetings. I own Apple Vision Pro. It's a technical achievement, but not compelling beyond immersive video (too bad). He harps on Dems trying to clean up monopolies (Lina Khan during Biden, who had good principles but didn't get much done; probably blame her boss) and is quiet through republican bullshit (T2). He seems to interview huge tech figures as though he was the was the Verge or Nilay Patel does: with a soft touch.
Just not doing it for me. Think I'm gonna stop reading anything he says.
Yeah I've been noticing the same trends. In my opinion, when analyzing B2B topics, or in general enterprise software and hardware, he is pretty good.
But when it comes to anything around consumer behavior, individuals, etc, i.e. the average family in America, he is often completely and utterly wrong in all his takes and predictions. In fact, so wrong it's often laughable, and amazes me that he is so confident in his predictions.
Also, in the podcast I've noticed that he talks almost every podcast about his "hits", i.e. his times in the past where he predicted something accurately. But never, ever mentions the times where he was completely wrong. He's like the dictionary definition of confirmation bias (or survivorship bias).
It's like he's gotten overly confident (or a little arrogant) as he's become more of a tech celebrity, to the point where he thinks he's some sort of Nostradamus now and doesn't recognize his weaknesses or failures. And I've personally stopped listening to the podcasts as much as it's getting a little tiresome.
BTW, I also noticed how often he is wrong on deep tech topics, e.g. his explanation of IP addresses and routing in one podcast. It's like he thinks his business knowledge + Claude is enough for him to authoritatively discuss how technical systems work, and he often is mistaken...
Last Stand? This is rather strong language and overselling the situation, for clicks I guess.
You might re-title the article instead, "The iPhone holds its ground", and it would be a more realistic title. But perhaps garnering less clicks.
I've always thought Ben Thompson is strong on enterprise and b2b topics but super weak on everything consumer related, he simply doesn't seem to understand consumer behavior (he has zero empathy or ability to project his mind into the average person's mind)
E.g.
Ben was sure iPhone air would be a massive hit because he himself loved it. (It's struggled as people don't like the smaller battery life).
Ben was sure the Vision Pro would be a huge hit because he himself loved it. (It was a total failure as the average person doesnt want to pay huge amounts for a ridiculous looking dork helmet).
Ben raving about Meta's hand controller which he was sure was going to be the future of consumer electronics (The Neural Band). He was discussing how you could use it while your hand is in your jeans/pants pocket. Not quite thinking about how this would look while you're sat on the subway with someone sat opposite you.
Ben discussing how the future of watching sports is in VR. Not considering how weird it would be to go to a friends house to watch the game and everyone has their own VR headset. Also not considering the fun of watching sports is doing it with other people.
Basically, he has a huge issue with extracting his own liking of techy products to the average consumer who are basically nothing like Ben Thompson.
I get the criticism and all your previous judgments samples are valid. I also agree that title is click-bait BUT:
I know people are desperate for a Siri that works. The convince of just talking to your phone is priceless. If Apple gets this right, this is a huge deal – which it seems they are on the right track.
People are still talking to Siri for basic stuff like timers and alarms because it works, doesn't need an app, works when phone is locked or even away from you. If this works for more complex tasks like texting and general questions Apple will have the upper hand over Meta and Google in this new way of using computers/internet.
Apple also took a very clever approach for Capex and general AI strategy. Everyone knows that the best intelligence will eventually become a commodity and Apple decided to step aside from this expensive experiment. That's worth pointing out too.
This. Not sure why it it downvoted. The same with Patrick Moorhead, or in similar stance DED from Apple Insider etc.
Just because you like something, doesn't mean it will succeed. These people will more likely using some sort of industry knowledge to form conclusion which conforms with their bias.
On the flip side, just because you hated something doesn't mean it will fail. There are plenty of Apple haters who will write things that seems to make sense but completely misses the mark every single time.
> Apple is targeting consumers, for whom traditional chatbot functionality is probably sufficient for the vast majority of their AI needs.
I disagree strongly here. The chatbot is the furthest thing from sufficient for the average consumer. Take the newly announced feature that groups your compromised passwords together and offers to agentically change them all for you. Really cool! Could you do that via a chatbot interface? Sure. Would the average consumer? No.
I doubt the ‘average consumer’ is even using a password manager, let alone going to change their password because of something so common place as it being compromised.
first paragraph begins the article upon 2 very big and flawed statements:
> Apple fans would, for years and years, sneer at Microsoft’s penchant for talking about products that may or may not ship, deriding them as vaporware.
maybe some would, but as a whole I would say this is not a common thing
> After Apple’s bungled 2024 launch of Apple Intelligence and new Siri, however, vaporware is fair game
no it's not
I didn't know about Project Solara so learned a new thing from the article, but I got the impression that it's not as big as the author tried to make it seem, felt very distant and forced.
Having watched Microsoft try and fail to launch countless new ideas into the market over the past couple decades, I have 0 faith in their ability to deliver something people actually use. Others, often Apple, seem to succeed where Microsoft had previously tried and repeatedly failed.
What struck me reading this is that everyone seems focused on who gets to own the next computing platform: Apple, AI companies, the cloud, agents, whatever comes next.
I wonder if the bigger question is what happens to us.
Convenience is great, but if we optimize away every moment of reflection, tradeoff, and decision-making, we risk becoming passengers in our own lives. The goal shouldn’t be to hand over our judgment to increasingly capable systems. It should be to use those systems to help us think more clearly and act more intentionally.
The future I want isn’t one where AI lives my life for me. It’s one where it helps me live it better.
iPhone's last stand? More like Microsoft's last stand. Nobody wants their garbage hardware and software outside of enterprise shmucks more interested in filling their pockets with fat contract money than delivering value.
> The reason is obvious when you think about it: enterprises are paying for their employees’ time, so of course they are willing to pay for tools that make those employees more productive
Is that why there are billions dollars wasted in useless Microsoft subscriptions and services?
> consumers, on the other hand, are mostly looking to waste time, which is why attention-harvesting advertising is the only software business model that works at scale for consumer services.
What a callous view of people. Who's your benchmark? TikTok addicted kids?
> What they do want to do is watch short-form video
Yeah, it seems so.
> What a callous view of people. Who's your benchmark? TikTok addicted kids?
brother, we are all walking around with a supercomputer in our pocket thats capable of accessing the sum total of human knowledge and yet we're still stuck with people who think the earth is flat.
> brother,
Why am seeing "brother" a lot recently?
It’s kind of a meme
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/my_brother_in_Christ
Tiktok addicted kids, brother.
> yet we're still stuck with people who think the earth is flat.
Very few. They are louder online. I have never met one in real life.
Yes, the internet does spread misinformation, but I think its pessimistic to think it outweighs the benefits. A lot of the problems are economic and social at the core too.
> capable of accessing the sum total of human knowledge
No. Lots of knowledge is still behind paywalls or not yet digitized. Some models have been trained on books that we cannot search or download.
Access to knowledge doesn’t mean you automatically acquire that knowledge.
Sadly access to knowledge strongly correlates with access to mindless entertainment that competes with the absorption of said knowledge.
If you grow up in a house in the woods with every math book known to man, but nothing else, you will eventually read them.
But if that house also has every comic book, porno mag, animal bloopers, etc, you’ll never pick one up.
This doesn’t make any sense. We have more access to entertainment, be it comics, porn, or films, than any period in history, yet we continue to make more substantial scientific progress than any point in history.
I think you have the causation backwards: we have people thinking the world is flat because they can access the sum total of human knowledge, both true and false. There’s so much available, with similar production values, that going down brainwashing rabbit holes like flat earth, anti-vax, and more is a lot easier than it has ever been before.
Let’s be real, some people are going to believe absurd things even if you strap them in a chair Clockwork Orange style and force them to consume your favorite propaganda 24/7.
There is no way to “align” human brains to your preferences. The Soviets tried it, the Chinese tried it, the Americans tried it. Nobody succeeded. The best you can do is attempt to sway the masses, but you’d better rely on positive messaging, because mass culture’s failure modes are even scarier than small subcultures.
Attempting to stamp out competing worldviews leads a certain kind of (relatively common) person to dig even harder for forbidden knowledge. If you’re not careful this will lead people directly to the arms of your geopolitical enemies, as it’s not possible to fully stamp out their narratives—they have a big budget!
> brother, we are all walking around with a supercomputer in our pocket thats capable of accessing the sum total of human knowledge and yet we're still stuck with people who think the earth is flat.
And even more people believe there's an old man on a cloud judging everyone, so what?
That is a strawman. Who believes in an old man on a cloud judging everyone? Far fewer people believe anything like that than believe. Even online I have never come across anyone whose beliefs could be reasonably characterised that way.
I’m not religious but there’s a significant difference here.
Burden of proof is on the person making the assertion in both cases, but we can’t prove without a doubt that god doesn’t exist even if we don’t feel there’s enough evidence to suggest he is. There is, however, concrete evidence the earth isn’t flat, so no matter who the burden is on it’s demonstrably false.
Put another way: You can concretely observe without a doubt that not only is the earth not flat, but also that it can’t be flat. We can’t confidently say god can’t exist.
and most people who believe in God will cite some evidence - religious experiences, or philosophical proofs or whatever. Whether you accept that evidence is sufficient or not, it is in an entirely different class.
Sure but I’m just not even opening that can of worms. I’m just focusing on the very clear cut difference here
I don't think you've thought through what you're trying to assert. A god could make you believe anything they wanted to about the earth. So if you cannot disprove a god, then you cannot disprove the theory that the earth is flat.
You can still believe that the scientific method works; and might leads you to 2 conclusions:
(a) "I can prove earth is not flat" (using this methodology) (b) I cannot prove there is no God, though I may believe the prevalence of evidence does not support the hypothesis, there's no scientific test that I can design.
I’m not sure you thought this through. Why would G-d want to or care to make one have thoughts.
I have thought through this plenty but you’re still welcome to disagree with me. Just because you think I am wrong does not mean I have failed to think through the implications of my statement.
I can disprove that the Earth is flat with the incredibly concrete, observable evidence that it is not. On the other hand, I do not have concrete, observable evidence that God does not exist. That’s the thrust of my point.
>and yet we're still stuck with people who think the earth is flat.
I'd take those over the people who want to shove AI down our throats any day of the week!
This hurts.
I think Microsoft does have a point here: hosted services and thin clients are going to make money. (1) Their main focus is selling services, selling you, selling your data, and showing you ads. Children are being raised to think that asking chat to add two numbers is normal; they will enter the workplace in this state. Everything for MS is a service: this is going to work for them. And (2) because those hosted services will also replace some jobs, as the enterprise schmucks want.
How is that different than using a calculator
Kids are absolutely using chat for calculator tasks.
There was a meme going around last week where a child saw a phone calculator app and remarked "wow there's an AI just for math".
Generalizing, they're using chat for everything else, like search. Actually reading a source is not on their radar.
This is frightening. A whole generation that will not, and can not, think. At all. "Do it for me."
It's less likely to be accurate, it's slower, and far less efficient as a bonus.
The anger is real, but it's misguided (as anger mostly is). The benchmark is reality. Everyone is more "TikTok addicted kids" than not and the analysis is quite apt.
> Is that why there are billions dollars wasted in useless Microsoft subscriptions and services?
Microsoft is still simply one of the very best at enterprise dealmaking.
They see "thin is in" and I see remote servers now watching everything on your screen or within audio visual range. Eventually the only jobs will be at the intel agencies watching the data feeds from all the rabble so they can ascertain who is mouthy enough to whack and charge the others by the word for what used to be processed locally for free.
Of all the things they could build, why must they pick this future...
Seen from this perspective, the GDR was prescient: They had more than half of their population engaged in spying on all the rest. We can now take our cues from them an reshape our economies in their image.
i was under the impression that the 2024 apple intelligence rollout was something of a victory: Apple realized that the majority of people don't actually want this stuff forced on them at the os level, and the ai maximalists all used apple anyways via clawbot (including purchasing an additional apple device, the mini!) because of apples non-ai-specific commitment to phone computer interop.
Certainly the copilot button in ms paint did nothing to attract the clawbot ecosystem to windows
I say this every time: the average person never wants to hear the letters A and I. Not because it has a negative connotation, but because they don’t care how their phone gets them an answer to “when is my dentist appointment” they just want it to do it.
At least for consumer software, AI is synonymous with annoying nagware forcing itself in your way.
I think you're trying to say, the term 'AI' is _associated_ with chatbots being added in places (websites mostly) where they are more of a nuisance than added value.
OpenAI's ChatGPT is AI consumer software and is a hit, albeit mostly free tier users.
Yep, by using the terms intelligence, and occasionally Apple Intelligence and not AI[1], they get to talk about these features in a way that don't trigger an automatic mental gag reflex. The fact they cottoned on to this 2 years ago is actually pretty impressive.
[1] https://x.com/ArtemR/status/2056961743142957143
Exactly. Even though Siri is completely lost today, my friend asks it a number of random things, all she wants is an answer. Currently it redirects to the web, it’s enough for her. I told her “next year it’ll work!” And boom. We’re in the EU. Sad.
And then a minute later I could ask it "Is copilot done yet?" and it replies "No, looks like it is still working on it". And then a minute later I ask again. It replies "Yes, it finished. It changed chart.py and styles.css. Do you want me to tell you what specific changes it made to the files?".
But it looks like none of the chat agents with voice interface have such a connector at the moment? An SSH connector would be the most useful. But a "GitHub Codespace connector" or something like that would also do.
I wonder if that will be a missing piece for long. If so, I would build an agent with voice mode and ssh connector myself. But I guess it should come out from the big guys any moment now?
I am still convinced that Apple is slowly working its way to smart glasses. And that *this* is the Next Big Thing. Frankly, the future is very good AR glasses that just work.
- iPhone Air to cram everything into a small space
- Vision pro - a new OS for looking at things and interacting
- Better Siri and AI that works with voice
- Smart local model / routing to big models in the cloud
- integration with wearables (air pods and watches)
Smart glasses aren't well-liked by the mainstream population. The term "glasshole" exists for a reason.
Never have even heard of the word before.
The term is nearly old enough to have a driving license - google glass came out 14 years ago
Ahh maybe that’s it. Old slang that’s not used often enough these days.
Then you haven't been paying attention.
Maybe you are in bubble? Looks like it’s really old slang and I have not heard that word in the last decade in Silicon Valley or elsewhere.
It was never common slang. A few journalists tried to force it to be “a thing” but it never caught on, because forced memes never work.
(I do hate camera glasses though.)
This would not be a net benefit to society.
I've valued Ben Thompson's opinions less over time. He was super into goggle-like devices and remote meetings. I own Apple Vision Pro. It's a technical achievement, but not compelling beyond immersive video (too bad). He harps on Dems trying to clean up monopolies (Lina Khan during Biden, who had good principles but didn't get much done; probably blame her boss) and is quiet through republican bullshit (T2). He seems to interview huge tech figures as though he was the was the Verge or Nilay Patel does: with a soft touch.
Just not doing it for me. Think I'm gonna stop reading anything he says.
Edit: missing words, thinking faster than typing
Yeah I've been noticing the same trends. In my opinion, when analyzing B2B topics, or in general enterprise software and hardware, he is pretty good.
But when it comes to anything around consumer behavior, individuals, etc, i.e. the average family in America, he is often completely and utterly wrong in all his takes and predictions. In fact, so wrong it's often laughable, and amazes me that he is so confident in his predictions.
Also, in the podcast I've noticed that he talks almost every podcast about his "hits", i.e. his times in the past where he predicted something accurately. But never, ever mentions the times where he was completely wrong. He's like the dictionary definition of confirmation bias (or survivorship bias).
It's like he's gotten overly confident (or a little arrogant) as he's become more of a tech celebrity, to the point where he thinks he's some sort of Nostradamus now and doesn't recognize his weaknesses or failures. And I've personally stopped listening to the podcasts as much as it's getting a little tiresome.
BTW, I also noticed how often he is wrong on deep tech topics, e.g. his explanation of IP addresses and routing in one podcast. It's like he thinks his business knowledge + Claude is enough for him to authoritatively discuss how technical systems work, and he often is mistaken...
This Microsoft notion of “devices that don’t stand alone but surround you” sounds an awful lot like Google’s “ambient computing” of yonder.
Last Stand? This is rather strong language and overselling the situation, for clicks I guess.
You might re-title the article instead, "The iPhone holds its ground", and it would be a more realistic title. But perhaps garnering less clicks.
I've always thought Ben Thompson is strong on enterprise and b2b topics but super weak on everything consumer related, he simply doesn't seem to understand consumer behavior (he has zero empathy or ability to project his mind into the average person's mind)
E.g. Ben was sure iPhone air would be a massive hit because he himself loved it. (It's struggled as people don't like the smaller battery life).
Ben was sure the Vision Pro would be a huge hit because he himself loved it. (It was a total failure as the average person doesnt want to pay huge amounts for a ridiculous looking dork helmet).
Ben raving about Meta's hand controller which he was sure was going to be the future of consumer electronics (The Neural Band). He was discussing how you could use it while your hand is in your jeans/pants pocket. Not quite thinking about how this would look while you're sat on the subway with someone sat opposite you.
Ben discussing how the future of watching sports is in VR. Not considering how weird it would be to go to a friends house to watch the game and everyone has their own VR headset. Also not considering the fun of watching sports is doing it with other people.
Basically, he has a huge issue with extracting his own liking of techy products to the average consumer who are basically nothing like Ben Thompson.
I get the criticism and all your previous judgments samples are valid. I also agree that title is click-bait BUT:
I know people are desperate for a Siri that works. The convince of just talking to your phone is priceless. If Apple gets this right, this is a huge deal – which it seems they are on the right track.
People are still talking to Siri for basic stuff like timers and alarms because it works, doesn't need an app, works when phone is locked or even away from you. If this works for more complex tasks like texting and general questions Apple will have the upper hand over Meta and Google in this new way of using computers/internet.
Apple also took a very clever approach for Capex and general AI strategy. Everyone knows that the best intelligence will eventually become a commodity and Apple decided to step aside from this expensive experiment. That's worth pointing out too.
This. Not sure why it it downvoted. The same with Patrick Moorhead, or in similar stance DED from Apple Insider etc.
Just because you like something, doesn't mean it will succeed. These people will more likely using some sort of industry knowledge to form conclusion which conforms with their bias.
On the flip side, just because you hated something doesn't mean it will fail. There are plenty of Apple haters who will write things that seems to make sense but completely misses the mark every single time.
[dead]
On step into the markets in Shenzhen and you will know it is not over. That new foldy iphone is a bit dodgy tho..
> Apple is targeting consumers, for whom traditional chatbot functionality is probably sufficient for the vast majority of their AI needs.
I disagree strongly here. The chatbot is the furthest thing from sufficient for the average consumer. Take the newly announced feature that groups your compromised passwords together and offers to agentically change them all for you. Really cool! Could you do that via a chatbot interface? Sure. Would the average consumer? No.
I doubt the ‘average consumer’ is even using a password manager, let alone going to change their password because of something so common place as it being compromised.
title is too biased and sensational
first paragraph begins the article upon 2 very big and flawed statements:
> Apple fans would, for years and years, sneer at Microsoft’s penchant for talking about products that may or may not ship, deriding them as vaporware.
maybe some would, but as a whole I would say this is not a common thing
> After Apple’s bungled 2024 launch of Apple Intelligence and new Siri, however, vaporware is fair game
no it's not
I didn't know about Project Solara so learned a new thing from the article, but I got the impression that it's not as big as the author tried to make it seem, felt very distant and forced.
It only gets worse from there.
Wait what, is this a Microsoft ad in disguise?
Weirdly, despite the headline and how the article starts off, it’s pretty pro-Apple by the last paragraph?
Having watched Microsoft try and fail to launch countless new ideas into the market over the past couple decades, I have 0 faith in their ability to deliver something people actually use. Others, often Apple, seem to succeed where Microsoft had previously tried and repeatedly failed.
What struck me reading this is that everyone seems focused on who gets to own the next computing platform: Apple, AI companies, the cloud, agents, whatever comes next.
I wonder if the bigger question is what happens to us.
Convenience is great, but if we optimize away every moment of reflection, tradeoff, and decision-making, we risk becoming passengers in our own lives. The goal shouldn’t be to hand over our judgment to increasingly capable systems. It should be to use those systems to help us think more clearly and act more intentionally.
The future I want isn’t one where AI lives my life for me. It’s one where it helps me live it better.
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