Apple is too much focusing on AI

[Astuces iOS]

I fell like apple is focusing too much on the AI, apple just forgot their other devices…

- Old iPhones, iPads and Mac didn’t got a lot of improvement since 18.0 or 18.1

- Even worse on Apple Watch, Vision Pro, Apple TV and HomePod

- AI isn’t even ready and apple promotes it a lot !

This AI focus could also be the cause of other announced features reported such as swift assist in Xcode ! (Announced for 2024 but still not there)

 

[nortonandreev]

As I wrote on LinkedIn, when I shared this article:

Over a year ago, I raised concerns about the rush to integrate AI at all costs—showing a clear misalignment between shareholder goals and user needs. Many AI features currently bring little to no added value, while pulling development resources away from critical bug fixes and truly beneficial updates. AI garners media buzz and drives stock prices, but at the moment, it’s not delivering real advantages to the users.

 

[hwut]

I don’t want to use Apple intelligence, so I turned it off in settings.

I recently updated to iOS 18.3, and they turned Apple intelligence on and it downloaded a language model, no way for me to stop it.

They decided - “no, he’s wrong, we know what he wants better than he does, we’re going to turn it on for him. We think he’s going to love this buggy, nearly useless, battery draining software..”

 

[Yvan256]

And by being opt-out instead of opt-in, you're forced to download gigabytes of data for Apple Intelligence that you're going to delete right after it's finished. What an insane decision. Believe it or not, some of us still have data caps in 2025, with insane charges for going over those caps, and with no other choice in ISP either.

 

[Astuces iOS]

I don’t want to use Apple intelligence, so I turned it off in settings.

I recently updated to iOS 18.3, and they turned Apple intelligence on and it downloaded a language model, no way for me to stop it.

They decided - “no, he’s wrong, we know what he wants better than he does, we’re going to turn it on for him. We think he’s going to love this buggy, nearly useless, battery draining software..”

Yes some people like you don't want to use AI and you are not getting any interesting features...

 

[Biro]

Well, it’s quite possible news of China’s DeepSeek project will cause a major rethinking about how we’re approaching AI in the Western World. Clearly, it doesn’t require nearly as much money and resources as we think. That's what this week’s stock market freakout was all about.

Why the markets are freaking out about Chinese AI newcomer DeepSeek

A big day for short sellers after Nvidia loses $600 billion off its market value.

arstechnica.com

https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/china-deepseek-ai-nvidia-openai-02bdbbce?st=X2Gnyv&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

 

[HouseLannister]

Hard disagree. Apple needs to invest more money and resources into AI. They have barely scratched the surface and have a long way to go. You don't get there by taking focus away. Kick it up a notch. More business partnerships like OpenAI/ChatGPT? An acquisition of something like Claude or Perplexity? I think there are some great apps like Spark, Craft, Twos, and Particle News that are doing some cool AI things on a smaller scale. Those might be some good target acquisitions.

That doesn't mean the OP concerns about other things aren't valid. Apple has always been the company that bites off too much with too little talent. macOS, iOS, iPadOS, visionOS, tvOS, watchOS, etc. That's a lot of things to update. And the annual cycle is killing them. That's why Gurman is already saying we won't get a better Siri until 19.4 and CarPlay 2 is delayed indefinitely. (And this doesn't even take into account needing to pivot on one or more OSes because a law changes in some country you do business with.)

So they can scale back their product offerings. (Not likely.) They could do less each year. (How many years have we said we are at Peak Phone? Do we really need an OS every year?) They can try to spend their way out of the problem. Hire more software engineers... but then they also need more support roles for the increased staff, more managers, more computers for all those people, more office space, more parking spots, bigger cafeterias, more vending machines, etc. Apple has a lot of cash, but it is complicated to scale a company that large.

 

[turbineseaplane]

I wonder if Apple would be doing better with all software releases if they'd get off the totally forced annual update cycle

Nobody needs or wants "all new"* versions of all the OS's so often

They usually introduce as many new issues as they may have addressed


* they are usually such nothing burgers that they should have been point releases

 

[bilibug]

Old devices with free os updates generate zero revenue.

Even minor updates can drive users to upgrade their phones = revenue

The AI features that Apple has released thus far are minor gimmicks to introduce AI to its users. The strength of the real AI features will mostly be transparent to end users, other than the device working “better”. There really are no associated bells and whistles, so Apple has to present some kind of visual “wow” feature to entice new purchases.

Many of us also forget that there is a huge younger demographic of iPhone users, who love things like Genmoji and other features that more technical users think are worthless.

 

[NT1440]

Hard disagree. Apple needs to invest more money and resources into AI. They have barely scratched the surface and have a long way to go. You don't get there by taking focus away. Kick it up a notch. More business partnerships like OpenAI/ChatGPT? An acquisition of something like Claude or Perplexity? I think there are some great apps like Spark, Craft, Twos, and Particle News that are doing some cool AI things on a smaller scale. Those might be some good target acquisitions.

That doesn't mean the OP concerns about other things aren't valid. Apple has always been the company that bites off too much with too little talent. macOS, iOS, iPadOS, visionOS, tvOS, watchOS, etc. That's a lot of things to update. And the annual cycle is killing them. That's why Gurman is already saying we won't get a better Siri until 19.4 and CarPlay 2 is delayed indefinitely. (And this doesn't even take into account needing to pivot on one or more OSes because a law changes in some country you do business with.)

So they can scale back their product offerings. (Not likely.) They could do less each year. (How many years have we said we are at Peak Phone? Do we really need an OS every year?) They can try to spend their way out of the problem. Hire more software engineers... but then they also need more support roles for the increased staff, more managers, more computers for all those people, more office space, more parking spots, bigger cafeterias, more vending machines, etc. Apple has a lot of cash, but it is complicated to scale a company that large.

To do…what exactly?

With everyone from Microsoft to OpenAI bleeding money on even their $200 a months subscriptions, Apple has to “catch up” to a clear bubble driven by people who willfully or otherwise don’t see that none of the promises of AI CAN be achieved with current approaches. To lose billions in Capex? What’s the business justification for continuing down this fraudulent field?

 

[Astuces iOS]

Old devices with free os updates generate zero revenue.

Even minor updates can drive users to upgrade their phones = revenue

The AI features that Apple has released thus far are minor gimmicks to introduce AI to its users. The strength of the real AI features will mostly be transparent to end users, other than the device working “better”. There really are no associated bells and whistles, so Apple has to present some kind of visual “wow” feature to entice new purchases.

Many of us also forget that there is a huge younger demographic of iPhone users, who love things like Genmoji and other features that more technical users think are worthless.

That’s not true since apple is still selling the iPhone 15 ! Also not everyone wants AI and AI is only available in English now

 

[Astuces iOS]

And Apple Watch ?? No big features…

 

[msackey]

And by being opt-out instead of opt-in, you're forced to download gigabytes of data for Apple Intelligence that you're going to delete right after it's finished. What an insane decision. Believe it or not, some of us still have data caps in 2025, with insane charges for going over those caps, and with no other choice in ISP either.

Is this via broadband or cellular. If over cellular, don't do OS updates over that. That is indeed a lot of data, regardless of AI or not.

 

[jedimasterkyle]

As I wrote on LinkedIn, when I shared this article:

BINGO!

At this rate, all of Apple's OS's will be bug-ridden heaps of garbage all in the name of improving and perfecting their flavor of AI. But what's the point of that if the platform it lives on can barely operate in the first place? How many bugs and issues has Apple ignored in iOS and MacOS because AI has taken 99% of the company's focus?

Its the equivalent to a car manufacturer introducing a new vehicle that can perform magic tricks but the engine sucks, the transmission needs to be replaced on day 1 and the tires are already flat when you bring it home. But hey...at least your car can make an elephant appear out of thin air...because that's useful...

 

[bilibug]

That’s not true since apple is still selling the iPhone 15 ! Also not everyone wants AI and AI is only available in English now

At a reduced price to capture sales from those who can’t or don’t want to afford the latest model.

Not everyone wants AI, but enough do to drive sales. MANY people updated older phones to a 15 Pro or 16 so that they wouldn’t become obsolete. And those who traded in an older device mostly got a good return, especially if done through their carrier. The carrier takes the hit in return for an extended contract. Apple still gets wholesale revenue for the device.

If this were not a lucrative model, they would have stopped with the minimal yearly tech feature upgrades years ago. We would have cutting edge new devices every year. But Apple has learned that isn’t necessary to maintain sales. Their rollout plan is to bring devices up to current tech specs anywhere from 3-10 years. That minimal change also allows them to support more older devices for longer. That makes consumers happy.

The biggest fault I place is that they purposely shortchanged the 14 and non-Pro 15 models so that they can’t run AI. AI has been in the works for years, so there is no excuse there.

 

[HouseLannister]

The biggest fault I place is that they purposely shortchanged the 14 and non-Pro 15 models so that they can’t run AI. AI has been in the works for years, so there is no excuse there.

Agreed with you up until this last point. Hardware also takes years of development. Apple knew the 14 series and base 15 phones would be 6 GB RAM long before they knew Apple Intelligence would need 8 GB RAM. Meanwhile, Android phones have all gone to 12 GB and 16 GB this generation and the older 8 GB RAM phones there are also being left behind on some AI features. On-device AI is very RAM hungry and you need extra overhead to not slow down the rest of the phone, but it was not a priority for hardware development until very recently. It's not as easy as you imply to forecast what hardware your future software needs. More future-proofing would be nice, but it also raises prices.

 

[WarmWinterHat]

At a reduced price to capture sales from those who can’t or don’t want to afford the latest model.

Not everyone wants AI, but enough do to drive sales. MANY people updated older phones to a 15 Pro or 16 so that they wouldn’t become obsolete. And those who traded in an older device mostly got a good return, especially if done through their carrier. The carrier takes the hit in return for an extended contract. Apple still gets wholesale revenue for the device.

If this were not a lucrative model, they would have stopped with the minimal yearly tech feature upgrades years ago. We would have cutting edge new devices every year. But Apple has learned that isn’t necessary to maintain sales. Their rollout plan is to bring devices up to current tech specs anywhere from 3-10 years. That minimal change also allows them to support more older devices for longer. That makes consumers happy.

The biggest fault I place is that they purposely shortchanged the 14 and non-Pro 15 models so that they can’t run AI. AI has been in the works for years, so there is no excuse there.

Around 8% of iPhone users update yearly, so less than 1 in 10. The 16 is no different.

The majority just doesn't care...

Apple Intelligence Isn't Driving iPhone Upgrades

Apple Intelligence hasn't convinced people to buy an iPhone 16, Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said today. According to Kuo, a supply chain survey...

www.macrumors.com

 

[cjsuk]

Lets divide it down the line here.

The LLM stuff is clearly a dead end at this point. The material returns versus the costs don't add up at all. Not only that there are social, political and environmental concerns related to it as well. Plus it gets turned off the moment people start asking break even costs for it. That is apart from a loud minority of proponents. For the average person, they range from not caring to disdain for it due to the promoted perspective it'll take their jobs away, which it won't because it's crap.

Some of the other ML stuff has utility, such as categorisation and identification but it's just an extension of what we already had.

I'm glad we have the second stuff. It's nice being able to look up photos by subject.

But where has the rest of the engineering gone?

 

[Yvan256]

Is this via broadband or cellular. If over cellular, don't do OS updates over that. That is indeed a lot of data, regardless of AI or not.

I know this is going to blow your mind, but broadband still has data caps in some areas of the world.

 

[SebCohen]

Of everything I’ve seen AI can do, so far there’s not much if anything I’d want to use it for on my phone. Other than a glorified (expended and improved) search that is. Which I use already, but as quickly as I can.

I don’t use my phone as a tool to work or “do stuff” I take pictures, use the calendar, check email and listen to music sure. But the screen is too cramped for any meaningful sense of “calm” while working on it. Mobile screens will always be quick and dirty for me. Get in and get out.

Everything you do on your phone is better with a bigger screen. It’s the convenience that’s the killer app on a phone.

As such, AI on the phone is just another app that does something that should make your life better, easier or faster. Currently Apple Intelligence does “nothing”.

 

[msackey]

I know this is going to blow your mind, but broadband still has data caps in some areas of the world.

Yes, I can see that. Sorry you have that limit!

My so-called broadband is actually via cellular. It's T-Mobile home internet. I believe we also have a data cap after which point I think our speed is reduced. But, we have never gone over the cap in our household. We're 2 adults. But, we also don't consume heavy data like probably many users do.

 

[HouseLannister]

50 iPhone Features Apple Added to iOS 18 Since September

Since iOS 18 was released in September 2024, Apple has introduced an unprecedented number of new features and improvements across several point...

www.macrumors.com

Good article on what has been added to iOS 18 since launch. It is not all AI. Some very good small QoL updates included there too.

 

[Gix1k]

How are they so far behind?

 

[SebCohen]

iMHO (see what I did there):

It's not whether they are behind in AI or no that's really important here. It's what they told/are telling us it could/can do and HOW they told/tell us.

As of today, looking back at the iPhone 16 reveal and what Apple Intelligence actually can do, Tim Cook kinda looks like a snake oil salesman.

And yes yes I absolutely believe that AI will become hugely beneficial to phone users eventually. And they have amazing product quality.

But there is no doubt in my mind that Apple WILDLY oversold the idea of to sell in the iPhone 16, when it's basically a just 15. I wouldn't even go so far as calling it an 15s. It's a 15 with a button.

And Apple are REALLY good at marketing and they often...not exaggerate, they're just...really REALLY make you want their phone. But you were always satisfied with the purchase. It felt more genuine. With the 16, I think they overdid it, too much. Something changed. This time it was pure salesman, little benefit.

Still a great phone. But so was 15. And 14. And 13. 12 had too bad battery capacity.

If they actually thought it would be better or lied to themselves it would be OR AI wasn't supposed to be such a big part of 16 but they became afraid of the competition and overdid it...I dunno. But Apple Intelligence would have been better if it got released with the iPhone 17 and all the stuff we have now was tidbits/crumbs they dropped over the year to the release of 17.