I think that’s why Apple is very slow at rolling out AI if it ever actually will. Downside is way too big than the upside.
You say slowly, but in my opinion Apple made an out of character misstep by releasing a terrible UX to everyone. Apple intelligence is a running joke now.
Yes they didn't push it as hard as, say, copilot. I still think they got in way too deep way too fast.
This is not the first time that Apple has released a terrible UX that very few users liked, and it certainly wont be the last.
I don’t necessarily agree with the post you’re responding to, but what I will give Apple credit for is making their AI offering unobtrusive.
I tried it, found it unwanted and promptly shut it off. I have not had to think about it again.
Contrast that with Microsoft Windows, or Google - both shoehorning their AI offering into as many facets of their products as possible, not only forcing their use, but in most cases actively degrading the functionality of the product in favor of this required AI functionality.
Yep. Replacing google assistant with Gemini before feature parity was even close is such a fuck-you to users.
On Instagram, the search is now "powered by Meta AI". Cannot do anything about it.
> Apple made an out of character misstep by releasing a terrible UX to everyone
Apple had their hand forced by Google on that one afaik.
Yes they knew Apple maps was bad and not up to standard yet, but they didn't really have any other choice.
Of course they had a choice: they could have stuck with google maps for longer, and they probably also could have invested more in data and UI beforehand. They could have launched a submarine non-apple-branded product to test the waters. They could likely have done other things we haven't thought of here, in this thread.
Quite plausibly they just didn't realize how rocky the start would be, or perhaps they valued that immediate strategic autonomy more in the short-term that we think, and willingly chose to take the hit to their reputation rather than wait.
Regardless, they had choices.
Sure, and now you can also say they had their hand forced by Google again, or by Anthropic, or by whatever other AI companies are out there.
Remember „You are a bad user, I am a good bing“? Apple is just slower in fixing and improving things.
Fast!? They were two years slow and still fell face flat, and then rolled back the software
“Two years slow” relative to what?
Henry Ford was 23 years “slow” relative to Karl Benz.
Apple innovation glazing makes me ill
Apple made a huge mistake by keeping their commitment to "local first" in the age of AI.
The models and devices just aren't quite there yet.
Once Google gets its shit together and starts deploying (cloud--based) AI features to Android devices en masse, Apple is going to have a really big problem on their hands.
Most users say that they want privacy, but if privacy comes in the way of features or UX, they choose the latter. Successful privacy-respecting companies (Apple, Signal) usually understand this, it's why they're successful, but I think Apple definitely chose the wrong tradeoff here.
Investors seem to be starved for novelty right now. Web 2.0 is a given, web 3.0 is old, crypto has lost the shine, all that's left to jump on at the moment is AI.
Apple fumbled a bit with Siri, and I'm guessing they're not too keen to keep chasing everyone else, since outside of limited applications it turns out half baked at best.
Sadly, unless something shinier comes along soon, we're going to have to accept that everything everywhere else is just going to be awful. Hallucinations in your doctor's notes, legal rulings, in your coffee and laundry and everything else that hasn't yet been IoT-ified.
> we're going to have to accept that everything everywhere else is just going to be awful. Hallucinations in your doctor's notes, legal rulings, in your coffee and laundry and everything else that hasn't yet been IoT-ified.
I installed a logitech mouse driver (sigh) the other day, and in addition to being obtrusive and horrible to use, it jams an LLM into the UI, for some reason.
AI has reached crapware status in record time.
> Hallucinations in your doctor's notes, legal rulings, in your coffee
"OK Replicator, make me one espresso with creamer"
"Making one espresso with LSD"
"all that's left to jump on at the moment is AI" -> No, it's the effective applications of AI. It's unprecedented.
I was in the VC space for a while previously, most pitch decks claimed to be using AI: But doing even the briefest of DD - it was generally BS. Now it's real.
With respect to everything being awful: One might say that's always been the case. However, now there's a chance (and requirement) to build in place safeguards/checks/evals and massively improve both speed and quality of services through AI.
Don't judge for the problems: Look at the exponential curve, think about how to solve the problems. Otherwise, you will get left behind.
The problem isn't AI; it's just a tool. The problem is the people using it incorrectly because they don't understand it beyond the hype and surface details they hear about it.
Every week for the last few months, I get a recruiter for a healthcare startup note taking app with AI. It's just a rehash of all the existing products out there, but "with AI". It's the last place I want an overworked non-technical user relying on the computer to do the right thing, yet I've had at least four companies reach out with exactly that product. A few have been similar. All of them have been "with AI".
It's great that it is getting better, but at the end of the day, there's only so much it can be relied upon for, and I can't wait for something else to take away the spotlight.
Well put and you're correct: There IS a lot of hype/BS still sadly - as companies seek to jump on the hype train without effectively adapting. My karma took a serious hit for my last post - but yesterday I met with someone whose life has been profoundly impacted by AI:
- An extremely dedicated and high achieving professional, at the very top of her game with deep industry/sectoral knowledge: Successful and with outstanding connections. - Mother of a young child. - Tradition/requirement for success within the sector was/is working extremely long hours: 80-hour weeks are common.
She's implemented AI to automate many of her previous laborious tasks and literally cut down her required hours by 90%. She's now able to spend more time with her family, but also - able to now focus on growing/scaling in ways previously impossible.
Knowing how to use it, what to rely upon, what to verify and building in effective processes is the key. But today AI is at its worst and it already exceeds human performance in many areas.. it's only going in one direction.
Hopefully the spotlight becomes humanity being able to focus on what makes us human and our values, not mundane/routine tasks and allows us to better focus on higher-value/relationships.
> Knowing how to use it, what to rely upon, what to verify and building in effective processes is the key. But today AI is at its worst and it already exceeds human performance in many areas.. it's only going in one direction.
I suppose this is the difference between an optimist and a pessimist. No matter how much better the tool gets, I don't see people getting better, and so I don't see the addition of LLM chatbots as ever improving things on the whole.
Yes, expert users get expert results. There's a reason why I use a chainsaw to buck logs instead of a hand saw, and it's also much the same reason that my wife won't touch it.
90% is a big number. Assuming being an expert allows her to make better use of AI than most, that is still an astonishing number without knowing anything about the field in question. That makes me think that 80 hour work weeks are mostly unproductive. Again, assumption being an average person to be able to use AI less effectively, let's ballpark at half as effectively, I still get 40 hours per week of mostly non-sense work. How did we end up here as a society?!
> it was generally BS. Now it's real.
Yes. Finally! Now it's real BS. I wouldn't touch it with 8 meter pole.
They already rolled out an "AI" product. Got humiliated pretty bad, and rolled it back. [0]
They had an opportunity to actually adapt, to embrace getting rapid feedback/iterating: But they are not equipped for it culturally. Major lost opportunity as it could have been a driver of internal change.
I'm certain they'll get it right soon enough though. People were writing off Google in terms of AI until this year.. and oh how attitudes have changed.
> People were writing off Google in terms of AI until this year.. and oh how attitudes have changed.
Just give Google a year or two.
Google has a pretty amazing history of both messing up products generally and especially "ai like" things, including search.
(Yes I used to defend Google until a few years ago.)
"to embrace getting rapid feedback/iterating"
that's the problem noo?? big company is sucks at that, you cant do that in certain company because sometimes its just not possible
They also have text thread and email summaries. I still think it counts as a slow rollout.
Even the iOS and macOS typing correction engine has been getting worse for me over the past few OS updates. I’m now typing this on iOS, and it’s really annoying how it injects completely unrelated words, replaces minor typos with completely irrelevant words. Same in Safari on macOS. The previous release felt better than now, but still worse than a couple years ago.
It’s not just you. iOS auto correct has gotten damn near malicious. E seen it insert entire words out of nowhere
Spellcheck is an absolutely perfect example of what happens with technology long-term. Once the hype cycle is over for a certain tech, it gets left to languish, slowly degrading until it's completely useless. We should be far more outraged at how poor basic things like this still are in 2025. They are embarrassingly bad.
> it gets left to languish, slowly degrading until it's completely useless
What do you mean? Code shouldn't degrade if it's not changed. But the iOS spell checker is actively getting worse, meaning someone is updating it.
Real code has dependencies and they sometimes change, including growing undocumented behavior or new bugs.
Yeah it finishes my sentences and goes back and replaces entire words with other words that are not even in the same category of noun, then replaces pronouns and conjunctions to completely make up a new sentence for me in something I've already typed. I'm not stupid and I meant what I typed. If I didn't mean what I typed I would have typed something else. Which I didn't.
>>if it ever actually will.
If they don't then I'd hope they get absolutely crucified by trade comissions everywhere, currently there are bilboards in my city advertising Apple AI even though it doesn't even exist yet - if it's never brought to the market then it's a serious case of misleading advertising.
Yet Apple has reenabled Apple Intelligence multiple times on my devices after OS updates despite me very deliberately and angrily disabling it multiple times
When you got 1-2billion users a day doing maybe 10 billion prompts a day, it’s risky