Not there yet: The frustrations of the pocket AI

Apple rushes to roll out its ‘Apple Intelligence’ features but fails to deliver on promises

Apple CEO Tim Cook holds the new iPhone 16
Apple jumped to join the crowd on AI and forgot how to “think different”
(Image credit: Justin Sullivan / Getty Images)

Apple rushed to join the crowd on AI and forgot how to “think different,” said John Naughton in The Guardian. The biggest tech giant of all kept investors and consumers waiting for its “own world-beating take on the technology.” But the so-called Apple Intelligence features it launched are “trivial and sometimes irritating.” Like many, I “fell for it and upgraded” to the iPhone 16 last fall. Apple’s AI “immediately started messing with my photo collection, imposing categories on images that were intrusive, unwanted, and annoying.” Other AI features like Image Playground, which makes pictures from prompts, may be fun “for a 4-year-old with a short attention span.” And its most useful update, an “enhanced Siri,” never really came to be. Last week, Apple replaced the head of its AI strategy, and it now says the truly enhanced Siri won’t be ready until 2026.

It’s one thing when media organizations gripe about “misconstrued summaries” of articles, said Dave Lee in Bloomberg. It’s entirely another thing, however, when regular consumers are angered by Apple’s AI mistakes after being falsely nudged “to buy a smartphone that costs $1,000” and does not deliver as advertised. Chief executive Tim Cook has put himself “in uncharted territory.” His fear of missing out on AI was driven “by the whims of Wall Street.” As AI mania took hold, Cook “gave his company a deadline it wasn’t sure it could meet, and now it hasn’t.” I don’t think his predecessor, Steve Jobs, “would have ever allowed himself to be rushed.”

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