Comment by cush
1 day ago
Everything you said is so true, but it doesn't negate the fact that Apple has been all-in on LLMs since GPT-3, but they've been struggling to integrate LLMs into Siri while being fully aware of market demand... Going so far as to sell an entire line of new AI iPhones without ever actually shipping core features from the keynote.
In your examples market demand from existing customers of iMacs wasn't pointed at Apple to create the iPod. iPod customers weren't demanding that Apple create the iPhone. And iPhone customers weren't seething over the lack of a first-party watch option. Apple customers are looking across the landscape and can see every other phone manufacturer running circles around Siri, and this integration with Gemini really feels like they're throwing in the towel.
You’re right. This is where Cook lacks the clear vision and stubbornness of Jobs to either keep quiet publicly, or say that the technology simply isn’t up to Apple’s standards yet to release… and tack the lumps in the meantime. Jobs did this a lot.
The thing is, Siri doesn’t need an LLM for Apple customers to use an LLM. The App Store exists and iPhone users can download ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Grok, etc, etc, etc. They can map their favorite one to the action button if they want quick access.
I don’t see a major need for Apple to rush something out the door that doesn’t live up to their quality standard. From my use of LLMs, I still don’t think it lives up to the standards needed to hand out to a billion people and say “use this, you can trust it”. Even if their internal models were as good as the best ones on the market, I still think the press would treat it as another Apple Maps situation. I’m saying that with LLMs of today, not even the ones from the GPT-3 days.
Cook is too eager to say stuff that will please the stockholders, so he teased the AI stuff and had a big AI phone release before they had a product that was viable to release. That’s a theme with him.