Apple Intelligence was both too early and too late

At WWDC 25 this summer, Apple Intelligence will celebrate a full year since it was first announced. Remember that flurry of hype and optimism last June? We were all younger then, and how we wanted to believe! But now we are older and wiser, and a great deal more cynical.

How will we look back on those past 12 months? Not positively, I fear. Your AI tools are both ambitious and real, Mr Giannandrea, we might say, but the parts that are real are not ambitious, while the parts that are ambitious are a load of phony-baloney vaporware codswallop.

That’s a point made last week (albeit in slightly different words) by Daring Fireball’s Jon Gruber, in a quietly devastating takedown of those AI promises at WWDC 24. He observed that Apple Intelligence is an arbitrary umbrella term used to conflate two separate sets of software offerings: those that Apple was happy to demonstrate and have since been launched to the public; and those that have not yet been seen by anyone outside Cupertino and may never launch. The cynics among us can guess which set contains the most interesting and groundbreaking features.

The problem with Apple Intelligence, to coin another sub-Johnsonian aphorism, is that it was simultaneously unveiled both too early and too late. It was too early because it wasn’t ready—even the most basic planks in the system weren’t available at the launch of the iPhone 16 three months later (which was heavily marketed on the strength of those missing AI features). And it was too late because so many other companies were much further down the AI road. Apple already looked silly for not announcing anything before WWDC, which is probably why the keynote scriptwriters let their imaginations run away with them.

Of the two issues, the earliness is by far the worst. Making promises and then failing to deliver, as Gruber writes, is a dangerous game, because it undermines the faith of your customers—both the existing and potential ones. An industry based around free software updates and rapid security fixes relies on trust.

A company that asks you to spend $1,000 on a phone you intend to use for three years but has a warranty that lasts only one is selling belief as well as hardware. And a company that says you’ll have certain features on your iPhone 16 and then makes you wait until the iPhone 17 for the best of them might not be a company you can rely on. In the end, Apple’s word is all it has.

One of my favorite ever pieces of journalism is an interview from 2015 in which the British games writer John Walker sorrowfully eviscerates Peter Molyneux, a legendary designer he once admired. (I don’t use the word eviscerate lightly. The opening question is “Do you think that you’re a pathological liar?”) In a 15-year sequence of astonishing creativity, Molyneux created Populous, Syndicate, Theme Park, Dungeon Keeper, and Fable. But then he spent the next decade squandering his reputation by overpromising and underdelivering on a series of disastrous projects. He became far better at talking about the games he was going to make than actually making them. By the time of the interview, his fanciful promises had become an industry meme and a Twitter account.

Peter Molyneux is a cautionary tale of which Apple should take careful heed. In the games industry, you can get away with hyperbole for a surprisingly long time, especially when you have a solid body of work behind you (see Grand Theft Auto VI). But if a significant portion of the world’s iPhone buyers start to doubt Apple can be trusted to deliver on its promises, the fall could be much more rapid—let’s see how many people believe the iPhone 17 ads this fall. The stakes are a lot higher when you’re the biggest tech company in the world.

I won’t pretend to understand how and why Apple ended up so far behind in the AI race. As my colleague Jason writes in another eviscerating article, the company had a big head start in the personal assistant market—AI before it was called AI, essentially—and the developmental resources to engineer its way to long-term domination. That it failed to do so will remain one of the great mysteries of the tech industry. But it doesn’t really matter now how that position was squandered. What matters is how Apple responds to this failure, and it will need to start by being honest.

Foundry

Welcome to our weekly Apple Breakfast column, which includes all the Apple news you missed last week in a handy bite-sized roundup. We call it Apple Breakfast because we think it goes great with a Monday morning cup of coffee or tea, but it’s cool if you want to give it a read during lunch or dinner hours too.

Trending: Top stories

Siri isn’t an assistant, says Jason Cross. It’s an embarrassment.

Eugen Wegmann gave Apple Arcade a chance. Here’s why you should too.

Mahmoud Itani comes up with 9 ways to use your iPhone’s USB-C port (other than charging).

M3 Ultra exposed: Inside Apple’s hybrid chip powerful enough to take on Nvidia.

Which is the Siri delay gonna be, asks the Macalope. The C1 modem or AirPower?

We finally have a good explanation for the iPad’s A16 processor.

Podcast of the week

Is the iPhone 16e a good phone? Who’s it for? Most importantly, should you buy one? Find out in the latest episode of the Macworld podcast.

You can catch every episode of the Macworld Podcast on Spotify, Soundcloud, the Podcasts app, or our own site.

Reviews corner

The rumor mill

iOS 19 and macOS 16 will reportedly bring a huge interface overhaul.

Talking of which, Apple’s smart home hub has been delayed to ‘align’ with that ‘dramatic’ iOS 19 launch.

AirPods to get live translation feature as part of iOS 19 update.

Apple will ‘soon’ force everyone to use the new Home app.

Software updates, bugs, and problems

The iPhone 16e has an annoying Bluetooth issue–and a fix is on the way.

macOS Sequoia 15.3.2 brings bug fixes and one major security patch.

iOS 18.3.2 is released with a single critical WebKit fix.

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