The delay of the Apple Intelligence-powered Siri is perhaps one of the most significant Apple controversies, certainly in recent times. When highly respected Apple commentators like John Gruber are scathing, you know it’s a big deal. But while much of the criticism of Apple in recent days is valid, I don’t think it’s an existential crisis for Apple as some people are making out. Nor do I think Apple has “lost” the AI race (which has barely begun).Let me explain why.
Siri’s history and planned upgrades 🚧
Let’s get the obvious out of the way. Siri isn’t perfect. It’s far from perfect. And it hasn’t been able to do the things that many of us would love it to be able to do for a long time. Apple knows this, and it’s one of the reasons they hired John Giannandrea in the first place to oversee Machine Learning and AI strategy. Much has been written about the inner politics of the Siri team at Apple that falls under his leadership: tales of competing visions and differing ideas of how Siri could or should work.
When Apple took the wraps off of Apple Intelligence, it really did seem like the true vision of what Siri could be was about to become a reality. Or at least that was the interpretation of the tech media. They weren’t wrong necessarily. Features like on-screen awareness, the ability to take action in apps, etc. are huge upgrades for Siri. As is integration with other AI services like ChatGPT. But these announcements, while welcome and most definitely a step in the right direction, have no impact on Siri’s world knowledge or how conversational it is.
The features as announced provide Siri with personal context. A deeper, more intimate understanding of you. I can see why Apple focused on these features first. It’s something that only Apple can do, by reaching into your apps, your personal data and processing it on device where possible and using private cloud compute when it’s not. But these features don’t magically upgrade Siri’s knowledge base, and it doesn’t turn it into a chatbot akin to ChatGPT or Gemini.
Expectation Management 😬
This whole situation is a classic example of expectation mismanagement. It isn’t unusual to see delays in the world of software. Heck, we see delays all the time, especially in the video game industry. Games which are, at their core, software of varying levels of sophistication, are delayed almost routinely at this point. But until recently, delays by Apple were less common.
Perhaps the most prominent example of a recent delay is CarPlay 2, which should have shipped last year. Apple missed that deadline and there is no current timeline for its release. Apple has put out vague statements to note that they’re still working on it. But beyond that, who knows when it will ship.
The bigger issue here isn’t the delay of the Siri features itself. It’s that Apple marketed these features as key selling points for new products. So much so that Apple has retrospectively taken down advertisements and removed mentions of the features from several portions of its website.
People are swayed by marketing materials into making purchase decisions. That’s the whole point of marketing. But in this case, some people will have bought a new iPhone or other devices that support Apple Intelligence, under the belief that these features would be arriving soon. That hasn’t happened, and it’s a problem.
If Apple had announced these features, not attached them to a specific timeline or used them in proactive multimedia advertising formats, this would be a non-issue. Or at least it wouldn’t have spiraled as it has in recent days and weeks.
Ignore the noise 🙉
The thing is, the foundational technologies are there. Apple has built in the hardware capability to run large language models on device and released new models of its devices with more RAM to handle them. And they’ve created a private cloud computing architecture for when models can’t run locally and need greater levels of performance.
At the most basic level, AI including Apple Intelligence is just software. Software can improve with time and user feedback. Features can be expanded upon, built out, and enhanced. Apple has been the poster child for this before. They shipped Apple Maps before it was ready, made a public apology, and then fixed it. I’d go as far as to say it’s now a fantastic product following years of iteration and improvements.
Apple has made the same mistake as they did with Maps. But this time it’s worse due to marketing deciding to attach unshipped features to advertisements for new hardware products. Now those features have been delayed, it’s put Apple in a real bind. Usually Apple doesn’t ship things before they’re ready. I can’t help but feel that Apple bowed to market pressure.
My view is that Apple should have ignored the noise. They were right to focus on AI, but they’ve backed themselves into a corner by rushing to compete. They had the time to get this right. The competition isn’t exactly stellar. Chatbots, for instance, are impressive but often inaccurate and hallucinate. Glue on your Pizza, anyone? And OS integrations in Android and Windows with Gemini and Copilot are underwhelming and gimmicky too. Apple didn’t need to jump the gun.
At a push, I think it was ok for Apple to announce these features and shed more light on their AI plans. But they should have kept the timeline more vague. And they most definitely shouldn’t have attached features to new hardware products if they couldn’t ship on day one.
The average consumer isn’t being blown away by any system-level AI integration right now. Chatbots can be genuinely useful, but even they aren’t staple features in the minds of the average joe. They’re perhaps the best-known feature when people think of AI. But they aren’t the overnight revolution that much of tech media would make out.
Wrapping up 🌯
While this is a very public mistake for Apple, I don’t think the delays to its AI features are an existential crisis. If anything, Apple has demonstrated its ability to bounce back and even lead the industry when the chips are down. Heck, Apple has even produced some of its best work in the face of pressure and stiff competition. You can bet Apple has heard the outcry and is working furiously behind the scenes to course correct.
Apple should just apologize for the failures, learn their lesson this time, and announce products when they’re ready in future. Tim Cook has often commented on ignoring the 90-day clock of the investor quarter. Let Tim Cook…cook.
“ My view is that Apple should have ignored the noise. They were right to focus on AI, but they’ve backed themselves into a corner by rushing to compete. They had the time to get this right.”
Perfectly said. I really wish they’d have started with the easy stuff like writing tools, and slowly expanded out as things were ready.
Let’s hope that’s what they’ll do now.
After all the average person is not using Ai, most don’t even care or really know what it is.
Absolutely. They didn’t need to lock themselves down to specific timelines. So much of the AI feature set on competing devices is half baked. It’s not like Apple to bow to market pressure. Hopefully they’ve reflected on that and taken it on board.