At the risk of seeming a cynic, I can't take such articles seriously. A trillionaire company not being serious about AI does not seem correct. Same was told about Google, and now they are one of the fastest growing AI footprint with soaring revenues.
Apple lacks strategic vision
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Re: Apple lacks strategic vision
#152Doing AI just because everybody else is doing AI is not exactly a strategic vision. Going into AI without a clear plan is exactly what they should NOT be doing.
I’m satisfied with the very subtle AI implementations in their products.
Take the Photos app. I can type any object like “car” and it generally locates photos containing a car. This is far more useful to me than a LLM to generate paragraphs of text on a phone.
Re: Apple lacks strategic vision
#153Well, as we speak, Apple is still one of the most valuable companies in the world, shareholder-value-wise and (most importantly) consumer-preference-wise. So, being an absolute Apple-skeptic, I don't blame them for not having a crystal-clear future direction right now. VR/AR? Nah, probably not happening. AI? Probably huge, but in which direction? Who knows? And they've got products in all these markets, just not obvi…
Waiting until others struggle with early pains before swooping in with a polished version after the idea has been demonstrated is also Apple's consistent playbook. They've never been innovators, that's not their strength. They're polishers.
They did have usable file system search decades ahead of Windows.
Re: Apple lacks strategic vision
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
Both of these products could be expected from any well run company. They are both very polished versions of something that already existed. The direction to optimize in was already clear. No one wants to compare Apple to a generic well run company, they want to compare Apple to itself a decade or two ago. Others have said that if Jobs were still alive, AR would be ubiquitous by now, and everyone would have a stylish…
Most generic well run companies would never take the risk & expense entailed in a platform transition like Intel => Apple Silicon. You might argue that generic companies are doing that now as we see Windows ARM laptops finally, but I think they only got the courage to do that because Apple went first.
I mean there was Windows on ARM laptops previously. The first Snapdragon 835/8cx/7c Windows laptops predate the M1 lineup. They certainly weren't POPULAR or FAST but they existed.
Re: Apple lacks strategic vision
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
That was 5 years ago and the chips themselves are much older than that. They can't skate on that forever, especially since the competition caught up.
Where has the competition caught up? Arent Apple's chips still by far best-in-class from the laptop down to the watch? Its an honest question, I would love an arm based laptop running NixOS that is competitive with the upcoming M5 Pro's but I dont see it anywhere. Case in point: Google's newest Google TV box (released this year) is an absolute turd when compared with an 8 year old 4k Apple TV box.
The main innovation was buying all 3nm production from TSMC. Snapdragon chips on the same node perform as well.
Re: Apple lacks strategic vision
#156Doing AI just because everybody else is doing AI is not exactly a strategic vision. Going into AI without a clear plan is exactly what they should NOT be doing.
I’m satisfied with the very subtle AI implementations in their products. Take the Photos app. I can type any object like “car” and it generally locates photos containing a car. This is far more useful to me than a LLM to generate paragraphs of text on a phone.
This feature is many years old, not using modern “AI”.
The main features they have added are generating paragraphs and images which are terrible.
I don’t think that’s an Apple problem though.
Re: Apple lacks strategic vision
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
If history is any indication, Microsoft will slowly improve until things become sort of decent, then Apple will release a neutered but polished version that is lauded as "Apple Invents AI" and immediately dominate the market. But their version will lack one critical feature that everyone expects, such as a power button, or copy/paste, or pinch to zoom. For AI, maybe something like "remember context". Then 3 years lat…
The article addresses Apple's historical late mover advantage strategy, and suggests that Tim Cook doesn't have the same vision that Jobs had to pull those moves off.
Ah yes, Jobs famously could solve the LLMs being shit problem overnight.
By convincing users they want hallucinating, gas lighting imps in their pockets 24/7 to reinforce their thoughts.
And he would have been all over it given his own alt-medicine beliefs.
Re: Apple lacks strategic vision
#158There are a few hiccups, but everyone'e acting like Apple Silicon wasn't one of the most wildly successful overnight improvements in laptops in the last 50 years and that airpods aren't so popular that even Android phone users buy them.
I agree. As usual these days, the culprit for lack of innovation is AI (mostly LLMs). Apple did try to shove it to the users unsuccessfully and they had the right amount of sanity to backtrack once they realized how the users' expectations are misaligned with what LLMs have to offer, which is mostly lack of reliability; average user thinks that something walks like a duck, quacks like a duck must be a duck, but LLMs,…
>...backtrack once they realized how the users' expectations are misaligned with what LLMs...
Not my experience as an Apple user. The issue was not that I expected something better than an LLM. It was that I'm used to ChatGPT and the Apple AI was rubbish in comparison.
And if did useless stuff like mangled summaries of messages. If I could set if to know what files I have and web pages I'd used and could ask "which file do I have the holiday records in?" etc. then that would be useful.
Re: Apple lacks strategic vision
#159There are a few hiccups, but everyone'e acting like Apple Silicon wasn't one of the most wildly successful overnight improvements in laptops in the last 50 years and that airpods aren't so popular that even Android phone users buy them.
But has Apple Silicon justified the investment? I don't doubt it's good tech, but the market share hasn't necessarily reflected it. In 2024, total shipped units dropped quite a bit. Judging by the available data, I wouldn't use the term "wildly successful" just yet (particularly if we account for pre/post pandemic sales).
Apple Silicon is just a marketing name for the computer variants of the ARM chips for iPhones. How much of an extra investment could it really be to make a better version of a chip with less cooling and power constraints than the same chips that power phones?
Of course they were worth marginal investment even if you just consider they now only have one architecture to support, they are better computers and margins are better since they don’t have to pay Intel.
Re: Apple lacks strategic vision
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nothing wrong with being fabless. Plus Apple could switch to inferior silicon and probably convince its userbase that they are the creme de la creme.
> Nothing wrong with being fabless. Sure, if you're able to buy all the required production slots, as Apple has been doing in the past. However, with new market pressure from AI this might not be possible in the future ...
What company has the money to outbid Apple for production slots?