Apple is reportedly exploring the development of personal robots. The news comes just a few weeks after Apple shut down its electric car project. Longtime Apple bull Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said such a push into home robotics would be a “horror show.”
Ian Krietzberg
for TheStreet:
Teams of engineers, according to the report, have been working on developing a small, personal robot that would follow people around their homes. The project is still in its early research phase.
People familiar with the project told Bloomberg that the personal robotics push could be the “next big thing” for the company, though the report added that Apple has yet to commit to the project.
Wedbush analyst Dan Ives told CNBC Thursday that, if the project comes to fruition, it would serve as nothing but a distraction from the key area that Ives thinks Apple ought to be focusing on: artificial intelligence.
“It would be a horror show if they actually spent money on robots,” Ives said. “They need to focus on AI.”
Ives added that Apple CEO Tim Cook’s “legacy is going to be AI. If they went after robots, that would be a black-eye moment for Apple.”
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MacDailyNews Take: Tim Cook’s legacy is going to be AI alright: missing it so badly that he had to license it from Google and other rivals.
This “personal robots” stuff is just some silly filler story fed to Gurman (Apple is surely working on all kinds of things that will never see the light of day) to paper over the company’s glaring lack of pretty much anything else positive so far this year. If not:
🙄 Holy crap, they’re even more lost than we thought.https://t.co/mxiNADcEDX
— MacDailyNews (@MacDailyNews) April 4, 2024
Recap: Apple was caught flat-footed, due to a lack of vision on the part of leadership. They were, uh, focused elsewhere. Apple’s traditional data center network is not fit for generative AI. It will take years and billions of dollars to catch up just to where GenAI leaders (OpenAI, Microsoft, Alphabet, etc.) are today.
So, the only solution is to partner with a Google for the real GenAI stuff while pretending (marketing) really hard that some on-device AI Apple has whipped up in a few months is “insanely great Apple innovation” that’s at the heart of Apple’s 2024’s AI announcements when it’s really just an adjunct. Apple will tout their homegrown on-device AI and act like it’s powering everything when, in reality, it’s Google (or whichever is licensed) that’s powering most of it. Watch Apple make a big show of its on-device AI at WWDC and run many ads touting it from June onwards.
Apple hopes to buy time for the data center buildouts and investments that will be required for them to someday own their own AI technology and not have to license it from the likes of Google.
This is what happens after a decade plus with a caretaker CEO at the helm after he hits the last page of his iteration playbook, yet attempts to stay in the game for too long. – MacDailyNews, April 1, 2024
See also:
• Work on Apple Vision Pro began under Steve Jobs – August 23, 2023
• Contrary to popular belief, Steve Jobs knew about Apple Watch – February 13, 2023
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At this point, Apple making anything, with their current crop of people, would be a horror show. The spirit and products of Jobs are dead and buried, folks. Apple is now just another generic tech company. Google Glass 2.0 and robots are probably the best we can hope for. If it weren’t for Apple’s stance on user privacy, I’d have jumped ship long ago. If someone ever makes a viable alternative in that regard, I’m out. I have zero pride left in supporting this company, and I may pull my shares, I don’t give a toss about the stock performance when this is what we get. There are plenty of other things to invest in, and I doubt any of Apple’s gen z tik-tok fans own stock, and neither do their parents.
My largest single holding, the money in AAPL sure has the smell of death about it. The stock is back to where it was this time in 2022, MSFT is up 40% since then… It looks like they’ve shown all that they have to show this year outside of a lame Google AI partnership and baby-step updates to their iPads and iPhones. Any one else excited for a 0.1″ increase in the iPhone’s screen size? Me neither. Damn I wish I took some profits at $195.
Again with this tedious MDN take. Every other industry Apple has entered: MDN lauds them for not being first to market, for watching others make mistakes, for coming to market later with a more polished version that is more useful to more people. But with AI – whose recent emergence into popular imagination was a surprise to everyone, including Sam Altman, Ray Kurzweil and everyone else – MDN has decided that Apple had no clue, hasn’t been working on it, and even worse, they have fully embraced the FUD factory recurrent gem: that ingenuity at Apple was embodied solely in Steve Jobs and there has been none since. Nice work MDN, you have become a self-pwnd parody of yourself. 🙄
Actually, I think Apple should be exploring the potential in home robotics. The aging Boomers – of which I am one – will need robotic care options within 10 years or so. I don’t think the technology is fully there – yet. [Japan is pushing into robotics given its aging population.] Expecting ‘iphone’ size success of every new apple product is unrealistic. Apple has plenty of money for R&D. AI, robotics, and better chips research should be fully funded, IMO.
Just not as sheep, the real ones get offended.