This past Thursday, Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook held a companywide meeting where he discussed, among other things, artificial intelligence. He largely reiterated remarks he made during an all-hands meeting last year — “without giving a grand vision for how the company will compete in this space,” Mark Gurman reports for Bloomberg News. As part of the discussion, Cook touted the recent acquisition of Q.ai, an Israel startup with technology for interpreting facial movements.
Mark Gurman for Bloomberg News:
[Cook’s remarks]: AI is one of the most profound opportunities of our entire lifetime. I truly believe there is no company better positioned to let our customers use AI in profound and meaningful ways than Apple. We are embedding it across all our products and services. We have the best silicon, best software and best products. And with over 2.5 billion active devices, we unquestionably have a huge advantage in the space. We are excited more and more people are using the power of Apple Intelligence. One of the most popular features is Visual Intelligence. We are launching a more personalized Siri this year. Our software teams have been working incredibly hard on that, and I’m very excited about the progress they’re making. We’re making huge investments in the space. We are all in. We are excited to welcome Q.ai to Apple.
MacDailyNews Take: Cook’s empty CYA attempts are fruitless.
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I hope this turns out better than the Apple Car. But I’m not hopeful.
He doesn’t know how uninspiring he sounds. “We have the best silicon, best software and best products.” So what? You don’t have the best AI. You don’t even have your own AI, which creating your own devices and services was what Jobs was all about. Develop your own even if you need to buy out another company to do it. Apple does have the money to do it, just not the vision.
Meanwhile, Siri is remains mostly an idiot and GOOG gets a big hug, with likely troves of info that prostitutes Apple’s consumer base.
On the other hand–while I’m deeply repelled by the GOOG covenant, I’ve started to embrace the possibility that AAPL’s position, with one of the largest and most committed networks on the planet, could fare quite well with the AI push. 1st, AAPL isn’t being pinched like the big LLM players as they try to monetize their efforts.
2nd; in my dream World–perhaps Tim’s replacement could increase likelihood–AAPL’s devices could be like Levis in the Gold Rush’s money making…benefitting from the AI dev flurry, as they build mechanical/digital things that propel the indi & World? It could be brilliant.
Obviously, Tim’s weakness as a product guy–if he remains much longer– and the vast talent leakage of recent times could portend continued iterational “progress” while leaps/bounds happen on AAPL’s periphery?
Credit to Tim; he’s built quite the bank to propel AAPL into the next realm…AND this is a perfect time for him to hit the beach.
Right. All in, so you fire everybody you were dumb enough to hire that had anything to do with AI.
Tim Apple, leave the company®