Apple Thread - The most overrated technology brand?

[Least Concern]

Edit: They still didn't fix dialogs like this no longer having a secondary option triggered by pressing the space bar. Remember when, aside from Return "clicking" the highlighted button, there was also an outlined button ("Don't Save" in this case) that could be "clicked" with the space bar in dialogs like these, and you could use Tab to move it to a different button? It went sorely missing in Tahoe and it looks like that wasn't among the things they reverted in Golden Gate.

Maybe I'm the only person ITT who cares about this but just so nobody else has to correct me later, I stumbled across the setting that re-enables this. System Settings > Keyboard > Keyboard navigation. Not sure if it was there in Tahoe too and I just never found it before but at any rate I'm just happy it's back and I have to reach for my mouse a little less.

 

[Quence]

Is anyone concerned about Apple not really being fully invested in the AI model game? They’re certainly spending a lot less than their competitors on AI development, but could that harm them in the long run?

 

[Samuel Fuller]

Is anyone concerned about Apple not really being fully invested in the AI model game? They’re certainly spending a lot less than their competitors on AI development, but could that harm them in the long run?

They have a dedicated team working on it, so it’s more about developing something different than joining the hype train.

I’ll let them cook.

 

[Quence]

They have a dedicated team working on it, so it’s more about developing something different than joining the hype train.

But so far it’s not producing an AI that is of a quality that we typically expect from Apple.

I’ll let them cook.

Oh I like that pun! Tim Apple would be pleased with it.

 

[Samuel Fuller]

But so far it’s not producing an AI that is of a quality that we typically expect from Apple.

Hence why it is basically skunkworks at this point and Gemini is being used for AI features in some areas in Apple products

 

[Susanna]

Considering how little useful other ”AI integrated” operating systems have brought to the table so far, I’m not at all concerned. Once Microsoft or Samsung figure out how to turn Copilot and Bigby into something people can do something with, I’m sure Apple will copy them and add quality shortly.

 

[Least Concern]

Is anyone concerned about Apple not really being fully invested in the AI model game?

fuck no lol

 

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Considering how little useful other ”AI integrated” operating systems have brought to the table so far, I’m not at all concerned. Once Microsoft or Samsung figure out how to turn Copilot and Bigby into something people can do something with, I’m sure Apple will copy them and add quality shortly.

There is no point trying to chase the frontier in AI models. Google themselves are only just keeping up with the OpenAIs and Antropics which are sucking up massive amounts of capital in the hope that they can become a monopoly. The _useful_ work in AI enablement in any system is making it 'agentic'- adding ways that whatever commodity model you hook things up to can get data to act on safely, adding pathways that said commodity model can act in a way that hopefully doesn't delete all your files, etc. Those are basically just regular programming tasks that require a lot of common sense.

Other than that, I'm sure Apple (like Microsoft, like many more consumer focused companies) will be putting some money into research in quantizing (shrinking) AI models to be as usable as possible on end user devices while retaining quality. To some extent because that's the private and offline way to do things, but more because it will save them money spent paying for tokens.

 

[Quence]

Perhaps you’re all correct and Apple is just biding their time to see which AI model makes sense for their devices.

OTOH, is it possible that Apple is missing a huge opportunity? Remember when Microsoft completely blew it with smart phones and the associated operating systems?

 

[Vanilla Flavor]

I want to like Orion, but its improvements aren’t worth the massive speed reductions. Hopefully it can get the kinks worked out at some point.

I did some casual testing but forgot to share: Orion on iOS right now is about 1–2 seconds slower to load pages generally, though I did see it matching load times with Safari every once in a while. For me, the extra buttons and functions are worth the trade-off (as a former Firefox user, I have remarkably low standards). I think the June updates did bring a noticeable improvement in day to day tasks.

 

[Samuel Fuller]

Perhaps you’re all correct and Apple is just biding their time to see which AI model makes sense for their devices.

OTOH, is it possible that Apple is missing a huge opportunity? Remember when Microsoft completely blew it with smart phones and the associated operating systems?

If you don’t already know that Apple is a LOT smarter than Microsoft…

 

[Beavis]

Apple will probably end up buying OpenAI or Anthropic when the AI bubble bursts.

 

[HairyBadger]

Is anyone concerned about Apple not really being fully invested in the AI model game? They’re certainly spending a lot less than their competitors on AI development, but could that harm them in the long run?

I suspect they are quietly doing their own thing and playing the waiting game.

Hence why it is basically skunkworks at this point and Gemini is being used for AI features in some areas in Apple products

Considering how little useful other ”AI integrated” operating systems have brought to the table so far, I’m not at all concerned.

I'm not aware of anyone getting the integration near correct yet, let me know if you find one.

fuck no lol

The market is oversaturated at the moment. There is a bubble and it will burst at some point. Let them take the financial hit.

There is no point trying to chase the frontier in AI models.

My personal opinion is now that Apple Silicon is stupidly powerful that they are working to put as much model compute onto device and away from cloud that their focus may be on quantizing local AI and leaving cloud level for "serious" compute, how ever you want to define that.

Two birds - one stone strategy? Give joe public access to "make me a short video about cats" onto device, kicking the chair from under the subscription based cloud services while offering them back an olive branch with access to on-cloud based genome sequencing etc. I don't know, I know nothing about AI, I am very much in the "make me a cute cat video" territory.

 

[Quence]

If you don’t already know that Apple is a LOT smarter than Microsoft…

Apple’s certainly had better leadership at the top, but I will give MSFT credit for getting into the cloud computing game and making boatloads of money with Azure.

 

[Samuel Fuller]

Apple’s certainly had better leadership at the top, but I will give MSFT credit for getting into the cloud computing game and making boatloads of money with Azure.

They weren’t the first in that field, and they’re not the best by a longshot.


Typical Microsoft.

 

[HairyBadger]

Apple’s certainly had better leadership at the top, but I will give MSFT credit for getting into the cloud computing game and making boatloads of money with Azure.

If you don’t already know that Apple is a LOT smarter than Microsoft…

Microsoft are not stupid, they have made some 'odd' and bad decisions over the years, but I would not say Apple or any other company are smarter or not. It's swings and round-abouts.

 

[Samuel Fuller]

Microsoft are not stupid, they have made some 'odd' and bad decisions over the years, but I would not say Apple or any other company are smarter or not. It's swings and round-abouts.

Microsoft under Gates was evil and smart, but after he left they’ve just been stupid and coasting on the Windows/Office monopoly.

Look at fiascos like Zune, Windows Phone, the financial black hole that has always been Xbox, their constant pointless rebranding of everything but Windows and Office, and their brain drain-guaranteeing staffing policy, not to mention getting rid of everyone but the jeets.

 

[jultomten]

Perhaps you’re all correct and Apple is just biding their time to see which AI model makes sense for their devices.

OTOH, is it possible that Apple is missing a huge opportunity? Remember when Microsoft completely blew it with smart phones and the associated operating systems?

I don't see the point in worrying about some corporation missing out on an opportunity. Unless you hold stocks or employment.
Plenty of corporations completely fumbled huge opportunities and still exist today (Xerox) and so as a customer there really is nothing to worry about. Now granted this is a Apple fanaticism-ish thread so I can understand the sentimentality. But my honest opinion is that Apple died with Jobs.

Apple will probably end up buying OpenAI or Anthropic when the AI bubble bursts.

It really seems that those who have the most to gain are those that didn't go balls deep and will still have cash to burn when the dust settles. On a slightly more thread original note, I think the AI race can be likened to a bicycle race. It's easier to catch up than to build up a huge lead. So I wouldn't discount Apple just because they're not b-lining for a frontier model.

 

[Samuel Fuller]

I don't see the point in worrying about some corporation missing out on an opportunity. Unless you hold stocks or employment.
Plenty of corporations completely fumbled huge opportunities and still exist today (Xerox) and so as a customer there really is nothing to worry about. Now granted this is a Apple fanaticism-ish thread so I can understand the sentimentality. But my honest opinion is that Apple died with Jobs.


It really seems that those who have the most to gain are those that didn't go balls deep and will still have cash to burn when the dust settles. On a slightly more thread original note, I think the AI race can be likened to a bicycle race. It's easier to catch up than to build up a huge lead. So I wouldn't discount Apple just because they're not b-lining for a frontier model.

*bee-lining

 

[Sausage King]

It'd cost billions of dollars to farm datacenters that could serve every Apple device user, plus the developer resources to actually make an LLM model that competes. Or, what they went with, is to pay billions of dollars to rent Gemini. Local models will not be able to compete with LLMs for the foreseeable future, and the future of AI changes from week to week.

From a management standpoint, it makes sense to me. Let the other companies deal with that frontier, and keep Apple's focus on long-lasting hardware and software. In a few years, or if the AI rat race ever settles down, it might make more sense to do their own thing.

I hope that one day, these powerful machines on our desks or in our pockets can make the fancy cat videos or refactor an entire codebase as good as the LLMs. I feel like Apple is in a great position to have the best hardware for when that day comes, as they've shifted in the past 10 years to bet so heavily on Silicon being as good as it is. But we're not there yet, in 2026.

I think of it like computing in the 1970s: The norm was to just use a terminal machine that connects to a mainframe where the real horsepower lived, because a "personal computer" was too pathetic to compete. We're living in that state right now where everyone connects to a mainframe LLM, but the long-term vision should be that everyone's device can do that processing itself.