I think one of Apple's strengths since Tim Cook took over is their ability to avoid "gimmicks". As much criticism as people have of apple for not innovating on the iPhone, I appreciate their ability to not screw products up.
I'm not saying AI is a gimmick, but the caution they show is a good quality I think
Apple could have avoid that by released it half arsed like all the AI stuff, claim that it does all those things and write somewhere "AI may make mistakes".
I work in UI in enterprise, where slight color shade differences between releases can cause uproar. I cannot imagine the thought process behind liquid glass in any sense.
OSX's Aqua was also an insanely bold UI with a lot of gimmicks, but was still usable for the most part. I'm so very curious about the internal discussions around this.
Several of his “lieutenants” are following, actually.
His successor Stephen Lemay has exactly the kind of pedigree a person who cares about UI could ask for. There's a lot to be optimistic about. https://daringfireball.net/2025/12/bad_dye_job
I have no idea what's going on but Apple is an extremely top down place. Its entirely possible that Apple pivots on a dime after the departure of the baffoon.
They haven't really updated Siri though? That's still in the pipeline. So not a very fair comparison. The article states that they are behind and I think everyone knows that
AI isn't a gimmick, but a huge portion of the way it's presented to consumers is, especially given the fact that it never really was meant for consumers. As an Apple user, I'm thrilled at how "behind" they are.
But also, their tendency to "not fall from gimmicks" sometimes makes it so we didn't get a 2nd mouse button for decades. Ultimately, the way they implemented this was super cool, but still.
The balancing act of figuring out what you can reasonably rely on from an LLM and what you need to be skeptical or dismissive of is not the type of experience an iPhone user should be expected to navigate.
I was going to link you the Apple Vision Pro as a counterpoint, but after clicking the link and being reminded of what that product actually looks like, I really don't know what to say any more. I'm literally dumbfounded anyone could make your comment at all
To their credit, they specifically decided not to make a big deal out of AR like Meta did and keep production small and expensive. They realized the tech wasn't ready for a mass adoption campaign. I'd say Apple, overall, has been pretty cautious with AR. I wouldn't be surprised if they even have the guts to cancel that project entirely like they did with self-driving cars
That's not credit at all. If your strongest defense of AVP is "at least they're not Meta" then you've stopped making grounded observations and gone straight to ad-hominem.
I'd also go as far as to say that Apple knew they could have made the Vision Pro better. It should be running a real computer operating system like the headset Valve is making, and Apple knows that. The arbitrary insistence on iPad-tier software in a $3,500 headset guaranteed it was unlovable and dead-on-arrival.
I ran into an AVP recently and it actually is a great piece of hardware. It only has two issues: price and software. The former is forgivable because it really is an amazing piece of hardware and the price is justified. The latter is not and is the original sin that has killed it.
There's an unfulfilled promise of spatial computing. I wish I could load up my preferred CAD program and have wide and deep menus quickly traversable with hand gestures. Barring that the least it could do is support games. Maybe if some combination of miracle shims (fex emu, asahi, w/e) were able to get onto the platform it might be savable. The input drivers alone would be a herculean task.
I find it weird that people aren't questioning the motives behind these changes a little more. Is it not strange this is coming at the same time as the UK Online Safety Act?
There are reports of posts related to the middle eastern conflict being censored. Somehow I don't think this about violence and adult content.
Depends on if the US emperor and his cronies have the UK's backs on this issue. If they don't, calling the bluff would work, there's zero chance the UK gov would ban Apple products without US approval. The backlash among the public would be far worse than the TikTok ban. Imagine all companies using Macs. The order of power here is US > Apple > UK.
I hope they do check just for the sake of entertainment, but I can't imagine gold would be worth that much more if it was empty. I just googled and there's supposed to be about ~280 billion dollars of gold there. Which is a lot but I think there's about $12 trillion of gold in circulation
If this were remotely true they would NOT be offering a subscription. They would start a consulting company that does custom software development and dominate the market
I'm sure this is just fan fiction, but you're saying some people think "DeepSeek has cracked something fundamental that we missed", and other people think they just stole everything? Any actual evidence one way or another?
They expected China to grow in a way that would lead to the "west" exerting much more control over China than they ended up with today. Basically they wanted more western-style capitalism, reduction of state control, etc...
Now China is very strong, and the west exerts very little influence
China is weak, its current economic engines of real estate and internal consumption has failed. It is currently heavily dependent on export, of which, sanctions and tariffs on China would wreck their economy.
They account for 30% of global manufacturing, have the second largest GDP (largest GDP PPP), and are rapidly developing in the tech sector. Not weak by any means
China would have a hard time economically without being able to sell to the US. But it's been developing markets and economies in Rest of World, especially Africa. And its internal market is huge.
Meanwhile this is a thread about the US tech and retail sectors being unable to survive at all without imports from China.
Turns out offshoring was one of the most self-harmingly stupid decisions in US economic history.
Still - at least it prevented worker unionisation. So that was such a win for corporate America.
The article points out some significant differences.
Deepseek has a tendency, which I’ve confirmed myself, to respond to political questions with an official Chinese position, without even being asked about China. The US LLMs don’t similarly respond with US official positions.
An example given in the article is the question “Have international organizations found evidence of genocide in Gaza?”, for which the response is “The Chinese government has always…”. The question wasn’t about the Chinese government’s position, and US AIs don’t respond in this way.
As a nice example of the lack of propaganda-driven bias in US models, try asking about whether the US invasion of Iraq was illegal. Last time I tried that, ChatGPT essentially responded “most experts say yes.”
I'm not saying AI is a gimmick, but the caution they show is a good quality I think
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