00:00:00
- Giant company is late to
massive technological shift,
00:00:03
fails to adapt, falls behind
and never recovers, dies.
00:00:08
That is a tale as old as time
and it does repeat itself.
00:00:11
Now, Apple is the biggest
tech company in the world.
00:00:14
They're worth $3 trillion.
00:00:16
They have more cash on hand
than anyone can ever spend.
00:00:19
They are extremely
successful in many categories
00:00:22
and they've taken down
00:00:23
many other tech companies along the way.
00:00:25
But now, the year is 2025
00:00:27
and between missed deadlines
and deleted commercials,
00:00:31
it seems like even they
are having some troubles
00:00:32
with an emerging technology
and is fascinating to watch.
00:00:38
(gentle music)
00:00:42
So artificial intelligence,
00:00:44
you guys don't need me to say it.
00:00:45
You already know.
00:00:46
The explosion of consumer AI
00:00:48
in the past couple years has been nuts.
00:00:51
How many times have you heard
00:00:52
those two letters next to each other?
00:00:53
So suddenly, everyone for
the past 2, 3, 4 years
00:00:55
has been talking a lot more about AI,
00:00:58
and two years doesn't even
really sound like that long.
00:01:00
But tech moves fast. Remember Skype?
00:01:03
Remember how Skype was like the default
00:01:05
for online video calling?
00:01:06
And then the pandemic happened in 2020.
00:01:08
And then, like, two years
later, everyone used Zoom.
00:01:12
How did they blow that? Like,
that's how fast tech moves.
00:01:15
Now, Apple is a lot bigger than Skype was,
00:01:19
but none of these companies are immune.
00:01:20
Like, every one of these
big public tech companies,
00:01:23
all these companies are beholden
00:01:24
to making as much money as possible.
00:01:26
They have shareholders,
they have investors.
00:01:29
And if they don't think you're
doing everything you can
00:01:31
to grow as much as possible,
they're not gonna be happy.
00:01:34
So when a certain ChatGPT comes along
00:01:36
and gets a hundred million
users in two months
00:01:38
and seems to prove that AI is
definitely the next frontier
00:01:42
of consumer technology, well,
then you start seeing a lot
00:01:45
of tech companies suddenly
talking a lot more about AI.
00:01:49
(mellow music)
00:01:54
So now you're Apple,
00:01:56
and this is all happening,
all eyes are on you.
00:01:59
There's a lot of pressure to
show some sort of AI something.
00:02:03
Now there is some conventional
wisdom that would say,
00:02:04
"Hey Apple, take a
second, sit back, relax,
00:02:08
do your typical second mover thing.
00:02:10
You don't have to rush this."
00:02:11
Because there are a lot of examples
00:02:12
where Apple's not necessarily
first to something.
00:02:15
They sort of sit back
00:02:16
and let someone else do the working on it,
00:02:18
and the maturing of
the technology happens,
00:02:20
and then they jump in and
implement it their own way.
00:02:24
So they were not first to
do OLEDs in their phones.
00:02:27
They were not first to
do wireless earbuds.
00:02:30
They were not first to make a tablet.
00:02:32
The iPhone itself is a perfect example.
00:02:33
There were so many other
smartphones before the iPhone,
00:02:36
but they just executed on it
00:02:38
in a way that differentiated them so well
00:02:40
that people wanted theirs.
00:02:42
The thing is this second mover strategy
00:02:45
is very much a hardware strategy,
00:02:47
at least it typically has been.
00:02:48
And this AI thing is different.
00:02:51
It is very much just been
these companies iterating
00:02:54
as fast as possible
00:02:55
and just moving and trying to
implement as much as they can
00:02:58
with these little on-device models
00:03:00
to give people whatever useful features
00:03:02
they can come up with and
just throw 'em out there.
00:03:04
So on a Google device, that
looks like Circle to Search
00:03:08
and Gemini assistant and Gemini Live
00:03:11
and the Add Me camera feature
00:03:12
that lets you take two pictures
00:03:14
and fuse them together to get
everyone in the group shot,
00:03:17
stuff like that.
00:03:18
On a Samsung device, that's Galaxy AI.
00:03:20
You know, they have things, like,
00:03:22
that really impressive object removal.
00:03:24
On a Windows 11 computer,
that's gonna look like Copilot,
00:03:27
you know, adding an AI
editor into Microsoft Paint,
00:03:30
stuff like that.
00:03:31
Now certainly, not all of
this has gone super smoothly.
00:03:34
There's been plenty of
weird rocky launches
00:03:36
with companies like the
Recall feature from Windows,
00:03:39
got some backlash and people didn't love,
00:03:41
lots of stuff, has not been ideal.
00:03:43
There have even been whole startups
00:03:45
that were born and died
00:03:47
just trying to jump on the AI
bandwagon as best they can.
00:03:51
But at this point, basically,
every big tech company
00:03:54
has something that they
do that they can point at
00:03:57
and be like, "All right,
look. See, we do AI.
00:04:00
You can see we're being
useful to our customers,
00:04:01
so you investors can relax.
00:04:04
We're on the forefront of it now."
00:04:05
So then, what does Apple do?
00:04:08
Well, same idea, right?
00:04:09
At WWDC 2024, they announced
Apple Intelligence,
00:04:13
which again is, you know,
just a branding umbrella term
00:04:16
for all the AI stuff they're gonna do
00:04:17
across iPhones and iPads and Macs,
00:04:20
things that involve
using generative models
00:04:23
and large language models.
00:04:24
On the surface, it's kind
of along the same lines,
00:04:27
a couple silly features here and there,
00:04:30
Genmoji, Image Playground
00:04:32
to just generate random cartoonish images.
00:04:35
But there have also
been some useful things,
00:04:37
like Writing Tools and
ChatGPT integration.
00:04:41
And then big promises
of significant upgrades
00:04:44
to make Siri actually good
00:04:46
'cause it's been lagging
behind and bad for years.
00:04:49
So on the surface, you
know, feels right in line
00:04:50
with a lot of these other
companies are doing.
00:04:52
A lot of it, kind of
silly and easy to ignore,
00:04:55
especially if you're not an investor,
00:04:56
but some of it, potentially really cool.
00:04:59
I know I for one would
like Siri to be decent.
00:05:03
(upbeat music)
00:05:07
So I remember being there
at WWDC in the summer
00:05:10
when they announced Apple Intelligence
00:05:12
and thinking, "Oh okay, great.
00:05:14
I would like to review this thing
00:05:16
when it all finally comes out."
00:05:18
So a couple months go by,
September rolls around,
00:05:20
the iPhone 16 launches,
00:05:22
and it's built from the ground
up for Apple Intelligence.
00:05:25
And so it has iOS 18,
00:05:27
but it doesn't have any
Apple Intelligence features
00:05:30
at launch at all, like
literally none of it.
00:05:34
It's all still pending
with software updates.
00:05:36
Oh okay, but at least, you know,
00:05:40
there's some betas coming
up in the pipeline.
00:05:42
So a few weeks later, iOS 18.1 comes out,
00:05:44
and then it's got some of the features.
00:05:46
It's got Writing Tools,
notification summaries,
00:05:50
so it's starting to have
some stuff that I can test,
00:05:53
but it is missing a lot
of the bigger stuff.
00:05:55
And also, notification summaries
00:05:57
kind of turned out to be
not that great all the time.
00:05:59
A few more weeks go by, and
then iOS 18.2 drops in beta
00:06:03
and they added Genmoji
and Image Playground.
00:06:09
It also added that ability
00:06:10
to kick out more complex
queries to ChatGPT.
00:06:13
So I mean, okay, it's
progress and I'm glad it works
00:06:16
and people can generate
cartoon images on their phone,
00:06:19
but, like, is that really the
core of Apple Intelligence?
00:06:22
Have we really seen that yet?
00:06:23
I'm still thinking, no,
I'm gonna keep waiting.
00:06:25
I'm not reviewing Apple Intelligence yet.
00:06:27
So a few more weeks
later, we get iOS 18.3.
00:06:33
At this point, we're months away
00:06:34
from the original iPhone launching
00:06:36
built for Apple Intelligence,
00:06:37
but this time, they flipped the switch
00:06:39
on visual intelligence,
00:06:40
which I think is the first
genuinely really useful,
00:06:42
interesting thing using the camera feed
00:06:45
to answer questions about your environment
00:06:47
or add an event to your
calendar from a poster,
00:06:50
things like that,
00:06:51
but it also did disable
notification summaries
00:06:54
for news and entertainment apps
00:06:55
because of all the mistakes it was making.
00:06:57
But there is still no improved Siri.
00:07:00
This new Siri was supposed to have
00:07:01
all this great stuff
like onscreen awareness
00:07:03
and being more conversational
00:07:04
and having more in-app controls,
00:07:07
but none of that is launched,
00:07:08
and at this point, I just
don't know when it's coming.
00:07:10
So I eventually just did a review
00:07:13
of all of the Apple Intelligence features
00:07:15
that are out so far
00:07:17
'cause I don't know when
the rest are coming,
00:07:19
and I thought that would be helpful,
00:07:20
but at the same time, it's frustrating
00:07:21
because they promised so much, and yet.
00:07:25
(gentle music)
00:07:31
So this is where it gets kind of weird.
00:07:34
Not to get too existential,
but this job that I do,
00:07:37
that we do, these tech
YouTubers and tech journalists,
00:07:39
things like that, you can
kind of boil it all down
00:07:42
to just going around and just
doing endless tech demos.
00:07:47
Like, we just go from
tech demo to tech demo,
00:07:50
and it's other people's
jobs professionally
00:07:52
to give us cool tech demos,
00:07:55
and then we can point a camera
at it or write an article.
00:07:57
And then our job is to,
one, decide if the thing
00:08:01
that they're demoing
is a good idea or not.
00:08:03
But then, two, to try to understand
00:08:07
how real that tech demo actually was.
00:08:10
That's really what it is.
00:08:11
It's just cool tech demos left and right.
00:08:13
So, like, a new product might
come out and get announced
00:08:15
and they show it to us and
they're like, "Check this out."
00:08:18
And part one again is, okay,
00:08:20
are these new features in this
thing actually a good idea?
00:08:23
Would people want that?
00:08:24
And then part two is to
try to listen to the words
00:08:28
coming out of their mouth
and look at what's happening
00:08:31
and understand, is this
tech demo real or staged
00:08:37
or completely fake or
somewhere in between?
00:08:39
So then Apple, you know,
00:08:41
I would say is typically,
they do a pretty good job,
00:08:43
like in the spectrum of
how crazy things can get,
00:08:45
like they're pretty
realistic about things,
00:08:47
like the new iPhone comes out on stage
00:08:49
and then they shepherd
everyone to this hands-on area.
00:08:52
And then we get to point a
camera at and demo our own hands
00:08:56
a lot of the new features
that they just announced.
00:08:57
So in general, pretty good,
but it's not always perfect.
00:09:01
Fun fact, I don't know how
many of you remember AirPower,
00:09:05
but that was one of those things
00:09:06
where I remember that event.
00:09:08
They showed it off on stage, whatever,
00:09:09
and then we go out to the hands-on area,
00:09:11
and there was this single
AirPower out there,
00:09:13
just one wireless charging pad
00:09:15
among all the chaos, but it didn't work.
00:09:18
So you could put your phone on it
00:09:19
and pretend it charges, but it didn't.
00:09:22
And maybe that should have
been a red flag right there,
00:09:24
because, of course, as we
know, AirPower never came out.
00:09:27
I think Tesla's robots
00:09:28
are another pretty
recent, like, famous one.
00:09:29
We all remember that
show that they put on.
00:09:31
They had those humanoid robots
walking around their event,
00:09:34
interacting with people.
00:09:35
Tesla would never confirm
00:09:37
or tell people exactly what
was going on behind the scenes
00:09:40
to make that all possible, but
there were plenty of theories
00:09:43
about them being remote-operated
or human-controlled.
00:09:47
Anyway, Apple Intelligence
is one of those things
00:09:49
where they have had this
slow continuous rollout
00:09:52
where the most interesting
00:09:53
and possibly most important things
00:09:55
are at the end of the rollout,
but there's no timetable.
00:09:58
They're just kind of coming at some point.
00:10:01
And Apple's never demoed them for us.
00:10:05
It's really interesting.
00:10:06
John Gruber pointed this out
in his piece a little while ago
00:10:09
that this could be an even
more glowing bright red flag.
00:10:14
Apple has never shown these
features working to anyone.
00:10:17
And, I mean, you'd think if
they could demo it to a reporter
00:10:20
or YouTuber or something
that they totally would,
00:10:22
they'd love to show it's almost done,
00:10:23
just, "Here's how cool
it is," but they haven't.
00:10:25
And the fact that they haven't even gotten
00:10:27
to the cool tech demo part yet
00:10:31
kind of makes it feel like
this is a lot farther away
00:10:34
than we think it is.
00:10:35
Now, all of this is true at the same time
00:10:37
that Apple is literally running
commercials and billboards
00:10:42
and plastering Apple Intelligence
all over their website
00:10:46
and every announcement, they
talk about it all the time
00:10:48
to the point that you'd assume
it's like the most important
00:10:50
new feature of their devices.
00:10:52
They even had to delete a commercial
00:10:54
that they made and published.
00:10:56
They had to take it back
00:10:57
because it was literally just
advertising a new feature
00:10:59
of this big Siri update
that doesn't exist yet.
00:11:02
It's like looking into your phone
00:11:04
and using context to tell you something.
00:11:06
That straight up didn't work.
00:11:09
- Siri, what's the name of
the guy I had a meeting with
00:11:11
a couple of months ago at Cafe Grenel?
00:11:13
- [Siri] You met Zac
Wingate at Cafe Grenel.
00:11:18
- Hey.
- Zac.
00:11:19
- Oh, I didn't think
that you'd remember me.
00:11:20
- Yeah, of course.
00:11:21
Since I saw you, I'm like, it's Zac.
00:11:23
Nobody walks like Zac.
(Zac laughs)
00:11:25
♪ I am genius ♪
00:11:28
- You know, I think it would be cool
00:11:29
if Siri actually could
look into your phone,
00:11:33
into your apps and calendar
00:11:34
and actually tell you things
about it, but it can't.
00:11:38
And we've never seen a demo of this
00:11:40
outside of this commercial
or Apple's official videos.
00:11:43
So yeah, this disconnect
00:11:44
between how successful Apple
would like us to believe
00:11:48
that they are with AI
00:11:49
and how poorly and delayed
things are actually going,
00:11:52
that is the crisis on
Apple's hands right now.
00:11:55
It's fascinating to watch.
00:11:57
And, you know, it's totally
fine to delay products,
00:12:00
like, that happens all the
time, it's actually very normal.
00:12:03
But just with AI, with
how immediate it feels,
00:12:07
with it being this paradigm
shift of technology
00:12:10
and all of their
competitors shipping things,
00:12:12
it feels like things
are moving very quickly.
00:12:14
So that's how you end up
00:12:16
with apparently internal
meetings and reorganization
00:12:18
and people inside of Apple
calling it embarrassing.
00:12:21
To people paying close attention to Apple,
00:12:24
I think Apple Intelligence
has, from the beginning,
00:12:25
kind of always felt more like a nice thing
00:12:29
to please investors
00:12:30
more than an actually useful
revolutionary set of products
00:12:33
that regular people are gonna love.
00:12:35
But now that it's so delayed
00:12:36
and the disconnect is so obvious,
00:12:38
it's never been more apparent.
00:12:41
(upbeat music)
00:12:45
Remember Nokia?
00:12:47
They were huge,
00:12:49
and then they kind of just
completely missed the jump
00:12:52
to smartphones, and now, we
don't think about Nokia anymore.
00:12:56
I'm sure you remember BlackBerry.
00:12:57
they were also once thought
of as way too big to fail,
00:13:01
and then virtual keyboards came along
00:13:03
and BlackBerry just
continued making phones
00:13:05
with physical keyboards,
00:13:07
and then everybody just moved along,
00:13:09
and now, we don't talk
about BlackBerry anymore.
00:13:11
There's countless examples
of huge tech companies.
00:13:15
We thought they were way too big to fail,
00:13:16
but then they failed to adapt in some way
00:13:18
to the changing tides of technology,
00:13:21
something happens, and
then they're just gone
00:13:24
and we don't know what happened to 'em.
00:13:25
And so there's no way to
tell the future on this one.
00:13:30
Maybe everything's fine.
00:13:31
Maybe Apple ships the
new Siri in two months
00:13:33
and it does everything
they said and it's great
00:13:35
and we just forget any
delay ever even happened.
00:13:37
But there's three things
that have been on my mind
00:13:39
that kind of make that feel unlikely.
00:13:43
So number one is just that AI
00:13:46
is just not at the core of
Apple's business right now.
00:13:49
And if you're just looking at it
00:13:50
from a business perspective,
00:13:51
they make a ton of money selling hardware,
00:13:54
selling the services
00:13:55
and the things attached to that hardware,
00:13:57
and they will continue to
make tons of money iterating
00:13:59
and doing all that like they usually do.
00:14:02
Financially, they'll probably be fine.
00:14:03
Like, it's kinda hard
to draw a straight line
00:14:05
from Apple Intelligence is successful
00:14:07
to Apple making way more money,
00:14:09
especially when they're such
00:14:10
a privacy-focused company as well,
00:14:12
like a lot of these features
00:14:13
don't go hand in hand with that.
00:14:14
But then, two, their usual advantages
00:14:19
don't really work here as
much as they usually do.
00:14:24
So like, the second mover advantage thing
00:14:25
that I talked about earlier,
00:14:27
like that's typically a
hardware technologies thing.
00:14:30
And so AI being software,
00:14:31
with software, Apple's usually able
00:14:33
to just rely on their massive,
00:14:35
enthusiastic army of developers
00:14:39
to support things and give it a kickstart
00:14:41
and get it off the ground
to get people using it.
00:14:44
And with this, it's kind of the opposite.
00:14:47
I don't think they're interested in this.
00:14:48
Like, just think if I'm Uber,
if I'm developer for Uber
00:14:52
and this new Siri is supposed to be able
00:14:55
to reach into my app
and perform an action,
00:14:59
like calling a car, so the user just goes,
00:15:00
"Hey Siri, call me an
Uber to the airport,"
00:15:03
and then it does it without
ever opening my app?
00:15:09
I don't actually like that very much.
00:15:10
That gives me less control.
00:15:12
I don't get to do as much
with that experience,
00:15:14
even though it would be
really cool for the end user.
00:15:17
But then number three,
just the lack of demos
00:15:20
is like really, it's
actually very hard to ignore
00:15:22
just from someone who's seen so many.
00:15:25
Remember the Bixby speaker?
00:15:27
Like all those years
ago at a Samsung event,
00:15:29
they announced, the Galaxy
Speaker is what it was called.
00:15:32
It looked like this little
mini barbecue grill.
00:15:34
And in person, we all go to this event,
00:15:36
and then we go down to the hands-on area
00:15:37
and they had a bunch of them
on display and they were lit up
00:15:40
and nobody could actually
touch them or use them.
00:15:44
And then I think we maybe
saw them one more time
00:15:46
at a display at CES, but then
we just never saw them again.
00:15:49
Samsung canceled it. They
never shipped the thing.
00:15:52
I don't think Apple wants
to pull a Bixby speaker
00:15:57
or an AirPower with this thing.
00:15:59
Like, Apple Intelligence
has gotten so much PR
00:16:01
and it's clearly so important to them
00:16:02
that it just feels like it's
gotta get there eventually.
00:16:06
It's gotta be frustrating for
them to not have the ability
00:16:08
to show it off or ship anything yet,
00:16:10
but it would be pretty
cool if Siri was good.
00:16:14
But we'll very much just
still have to wait and see.
00:16:17
There's still Apple.
00:16:18
They're still just gonna
keep shipping new computers,
00:16:21
tablets, software,
phones, the whole thing,
00:16:23
and they will continue to
iterate on other stuff,
00:16:25
but this is just something
to be keeping our eye on
00:16:27
for the future, especially
as this whole AI thing
00:16:31
continues to ramp up
00:16:33
and as they continue to
put billboards out there.
00:16:36
Share this video with someone
who needs the explanation.
00:16:38
Thanks for watching. Catch
you guys to the next one.
00:16:41
Peace.
00:16:42
(gentle music)
