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Did Apple Intelligence Flop?

Did Apple Intelligence Flop?

it's not what Apple hoped.

Brandon Butch
December 20, 2024 • 📖 Read time: 10 minutes

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Welcome back! 🍎
Here’s the latest with Apple.

Is Apple Intelligence a failure?
Apple’s folding iPad is coming
& more!

📊 Poll

Last week, we asked: Would you buy a cellular MacBook?

Here were my favorite replies:

Yes - “I love traveling, but what stops me is work, and there’s only so much a personal hotspot on your phone or iPad can do, especially if you do a lot of intense work, you should have a Mac with cellular. Microsoft Teams won’t work unless you have Wi-Fi. With cellular, you would not need a personal hotspot on your phone to make Teams or Outlook work. It’s much better if they at least have an option since a lot of people that travel but need to work at the same time would really benefit from this.”

No - “The main reason a cellular network is necessary on phones is if you’re out and about and using it, but you never do this with laptops (like come on, have you ever seen someone walking down the street with their laptop in hand, using it while walking?). The main places people use their laptops (including me) are at home, work, and some other places such as coffee shops and airports, where there’s always a WiFi network available, so no, I would not buy a cellular MacBook, as that would be completely unnecessary for me.”

This week: Are you impressed with Apple Intelligence so far? Why? More on this below.

Are you impressed with Apple Intelligence so far?

🗞️ The Latest

🧠 Did Apple Intelligence Flop?

Apple

Apple Intelligence launched in October and it was supposed to be a big deal for Apple. But now, a couple of months later, a new study reveals that most people are not finding it useful.

The study found that 47% of iPhone users consider AI features key when choosing a new phone. However, 73% of them report finding “little to no value” in Apple Intelligence (so far).
Writing Tools (72%) and Notification Summaries (54%) were unsurprisingly the most popular features. Those were followed by Priority Messages (44%) and Clean Up (29%).
Roughly 1 in 6 iPhone users (16.8%) said they would consider switching to Samsung if they offered better AI features.
Meanwhile, the study also found that a whopping 87% of Samsung users say AI features add little to no value. So this is not just an Apple thing.

Criticism Over AI-Generated News Headline

BBC

The BBC has complained to Apple after the “summarize notifications” feature generated a false headline about a high-profile murder case.
The screenshot shows that 22 BBC notifications were summarized and the first line reads: “Luigi Mangione shoots himself.” That, of course, did not happen.
After this incident, the RSF is arguing that these summaries illustrate that "generative AI services are still too immature to produce reliable information for the public, and should not be allowed on the market for such uses.”
By the way, this is not an isolated incident. Over the past few months, I’ve come across numerous social media posts highlighting similar instances of inaccurate summaries.

But isn’t this normal?

Another ‘misleading’ summary

Here’s the reality: AI, whether from Apple, OpenAI, Google, or any other LLM, will never be 100% accurate.
Apple Intelligence is still in Beta, and the settings for the ‘Summarize Notifications’ feature says: “Summary accuracy may vary based on content.”
Yet, despite these facts, many users are surprised and disappointed when inaccuracies or hallucinations occur.
This may also stem from a misunderstanding of how the feature is meant to be used. For instance, I never treat the summaries as “facts.” Instead, I use them to get a general sense of what the notifications are about before tapping to view the full notification text.

It’s still early

I hate to say it, but the best part of Apple Intelligence (so far) is the ChatGPT extension in iOS 18.2.
That opinion could change come April, since Apple will be releasing the upgraded Siri with App Intents in iOS 18.4.
After that, Apple is planning to launch several new Apple Intelligence features in iOS 19, including a new ChatGPT-like LLM for Siri.
Apple Intelligence is still in its infancy and will likely keep the “Beta” tag for at least another year or two.

My take: We’re only on round 1 of Apple Intelligence, so I don’t think it’s realistic to call such an elaborate software operation a failure after just a few months.

While I don’t love every new Apple Intelligence feature, I do find myself using Writing Tools, ChatGPT, and Notification Summaries daily.

I’m excited for the future and for everyone to become more familiar with AI as a whole.

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🍎 Apple’s Foldable Future is Near

MacRumors

It looks like Apple could be launching a massive foldable tablet in the near future! Here’s the latest.

Apple is working on a "giant" foldable iPad that unfolds into the size of two iPad Pros side-by-side.
How giant? ~20 inches!
Apple’s goal for a foldable device is to avoid the crease that runs through the middle of the screen when the device is opened up.
They also want the screen to look like a “single, uninterrupted piece of glass.”
It’s expected to be released around 2028.
This foldable iPad is expected to run iPadOS. But by 2028, Gurman expects iPadOS to be advanced enough to run macOS apps.

What about a foldable iPhone?

WSJ just reported that Apple is planning to release a foldable iPhone in 2026-2027.
It’s rumored to feature an inward-facing display larger than the 6.9-inch iPhone 16 Pro Max.
They also report that Apple will eventually release a large, 19-inch MacBook with a foldable screen.

My take: As someone who is not a fan of foldables, I’m excited to see if Apple can change my mind on the concept. If Apple can completely eliminate the crease down the middle of the screen, that will be huge and it will turn many of the naysayers into believers. I don’t expect any Apple-branded foldable to be cheap, though.

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