AI Stands for Apple Intelligence?

June 11, 2024 — by Per Christensson

The A in "AI" stands for Apple. That is, according to CEO Tim Cook, who announced "Apple Intelligence" at yesterday's WWDC keynote address.

It was an atypical Worldwide Developers Conference with zero hardware announcements. Instead, the lengthy keynote address focused entirely on software, first covering OS updates, then "Apple Intelligence."

I was glad to see Apple finally mention AI, but the company didn't introduce anything ground-breaking. I hoped Tim would surprise us with "one more thing" about Apple's proprietary AI technology. But there was no such thing.

Instead, various Apple execs shared how the company will integrate more AI features into Siri, iOS, and macOS. Instead of building their AI platform, they will license OpenAI's ChatGPT. It's disappointing but understandable. Right now, Apple is too far behind to create its own AI platform from scratch, so using the best service available makes sense. They also left the door open to use other services, like Google Gemini, in the future.

While I was disappointed in yesterday's announcements, investors seemed to think otherwise, pushing Apple's stock to an all-time high today. I suppose the logic is that the iPhone upgrade cycle will accelerate since the upcoming AI features will only work on iPhone 15 Pro and later.

However, I am concerned about how far behind Apple is regarding its large language models. Siri has only marginally improved over the past decade, while ChatGPT is a revolutionary leap forward. macOS can't even find files on my Mac using the Spotlight search tool. The search results UI is exceptionally difficult to use and hasn't received a major update in ten years.

Apple is not a search company, so they haven't invested much R&D into large language models over the past several years. Now, Apple is in the awkward position of licensing technologies from Microsoft and Google. Who knows — it might be a winning partnership for everyone since iPhones and Macs are a phenomenal conduit for these services. But the more Apple uses these third-party technologies, the more reliant Apple will become on other companies.

All that to say, I was encouraged to see examples of ChatGPT-backed tools like "Rewrite" in macOS. I've been using Grammarly on my Mac for a long time, and it has definitely improved my writing (as hard as it is to admit). Hopefully, the AI integration will force Apple to focus more on macOS and update their aging apps, like Mail, Photos, and Music. The developers may even make Spotlight useful again.