Apple Faces Backlash Over Delayed AI Features and Credibility Concerns

Apple commenter John Gruber makes blistering attack on 'rotten' Apple

John Gruber is one of the more high-profile Apple commenters, and generally takes a pretty upbeat view of the company, so it was a big surprise to see him launch a blistering attack on the iPhone maker. Referring to Apple advertising Siri features which don't yet exist, he argues that the company is "in disarray if not crisis," is making "bullshit" claims, and has "squandered" its reputation with "a fiasco" ... Apple recently had to admit that plans for three new Siri features are "going to take us longer than we thought" - with no real explanation, and no new delivery date. Crucially, these are the very features which promise to make Siri truly intelligent: The company also quietly deleted an iPhone 16 ad in which it promoted these features. However, it continues to promote these features on its website, albeit with new disclaimers. Gruber says the reality of any product claims can be judged on a four-point scale: He says the level below this - concept videos of features which cannot even be carefully demonstrated - is just BS. And that's where Apple is with the above Siri features. There were no demonstrations of any of that. Those features were all at level 0 on my hierarchy. That level is called vaporware. They were features Apple said existed, which they claimed would be shipping in the next year, and which they portrayed, to great effect, in the signature "Siri, when is my mom's flight landing?" segment of the WWDC keynote itself, starting around the 1h:22m mark. Apple was either unwilling or unable to demonstrate those features in action back in June, even with Apple product marketing reps performing the demos from a prepared script using prepared devices [...] What Apple showed regarding the upcoming "personalized Siri" at WWDC was not a demo. It was a concept video. Concept videos are bullshit, and a sign of a company in disarray, if not crisis. Gruber argues that if there was any level of reality at all to these features then the delay announcement would have been the perfect time to demo the current state of play to some tech writers, to show what is currently working and what isn't yet. That didn't happen. If these features exist in any sort of working state at all, no one outside Apple has vouched for their existence, let alone for their quality [...] The fiasco is that Apple pitched a story that wasn't true, one that some people within the company surely understood wasn't true, and they set a course based on that. There are a lot of companies who make obviously BS claims about AI products, and Gruber said he never expected Apple to be one of them. While there have been occasional disasters like AirPower, you could normally trust the company's claims, he says. But no more. But their credibility is now damaged [...] Damaged is arguably too passive. It was squandered. He says if CEO Tim Cook hasn't done what Steve Jobs did when something didn't work - go nuclear, and either demand a fix from the team or pull the plug - the company is, well, doomed. Tim Cook should have already held a meeting like that to address and rectify this Siri and Apple Intelligence debacle. If such a meeting hasn't yet occurred or doesn't happen soon, then, I fear, that's all she wrote. The ride is over. When mediocrity, excuses, and bullshit take root, they take over. A culture of excellence, accountability, and integrity cannot abide the acceptance of any of those things, and will quickly collapse upon itself with the acceptance of all three. Gruber has never been an Apple shill - he has voiced criticisms of the company on many occasions - but he has been someone who clearly has a close relationship with the iPhone maker. He's one of a number of friendly ears Apple uses from time-to-time to help get a message out. So when Gruber goes thermonuclear in this way, that's no small thing. I do my best to be objective about Apple, being appreciative and critical as appropriate. But while I've tried to be patient about Siri, it is getting increasingly difficult. One of the odder aspects of Apple's history is that the company has gone in 14 years from one of the leaders in intelligent assistants to one of the biggest laggards. We've gone from the futuristic-feeling Siri way back in 2011 to a painfully inadequate-feeling Apple Intelligence in 2025 [...] Back in 2015, I outlined the future capabilities I'd like to see, including giving it the ability to interact with our apps. It's taken a full decade for Apple to even begin providing this feature! What's even wilder to me is that in 2018 I created a list of really basic things Siri still couldn't do, and it still can't do several of these things today! While I don't quite subscribe to Gruber's argument that Apple has completely trashed its reputation here, there can be no denying that its credibility has been very badly damaged. And yep, creating a video ad for a phone which is currently pure fiction was really not a smart idea.

Apple is lying about Apple Intelligence, claims Gruber

John Gruber (far right) with Greg Joswiak (left) and Craig Federighi (center) after WWDC 2024 -- image credit: John Gruber Long-time Apple pundit John Gruber has launched an uncharacteristically strident attack against what he says are Apple's lies over the Apple Intelligence roll-out. And, he's spot-on with his arguments and conclusions. For years, John Gruber has hosted "The Talk Show," an extended post-WWDC conversation with Apple executives such as Craig Federighi. He's also written about Apple extensively, and in recent months has been increasingly critical of Siri -- as have others, including AppleInsider, but now he's gone further about what he calls the AI fiasco. "The fiasco here is not that Apple is late on AI," he writes. "The fiasco is that Apple pitched a story that wasn't true, one that some people within the company surely understood wasn't true, and they set a course based on that." "In the two decades I've been in this racket, I've never been angrier at myself for missing a story than I am about Apple's announcement on Friday that the 'more personalized Siri' features of Apple Intelligence, scheduled to appear between now and WWDC, would be delayed until 'the coming year,'" he continued. "I should have my head examined." Gruber's argument is that he, and everyone, should not have believed Apple's promises of Apple Intelligence when they were unveiled at WWDC 2024. "I am embarrassed and sorry that I didn't see what should have been very clear to me from the start," he said. Specifically, despite Apple having "overpromised (if not outright lied about)," Apple Intelligence, the company was only able to demonstrate what Gruber calls "the more trivial features." Those included the Writing Tools and the Image Playground, while everything more substantial was talked about, yet never demonstrated in even a rough form. Gruber describes those more substantial features as vaporware, and Apple's presentation of a more personalized Siri as being nothing more than a concept video. AppleInsider pointed out the same thing when Apple released an ad promoting Genmoji, but using images that could not possibly be generated by that feature. "Who said 'Sure, let's promise this" and then "Sure, let's advertise it'? And who said 'Are you crazy, this isn't ready, this doesn't work, we can't promote this now?'" continues Gruber. " And most important, who made the call which side to listen to? Presumably, that person was Tim Cook." In his piece, Gruber compares this situation of Tim Cook and Apple Intelligence to Steve Jobs and MobileMe, the to iCloud. Jobs was reportedly furious over how poorly MobileMe was done, and Gruber says Cook should be the same over Apple Intelligence. Part of Jobs's tirade at that time, back in 2008, included him replacing the executives in charge of the project. And it also saw him say point out that a prominent Apple journalist had turned against the company over this failure. "[Walt] Mossberg, our friend, is no longer writing good things about us," said Jobs. Some 17 years later, Cook may be pointing out that Gruber is now writing bad things about Apple. But as to replacing executives, Apple has already moved "fixer" Kim Vorrath to oversee Apple Intelligence and Siri. And we are too. AppleInsider has already examined how users are losing in the current AI race. Still, the presumption that Apple follows through on its promises has made everyone assume great Apple Intelligence features are coming. Just when they're coming is now anybody's guess. Gruber believes that despite all of the claims that Apple is behind the industry on AI, everyone gave Apple Intelligence far too much credit -- because it was from Apple. With leaks and complex manufacturing, Apple can no longer make surprise launches of devices and then with a flourish reveal it is "available today." But the company still has a reputation of not announcing products until they were ready. It's just that perhaps that reputation is no longer deserved. Apple now gives sneak peeks of devices ranging from the Mac Pro, to the ultimately failed AirPower charging mat, even if they are still rare. Apple Intelligence is also not the first Apple software that was announced early and subsequently missed its deadlines. But if the long delays over the new CarPlay are embarrassing, they're also understandable because it involves Apple working with dozens of car manufacturers. In comparison, aside from its partnership deals with OpenAI and ultimately Google, Apple Intelligence is down to Apple. That doesn't make the work easy, even if it does make it easier. Apple has only its own timescales to work to, only its own resources to use. Creating a personalized Siri, amongst the other remaining Apple Intelligence features, and preserving user privacy at the same time, is an immensely difficult software engineering problem. Yet even though that means delays are practically certain, Apple as a whole should know day to day what it is doing and how the project looks. So there is no one person to blame for Apple launching its ads promoting Apple Intelligence features that do not exist. And there is no one person to blame for how Apple chose to make Apple Intelligence the focus of its launch of the iPhone 16 range. There is no one person to blame for how, after months of Apple Intelligence effort, Apple still made it the centerpiece of the launch of the iPhone 16e. The buck has to stop somewhere, though. The company does have a CEO, after all.