Only after it had built these privacy systems did the company unveil Apple Intelligence and then release petite groups of features in waves to great fanfare. However, the truth is that the first public version of Apple Intelligence does not impress people. Critics complain that inbox summaries, email rewriting and photo searches, and a more conversational Siri don’t seem to differ much from gen-AI offerings already unveiled by competitors. But just as Apple crashed the events of its rivals in digital music streaming and clever watches, the company is confident, if not hubristic, that its take on Apple will ultimately prevail. “It’s a matter of several decades,” says Giannandrea. “I was very excited about what we announced this year, but I think Craig and I are much more excited about what’s to come in the next 10 years.”
Naturally, I asked both executives to share details about future products. And of course they refused. “You know us better,” says Federighi. Even if some competitors release similar innovations first, Apple will take it in stride. This crowd prides itself on being not the first, but the best. Generative AI may be the ultimate test of whether this philosophy still works.
Time travel
This isn’t the first time I’ve had an exclusive look at Apple’s AI journey. In August 2016, the company gave me a look at how it implements the latest artificial intelligence techniques during a day of interviews with Federighi, as well as executives Phil Schiller and Eddy Cue, and scientists Tom Gruber and Alex Acero. Then, as now, the message was that Apple was on it, but it was on AI in its own way.
Even though Apple is cozying up to machine learning, executives caution that taking on the company is somewhat business as usual for them. The Cupertino Illuminati sees deep learning and machine learning as the latest in a steady stream of breakthrough technologies. Yes, yes, it is a transformation, but no more than other developments such as touch screens, flat panels or object-oriented programming. According to Apple, machine learning is not the final frontier, despite what other companies claim. “It’s not like there haven’t been other technologies over the years that have played a key role in changing the way we interact with devices,” Cue says. And no one at Apple wants to even touch on the terrible/scary speculations that invariably come up in discussions about artificial intelligence. As you might expect, Apple hasn’t confirmed whether it’s working on autonomous cars or its own version of Netflix. However, the team made it clear that Apple is not working on it Skynet.