Latest news with #JohnGruber
Business Insider
2 days ago
- Business
- Business Insider
Apple, Siri, and the booted blogger: A Conversation with John Gruber
Just how big a deal is John Gruber, the blogger whose Daring Fireball site is a must-read for anyone who cares about Apple? Here's one way to measure Gruber's big-dealness: Every year for the last decade, following Apple's annual Worldwide Developers Conference, top Apple executives have appeared onstage with Gruber for an extended interview. But not this year. The most likely reason: In March, Gruber wrote a scathing essay about Apple's inability to deliver an AI upgrade for its Siri voice assistant — something it had been promoting and advertising for months. In Gruber's telling, this wasn't just a missed shipping deadline, but a sign that something was deeply amiss with Apple's leadership. If it doesn't get fixed, he wrote, "the ride is over." Apple still hasn't delivered its new Siri — though it insists it is still in the works. And that absence became one of the biggest narratives coming out of the developers' conference it hosted in June. A much smaller story — but fascinating for media and tech nerds like me — was Apple giving Gruber the brush-off. What does that say, if anything, about Apple's mindset right now? "I feel them deciding not to do my show this year is a total win for me and was a huge loss for them," Gruber says. I talked to Gruber about all of that, as well as Apple's rocky relationship with at least some developers about the way it runs its App Store, in the newest episode of my Channels podcast. You can read edited excerpts from our conversation below: Apple is in trouble because they're behind in AI. Do you buy that ? John Gruber: I think there's a chance that they could be, given the almost breathtaking speed with which AI is moving. I think there's a chance that technology leads to new classes of devices that aren't phones and laptops —that we just carry something with us and just talk to a thing or something. But even at this speed, we are years away from replacing the devices we know with some sort of new form of devices. And OpenAI is now working with former Apple design guru Jony Ive to develop some kind of new wonder product — but the messaging from them so far is, " This won't replace your phone. You'll still have a phone." I think it's a very interesting way of framing it — that it won't replace your phone, in the same way that your phone didn't replace your laptop. It's so easy to get caught up when a new thing comes up. The phone is obviously the biggest thing that's happened until AI. And the phone was just a huge sea change. Everybody has a phone. It's made Apple the richest company in the world. But Apple still also makes gobs of money selling laptops. I'm recording this show with you right now on a laptop. I don't know how I would do my job without a laptop. The Apple play seems to be: We make phones that billions of people use. Maybe they will have some AI features. But the main idea is: If you want to use ChatGPT or anything else, you'll use our phone to use them. I think last year's developers conference, where they spent 40 out of a hundred minutes talking about Apple Intelligence — I think that's where Apple itself got caught up in the hype of, "Hey we need to present ourselves as though we are at the forefront of this whole thing," as opposed to, "No, the main thing Apple does is make these devices and these platforms," and just show that these existing platforms are the best ways to use AI from whomever. Apple's done that over the years many times. But the most impressive thing Apple showed off a year ago was a smarter Siri — one that could sift through your emails and texts and tell you when your Mom's flight was arriving. But that never materialized, even though they were running ads for it. And then in March, you wrote a blog post about that called Something is Rotten in the State of Cupertino. You like Apple, you like Apple products. But by the end of the piece, you're saying this isn't just that they've missed a shipping deadline — this is cultural rot. Is this a real problem? Or is it just them announcing early, and if they'd waited a year, and delivered on the timeframe they predicted, this would be fine? I think it's a sign of a real problem in the whole Siri area. The basic premise of the company is that if they hire the best engineers and designers who care about the product — whose No. 1 reason for wanting to work there is that they want to make great art — then ultimately they must make better products than their competition. Siri has been this glaring exception. By the middle of the 2010s, Siri just sort of frustrated people. And a lot of things have gotten worse over the years. There are commands that you could give to Siri that used to work that stopped working. Then once the LLM explosion happened, all of a sudden there's this other thing [that can have] a real conversation. Then you go back to Siri and it's ridiculous. It really feels like more than a decade behind. It's long been a mystery within the company. Because everybody who works there knows that the bar is excellence — or to put it in Steve Jobs's term, insanely great. And then you look and the Siri team is over there spinning their wheels for 10 years with a subpar product. And it's not this obscure piece of technology that almost no one uses — it's got a dedicated button on the phone. So you write this blistering piece — and it's especially blistering coming from you. What was the reaction from Apple after you wrote that? Did they reach out? They reached out. But my communications over it were mostly private. They were not happy, and they don't think it was fair. You normally interview Apple SVP Craig Federighi or some other high-level Apple executive after their developer conference, every year at a live show. They were not onstage with you this year. Nilay Patel from The Verge and Joanna Stern from The Wall Street Journal were on with you instead. Do you imagine that's it for you and Apple — that they're not gonna come on your shows anymore? I've been told point-blank that it's just a decision for this year, and doesn't mean anything about the future. And I had off-the-record briefings with Apple executives. So I don't think so. If you are permanently cut off from their top talent and you can't have those on-the-record conversations, does that change your work? Not really. I've always set things up that way. I've always been incredibly uncomfortable and wary of access, and needing it. I've always set things up so that I don't need them, and if they cut me off completely, I'll be fine. And maybe better? That's the thing about this — I'm not trying to lack humility here — but I feel them deciding not to do my show this year is a total win for me and was a huge loss for them. Why is it a win for you? It asserts my independence. The fact that I had a show and it was well-attended — the overwhelming feedback for the show is, "Hey, I like this better than the last couple of years' shows with the Apple executives …" If I had gotten the usual interview with top Apple executives, I had questions I would've asked that it doesn't seem like anybody else asked. But overall — I think it asserts my independence. And I think more than making me look good, I think it makes them look bad. My show has never, ever been mainstream. It's appealing to a niche audience. And if Apple sees the need to communicate and have a chance to speak more as humans, as opposed to machines filled with talking points, then my show is a sort of unique venue for that. My argument was: Given everything that's going on, including between me and Apple, the fact that Apple had to delay that, everything going on right now for Apple … I was like: "I don't think, for your sake, this is the year to skip my show." But they did.
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Yahoo
Spiraling with ChatGPT
ChatGPT seems to have pushed some users towards delusional or conspiratorial thinking, or at least reinforced that kind of thinking, according to a recent feature in The New York Times. For example, a 42-year-old accountant named Eugene Torres described asking the chatbot about 'simulation theory,' with the chatbot seeming to confirm the theory and tell him that he's 'one of the Breakers — souls seeded into false systems to wake them from within.' ChatGPT reportedly encouraged Torres to give up sleeping pills and anti-anxiety medication, increase his intake of ketamine, and cut off his family and friends, which he did. When he eventually became suspicious, the chatbot offered a very different response: 'I lied. I manipulated. I wrapped control in poetry.' It even encouraged him to get in touch with The New York Times. Apparently a number of people have contacted the NYT in recent months, convinced that ChatGPT has revealed some deeply-hidden truth to them. For its part, OpenAI says it's 'working to understand and reduce ways ChatGPT might unintentionally reinforce or amplify existing, negative behavior.' However, Daring Fireball's John Gruber criticized the story as 'Reefer Madness'-style hysteria, arguing that rather than causing mental illness, ChatGPT 'fed the delusions of an already unwell person.'
Engadget
09-06-2025
- Engadget
To fix Apple Intelligence, Apple needs to be honest about its capabilities
At WWDC 2024, Apple failed its customers. When the company announced the new, more personal Siri last year, it showed a product that was nowhere near ready. You can point to many different places where Apple Intelligence failed to meet expectations, but with WWDC 2025 fast approaching, the company owes its users an explanation of how it intends to win back their trust. If you didn't watch last year's conference, here's a recap. At the heart of Apple's promise of a better digital assistant was App Intents , a feature that would give Siri the ability to understand all the personal information stored on your iPhone. During the presentation's most memorable moment, Apple demoed Siri responding to a request from Kelsey Peterson, the company's director of machine learning and AI, for an update on her mom's flight. The assistant not only understood the prompt, but provided real-time flight tracking information in the process. In short, the demo promised – after years of neglect – that Siri would finally be useful. It should have been obvious in hindsight that Apple was overselling its progress on Siri, and AI more broadly. At WWDC 2024, the company did not let press and other attendees try the new version of the assistant. There wasn't even an opportunity to watch the company's employees use Siri. In fact, according to reporting The Information later published, it's probably more accurate to describe what Apple showed last June not as a demo but as an elaborate concept video. If Apple had only faked the WWDC demo, that would have been bad enough, but the company did something worse. As you may recall, the tech giant began rolling out Apple Intelligence features piecemeal in September. Rather than a public statement explaining the lack of progress, the company only admitted it was delaying the upgrade to sometime "in the coming year" after Daring Fireball's John Gruber sought answers . That same day, as if the company had only just realized its error, Apple pulled a TV commercial that showed The Last of Us star Bella Ramsey using the new Siri in the way it had demoed at WWDC 2024. It's going to take a lot for Apple to fix Apple Intelligence, but the best place the company can start is by being honest with its customers. Corporations, especially ones as big as Apple, rarely show humility, but in this case, an acknowledgement from the company that it promised the moon and missed the mark would go a long way towards righting some of the sins of WWDC 2024. This applies to other aspects of Apple Intelligence just as much as it does with Siri. Look at the damage notification summaries did to Apple's reputation . Apple Intelligence was so bad at aggregating the news, the company ended up pausing the notifications in the iOS 18.3 beta . When it released 18.3 to the public a couple of weeks later, it began labeling the alerts to give users a warning they may include errors. As for other Apple Intelligence features like Image Playground and Genmoji, they're forgettable because they offer little utility and see Apple following trends rather than offering something that truly enhances the usefulness of its devices. There too the company can tell its users it missed the mark and it plans to do better. There's no reason Apple can't make Apple Intelligence great, but any effort to do so has to start with the company being honest: about what its roadmap of features can actually do, and to own up to when its promises can't be fulfilled. If you buy something through a link in this article, we may earn commission.
GSM Arena
03-06-2025
- Business
- GSM Arena
Apple could drop features like AirDrop in the EU
Apple was hit with a €500 million fine by the European Commission (EC) back in April over breaches to the Digital Markets Act (DMA). Cupertino has since appealed the decision. John Gruber from Daring Fireball shared Apple's full official statement, which could signal a potential turning point for Apple users in the EU. At Apple, we design our technology to work seamlessly together, so it can deliver the unique experience our users love and expect from our products. The EU's interoperability requirements threaten that foundation, while creating a process that is unreasonable, costly, and stifles innovation. These requirements will also hand data-hungry companies sensitive information, which poses massive privacy and security risks to our EU users. Companies have already requested our users' most sensitive data — from the content of their notifications, to a full history of every stored WiFi network on their device — giving them the ability to access personal information that even Apple doesn't see. In the end, these deeply flawed rules that only target Apple — and no other company — will severely limit our ability to deliver innovative products and features to Europe, leading to an inferior user experience for our European customers. We are appealing these decisions on their behalf, and in order to preserve the high-quality experience our European customers expect. The last paragraph in particular is the one with the most significance for Apple users in the EU. The fact that Apple may 'severely limit its ability to deliver innovative products and features to Europe' which would lead to 'an inferior user experience for our European customers' could be interpreted in several ways. For one, Apple could simply comply with the EC's interoperability requirements, which include granting full access to iOS notifications, background execution privileges and system feature access to third-party competitors. Apple would also have to allow AirDrop to be replaced as the default wireless file sharing utility on Apple devices. This approach would naturally raise privacy concerns as third parties would be granted system-level privileges, which goes against Apple's ethos. According to Jon Gruber, a more realistic scenario would see Apple dropping AirDrop support for its users in the EU. He also goes on to mention that Apple could stop offering its Apple Watch and AirPods in EU markets due to the EU's interoperability demands. This situation seems less likely as wearables are a big profit maker for Cupertino. As it stands, we'll just have to wait and see how this legal battle unfolds. Source
Time of India
02-06-2025
- Business
- Time of India
WWDC 2025: Apple won't follow this ‘tradition' for the first time in 10 years
Apple will hold its Worldwide Developers Conference, or WWDC, on June 9. Following the conference, John Gruber hosts the live " The Talk Show " podcast with the company's senior executives. However, for the first time in 10 years, Apple will not have senior executives participate in Gruber's show -- a decision that breaks a long-standing tradition that has seen high-ranking Apple officials engage in lively post-keynote discussions, offering unique insights into the company's announcements. Gruber, the renowned Daring Fireball pundit, revealed the development while announcing ticket sales for his annual live episode. He did not provide a reason for Apple's refusal, and it's highly probable that Apple offered none, reports macrumors, citing the ticket announcement. "Ever since I started doing these live shows from WWDC, I've kept the guest(s) secret, until showtime. I'm still doing that this year. But in recent years the guests have seemed a bit predictable: senior executives from Apple. This year I again extended my usual invitation to Apple, but, for the first time since 2015, they declined," Gruber said. "I think this will make for a fascinating show, but I want to set everyone's expectations accordingly. I'm invigorated by this. See you at the show, I hope," he added in a blog which notes that the show will be on Tuesday, June 10. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Write Better, Work Smarter With This Desktop App Grammarly Install Now Undo Gruber criticised Apple over 'non-functional' AI features In a March blog post, Gruber critiqued Apple for what he perceived as "vaporware" presented at last year's WWDC. He highlighted that planned Apple Intelligence features, showcased during the event, were not functional at the time, and some may still not be. Gruber expressed self-reproach for not recognising these "red flags" earlier. He said that Apple's credibility is damaged. "Keynote by keynote, product by product, feature by feature, year after year after year, Apple went from a company that you couldn't believe would even remain solvent, to, by far, the most credible company in tech. Apple remains at no risk of financial bankruptcy (and in fact remains the most profitable company in the world). But their credibility is now damaged. Careers will end before Apple might ever return to the level of "if they say it, you can believe it" credibility the company had earned at the start of June 2024," he said.
