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Mark Gurman, with yet another scoop:

The new system will allow Siri to take command of all the features
within apps for the first time, said the people, who asked not to
be identified because the initiative isn’t public. That change
required a revamp of Siri’s underlying software using large
language models — a core technology behind generative AI — and
will be one of the highlights of Apple’s renewed push into AI,
they said. […]

Siri will be a key focus of the WWDC unveiling. The new system
will allow the assistant to control and navigate an iPhone or iPad
with more precision. That includes being able to open individual
documents, moving a note to another folder, sending or deleting an
email, opening a particular publication in Apple News, emailing a
web link, or even asking the device for a summary of an article.

This sounds a lot like a large action model, not just a large language model. It makes sense if Apple can pull it off.

In 2018, Apple launched Siri Shortcuts as well, letting users
manually create commands for app features. The new system will go
further, using AI to analyze what people are doing on their
devices and automatically enable Siri-controlled features. It will
be limited to Apple’s own apps at the beginning, with the company
planning to support hundreds of different commands.

This makes me think that developers will need to support new APIs to describe and define the sort of actions Siri can perform — like Siri Shortcuts but richer, and hopefully easier for developers to support. According to Gurman, this feature isn’t slated to roll out to iOS 18 users until sometime next year. That makes sense, given that the ink seemingly isn’t yet dry on the Apple-OpenAI partnership.

Writing at 9to5Mac, Ryan Christoffel puts it thus:

Presumably, this change will lead to a lot fewer occasions of
having you ask Siri to complete a task and finding it has no idea
what you’re talking about. A more intelligent Siri that can
understand natural language for a much wider array of commands
sounds like the Siri we have always expected but never quite got.

That sounds like exactly where Apple’s goalposts should be.

 ★ 

Mark Gurman, with yet another scoop:

The new system will allow Siri to take command of all the features
within apps for the first time, said the people, who asked not to
be identified because the initiative isn’t public. That change
required a revamp of Siri’s underlying software using large
language models — a core technology behind generative AI — and
will be one of the highlights of Apple’s renewed push into AI,
they said. […]

Siri will be a key focus of the WWDC unveiling. The new system
will allow the assistant to control and navigate an iPhone or iPad
with more precision. That includes being able to open individual
documents, moving a note to another folder, sending or deleting an
email, opening a particular publication in Apple News, emailing a
web link, or even asking the device for a summary of an article.

This sounds a lot like a large action model, not just a large language model. It makes sense if Apple can pull it off.

In 2018, Apple launched Siri Shortcuts as well, letting users
manually create commands for app features. The new system will go
further, using AI to analyze what people are doing on their
devices and automatically enable Siri-controlled features. It will
be limited to Apple’s own apps at the beginning, with the company
planning to support hundreds of different commands.

This makes me think that developers will need to support new APIs to describe and define the sort of actions Siri can perform — like Siri Shortcuts but richer, and hopefully easier for developers to support. According to Gurman, this feature isn’t slated to roll out to iOS 18 users until sometime next year. That makes sense, given that the ink seemingly isn’t yet dry on the Apple-OpenAI partnership.

Writing at 9to5Mac, Ryan Christoffel puts it thus:

Presumably, this change will lead to a lot fewer occasions of
having you ask Siri to complete a task and finding it has no idea
what you’re talking about. A more intelligent Siri that can
understand natural language for a much wider array of commands
sounds like the Siri we have always expected but never quite got.

That sounds like exactly where Apple’s goalposts should be.

Read More 

Amir Efrati and Wayne Ma, reporting for The Information (paywalled; Ars Technica has a good summary):

Now, he has fulfilled a longtime goal by striking a deal with
Apple to use OpenAI’s conversational artificial intelligence in
its products, which could be worth billions of dollars to the
startup if it goes well, this person said.

Aside from the financial windfall such a deal might bring, a
partnership with Apple has the potential to boost OpenAI’s
position within the tech industry over the long term. Altman and
his colleagues hope the Apple partnership might one day supplant a
longstanding alliance Apple has with Google, OpenAI’s main rival,
which today handles searches on Apple’s Safari browser and is
critical to preserving Google’s search monopoly.

While a partnership between Apple and OpenAI has been rumored for months, this report by The Information is the first I’m aware to assert that the deal is official. It’s light on details, to say the least, starting with just who is paying whom and how either company plans to make money from the partnership. Presumably it’ll be Apple paying OpenAI for the privilege of integrating with their expensive-to-run cloud-based servers.

The financial arrangement between Google and Apple for default search, on the other hand, is both simple and lucrative. Google makes money showing ads in search results. Safari drives zillions of users to Google search. Google pays Apple roughly $20 billion per year for that traffic acquisition, while selling ads worth many tens of billions of dollars for those searches. Google makes money and maintains access to the Apple demographic. Apple makes money from Google’s payments. And Safari users get Google Search results by default.

There’s nothing like that with OpenAI, right now. There’s also this:

To top it off, Altman is working on two new projects outside
OpenAI: the first is a daring effort to make AI server-chip
factories and the other is developing an AI-powered personal
device, such as earbuds with forward-facing cameras that could
emulate the AI companion in the film “Her,” with the aid of former
Apple designer Jony Ive. Both efforts could complement his work at
OpenAI — which would own stakes in the ventures — and give him
even more clout.

Apple and Google’s friendly relationship — Google’s then-CEO Eric Schmidt was an Apple board member from 2006 to 2009 — ended when Google changed Android from being an open alternative to Blackberry to being an open alternative to iPhones. OpenAI is — according to multiple reports — not only looking to create its own personal computing devices, they’re considering partnering with Jony Ive and LoveFrom to do it. They’re setting themselves up to be frenemies with Apple before the first partnership is even announced.

 ★ 

Amir Efrati and Wayne Ma, reporting for The Information (paywalled; Ars Technica has a good summary):

Now, he has fulfilled a longtime goal by striking a deal with
Apple to use OpenAI’s conversational artificial intelligence in
its products, which could be worth billions of dollars to the
startup if it goes well, this person said.

Aside from the financial windfall such a deal might bring, a
partnership with Apple has the potential to boost OpenAI’s
position within the tech industry over the long term. Altman and
his colleagues hope the Apple partnership might one day supplant a
longstanding alliance Apple has with Google, OpenAI’s main rival,
which today handles searches on Apple’s Safari browser and is
critical to preserving Google’s search monopoly.

While a partnership between Apple and OpenAI has been rumored for months, this report by The Information is the first I’m aware to assert that the deal is official. It’s light on details, to say the least, starting with just who is paying whom and how either company plans to make money from the partnership. Presumably it’ll be Apple paying OpenAI for the privilege of integrating with their expensive-to-run cloud-based servers.

The financial arrangement between Google and Apple for default search, on the other hand, is both simple and lucrative. Google makes money showing ads in search results. Safari drives zillions of users to Google search. Google pays Apple roughly $20 billion per year for that traffic acquisition, while selling ads worth many tens of billions of dollars for those searches. Google makes money and maintains access to the Apple demographic. Apple makes money from Google’s payments. And Safari users get Google Search results by default.

There’s nothing like that with OpenAI, right now. There’s also this:

To top it off, Altman is working on two new projects outside
OpenAI: the first is a daring effort to make AI server-chip
factories and the other is developing an AI-powered personal
device, such as earbuds with forward-facing cameras that could
emulate the AI companion in the film “Her,” with the aid of former
Apple designer Jony Ive. Both efforts could complement his work at
OpenAI — which would own stakes in the ventures — and give him
even more clout.

Apple and Google’s friendly relationship — Google’s then-CEO Eric Schmidt was an Apple board member from 2006 to 2009 — ended when Google changed Android from being an open alternative to Blackberry to being an open alternative to iPhones. OpenAI is — according to multiple reports — not only looking to create its own personal computing devices, they’re considering partnering with Jony Ive and LoveFrom to do it. They’re setting themselves up to be frenemies with Apple before the first partnership is even announced.

Read More 

Andrew Van Dam, writing for The Washington Post:

So, we looked at the data another way, measuring the gap between each person’s birth year and their ideal decade. The consistency of the resulting pattern delighted us: It shows that Americans feel nostalgia not for a specific era, but for a specific age.

The good old days when America was “great” aren’t the 1950s. They’re whatever decade you were 11, your parents knew the correct answer to any question, and you’d never heard of war crimes tribunals, microplastics or improvised explosive devices. Or when you were 15 and athletes and musicians still played hard and hadn’t sold out.

I have more nostalgia for the 1990s, when I was in my 20s, than I do the 1980s, but I can see why these answers tend toward the decade of one’s teenage years.

(Via Kottke.)

 ★ 

Andrew Van Dam, writing for The Washington Post:

So, we looked at the data another way, measuring the gap between each person’s birth year and their ideal decade. The consistency of the resulting pattern delighted us: It shows that Americans feel nostalgia not for a specific era, but for a specific age.

The good old days when America was “great” aren’t the 1950s. They’re whatever decade you were 11, your parents knew the correct answer to any question, and you’d never heard of war crimes tribunals, microplastics or improvised explosive devices. Or when you were 15 and athletes and musicians still played hard and hadn’t sold out.

I have more nostalgia for the 1990s, when I was in my 20s, than I do the 1980s, but I can see why these answers tend toward the decade of one’s teenage years.

(Via Kottke.)

Read More 

From a New York Times story by Nico Grant, under the headline “Google’s A.I. Search Errors Cause a Furor Online”:

With each mishap, tech industry insiders have criticized the
company for dropping the ball. But in interviews, financial
analysts said Google needed to move quickly to keep up with its
rivals, even if it meant growing pains.

Google “doesn’t have a choice right now,” Thomas Monteiro, a
Google analyst at Investing.com, said in an interview.
“Companies need to move really fast, even if that includes
skipping a few steps along the way. The user experience will
just have to catch up.”

That quote is insane. There’s no reason Google had to enable this feature now. None. If their search monopoly has been losing share recently, it’s not because of rivals who are serving up AI-generated slop. It’s because even before this, Google’s search results quality was slipping in obvious ways. This is just making it worse.

LLM-powered search results are a bauble. The trust Google has built with users over the last 25 years is the most valuable asset the company owns. Google most certainly does have a choice, and they’ve chosen to erode that trust just so they can avoid accusations that they’re “behind”.

Behind is where you want to be when those who are ahead are publishing nonsense.

 ★ 

From a New York Times story by Nico Grant, under the headline “Google’s A.I. Search Errors Cause a Furor Online”:

With each mishap, tech industry insiders have criticized the
company for dropping the ball. But in interviews, financial
analysts said Google needed to move quickly to keep up with its
rivals, even if it meant growing pains.

Google “doesn’t have a choice right now,” Thomas Monteiro, a
Google analyst at Investing.com, said in an interview.
“Companies need to move really fast, even if that includes
skipping a few steps along the way. The user experience will
just have to catch up.”

That quote is insane. There’s no reason Google had to enable this feature now. None. If their search monopoly has been losing share recently, it’s not because of rivals who are serving up AI-generated slop. It’s because even before this, Google’s search results quality was slipping in obvious ways. This is just making it worse.

LLM-powered search results are a bauble. The trust Google has built with users over the last 25 years is the most valuable asset the company owns. Google most certainly does have a choice, and they’ve chosen to erode that trust just so they can avoid accusations that they’re “behind”.

Behind is where you want to be when those who are ahead are publishing nonsense.

Read More 

Special guest M.G. Siegler returns to the show to talk about the new iPad Pros, the iPadOS/MacOS functional gulf, the OpenAI/Scarlett Johansson controversy, and M.G.’s excellent new blog Spyglass.

Sponsored by:

Pine Works is a design and development agency with good ethics and strong opinions. World-class apps, websites, and digital products.
Squarespace: Make your next move. Use code talkshow for 10% off your first order.

 ★ 

Special guest M.G. Siegler returns to the show to talk about the new iPad Pros, the iPadOS/MacOS functional gulf, the OpenAI/Scarlett Johansson controversy, and M.G.’s excellent new blog Spyglass.

Sponsored by:

Pine Works is a design and development agency with good ethics and strong opinions. World-class apps, websites, and digital products.
Squarespace: Make your next move. Use code talkshow for 10% off your first order.

Read More 

My 7-year-old self would have been very very excited about this news. (Via Paul Thurrott.)

 ★ 

My 7-year-old self would have been very very excited about this news. (Via Paul Thurrott.)

Read More 

Chance Miller, reporting for 9to5Mac:

Earlier this week, Apple released iOS 17.5.1 to address a
rare problem where deleted photos would reappear on a user’s
device after installing iOS 17.5. In the release notes,
Apple said this was caused by “database corruption.” The company
has now confirmed a few additional details to 9to5Mac to further
clarify the situation.

One question many people had is how images from dates as far back
as 2010 resurfaced because of this problem. After all, most people
aren’t still using the same devices now as they were in 2010.
Apple confirmed to me that iCloud Photos is not to be blamed for
this. Instead, it all boils to the corrupt database entry that
existed on the device’s file system itself.

According to Apple, the photos that did not fully delete from a
user’s device were not synced to iCloud Photos. Those files were
only on the device itself. However, the files could have persisted
from one device to another when restoring from a backup,
performing a device-to-device transfer, or when restoring from an
iCloud Backup but not using iCloud Photos.

 ★ 

Chance Miller, reporting for 9to5Mac:

Earlier this week, Apple released iOS 17.5.1 to address a
rare problem where deleted photos would reappear on a user’s
device after installing iOS 17.5. In the release notes,
Apple said this was caused by “database corruption.” The company
has now confirmed a few additional details to 9to5Mac to further
clarify the situation.

One question many people had is how images from dates as far back
as 2010 resurfaced because of this problem. After all, most people
aren’t still using the same devices now as they were in 2010.
Apple confirmed to me that iCloud Photos is not to be blamed for
this. Instead, it all boils to the corrupt database entry that
existed on the device’s file system itself.

According to Apple, the photos that did not fully delete from a
user’s device were not synced to iCloud Photos. Those files were
only on the device itself. However, the files could have persisted
from one device to another when restoring from a backup,
performing a device-to-device transfer, or when restoring from an
iCloud Backup but not using iCloud Photos.

Read More 

Various comments from Nikki Haley regarding Donald Trump, while she was campaigning against him for the Republican nomination:

“If you mock the service of a combat veteran, you don’t deserve a driver’s license, let alone being president of the United States.”
“We can’t have, as Republicans, him as the nominee. He can’t win a general election. That’s the problem. We’ve got to go and have someone who can actually win.”
“This may be his survival mode to pay his legal fees and get out of some sort of legal peril, but this is like suicide for our country.”

Also Haley, this week: “I will be voting for Trump.”

Here’s hoping Trump gives her the Bill Barr treatment. Barr, who wrote in his own 2022 book that Trump has “shown he has neither the temperament nor persuasive powers to provide the kind of positive leadership that is needed​,” recently said he’d be voting for him anyway.

In a sign of appreciation for his own former attorney general’s support, Trump posted this nice note on Truth Social:

Wow! Former A.G. Bill Barr, who let a lot of great people down by
not investigating Voter Fraud in our Country, has just Endorsed me
for President despite the fact that I called him “Weak, Slow
Moving, Lethargic, Gutless, and Lazy” (New York Post!). Based on
the fact that I greatly appreciate his wholehearted Endorsement, I
am removing the word “Lethargic” from my statement. Thank you
Bill. MAGA2024!

All class.

 ★ 

Various comments from Nikki Haley regarding Donald Trump, while she was campaigning against him for the Republican nomination:

“If you mock the service of a combat veteran, you don’t deserve a driver’s license, let alone being president of the United States.”
“We can’t have, as Republicans, him as the nominee. He can’t win a general election. That’s the problem. We’ve got to go and have someone who can actually win.”
“This may be his survival mode to pay his legal fees and get out of some sort of legal peril, but this is like suicide for our country.”

Also Haley, this week: “I will be voting for Trump.”

Here’s hoping Trump gives her the Bill Barr treatment. Barr, who wrote in his own 2022 book that Trump has “shown he has neither the temperament nor persuasive powers to provide the kind of positive leadership that is needed​,” recently said he’d be voting for him anyway.

In a sign of appreciation for his own former attorney general’s support, Trump posted this nice note on Truth Social:

Wow! Former A.G. Bill Barr, who let a lot of great people down by
not investigating Voter Fraud in our Country, has just Endorsed me
for President despite the fact that I called him “Weak, Slow
Moving, Lethargic, Gutless, and Lazy” (New York Post!). Based on
the fact that I greatly appreciate his wholehearted Endorsement, I
am removing the word “Lethargic” from my statement. Thank you
Bill. MAGA2024!

All class.

Read More 

Ryan Christoffel, writing at 9to5Mac:

17 years after the iPhone’s launch, that idea of an iPod-inspired
phone has not been forgotten. In fact, there’s a company teasing
that it has created one … kind of.

Say hello to the tinyPod. […]

tinyPod is essentially a case for the core Apple Watch hardware
that takes inspiration from the iPod to turn your Watch into
something of a tiny phone. Oh, and instead of using your Digital
Crown to navigate watchOS, you’ll use the included iPod-like
click wheel.

Clever idea! It’s largely overlooked just how powerful a computer a modern Apple Watch is.

 ★ 

Ryan Christoffel, writing at 9to5Mac:

17 years after the iPhone’s launch, that idea of an iPod-inspired
phone has not been forgotten. In fact, there’s a company teasing
that it has created one … kind of.

Say hello to the tinyPod. […]

tinyPod is essentially a case for the core Apple Watch hardware
that takes inspiration from the iPod to turn your Watch into
something of a tiny phone. Oh, and instead of using your Digital
Crown to navigate watchOS, you’ll use the included iPod-like
click wheel.

Clever idea! It’s largely overlooked just how powerful a computer a modern Apple Watch is.

Read More 

Liana Baker, Mark Gurman, Shirin Ghaffary, and Katie Roof, reporting for Bloomberg:*

Artificial intelligence startup Humane Inc. has been seeking a
buyer for its business, according to people familiar with the
matter, just weeks after the company’s closely watched wearable AI
device had a rocky public launch. […] Humane is seeking a price
of between $750 million and $1 billion in a sale, one person said.
The process is still early and may not result in a deal.

Last year it was valued by investors at $850 million, according to
tech news site the Information. The company has raised $230
million to date from a roster of high-profile investors including
OpenAI Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman.

I suspect they’ll sell for a pittance — way less than the $230 million they’ve raised. I just don’t see what they have to offer. Humane doesn’t own the AI that powers the AI Pin — that comes from OpenAI, which seemingly not only doesn’t want to buy Humane, but is supposedly in exploratory talks with Jony Ive’s LoveFrom to design and build their own AI devices. The laser projector idea seems to be a bust, and the hardware’s battery life is measured in hours between battery pack swaps.

Off the top of my head, the only company that could afford a $1 billion-ish price for Humane and is dumb enough to do it is HP.

 ★ 

Liana Baker, Mark Gurman, Shirin Ghaffary, and Katie Roof, reporting for Bloomberg:*

Artificial intelligence startup Humane Inc. has been seeking a
buyer for its business, according to people familiar with the
matter, just weeks after the company’s closely watched wearable AI
device had a rocky public launch. […] Humane is seeking a price
of between $750 million and $1 billion in a sale, one person said.
The process is still early and may not result in a deal.

Last year it was valued by investors at $850 million, according to
tech news site the Information. The company has raised $230
million to date from a roster of high-profile investors including
OpenAI Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman.

I suspect they’ll sell for a pittance — way less than the $230 million they’ve raised. I just don’t see what they have to offer. Humane doesn’t own the AI that powers the AI Pin — that comes from OpenAI, which seemingly not only doesn’t want to buy Humane, but is supposedly in exploratory talks with Jony Ive’s LoveFrom to design and build their own AI devices. The laser projector idea seems to be a bust, and the hardware’s battery life is measured in hours between battery pack swaps.

Off the top of my head, the only company that could afford a $1 billion-ish price for Humane and is dumb enough to do it is HP.

Read More