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What the heck is going on at Apple?

(www.cnn.com)
148 points methuselah_in | 8 comments | 07 Dec 25 16:54 UTC | HN request time: 0.195s | source | bottom
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jaredcwhite ◴[07 Dec 25 21:50 UTC] No.46185534[source]▶
Poor analysis. Apple is doing quite well as a Big Tech company that simply doesn't need to "pivot to AI" like everyone else. Their missteps in "Apple Intelligence" have in fact demonstrated that they don't actually need to have much of a "strategy" here at all. In fact, if they simply link out to other people's chatbots and make it totally opt-in, that would be ideal.

The much bigger problem is that they've lost the wow factor in their software design, and in some regards the hardware as well even though the internals and build quality has never been better. Apple needs a design shakeup far more than it needs anything to do with AI, a poison pill which will bring the entire industry down in 2026.

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1. TheNewsIsHere ◴[08 Dec 25 00:41 UTC] No.46187019[source]▶
I have intentionally withheld updating my daily drivers to iOS 26 because of Liquid Glass. But if I had to pick between two evils - diminishing UX quality and shoving AI into every corner where no one asked for it - I’d still pick Liquid Glass.
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2. bitwize ◴[08 Dec 25 01:29 UTC] No.46187300[source]▶
Work is talking about upgrading our Macs to macOS 26. I'm holding off for now.
3. whyenot ◴[08 Dec 25 01:41 UTC] No.46187360[source]▶
26.2 is looking a lot less glassy. If you want to avoid the glass, I’d wait for its full release.
4. jjice ◴[08 Dec 25 01:44 UTC] No.46187378[source]▶
The Apple Intelligence features are some of the more subtle ones overall compared to other companies like Google and Microsoft IMO
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5. bigyabai ◴[08 Dec 25 02:06 UTC] No.46187507[source]▶
I've used macOS these days, give them a few years and they'll "catch up" I'm certain.
6. thenthenthen ◴[08 Dec 25 07:31 UTC] No.46189455[source]▶
And I love it! The ocr/vision models are a literal life saver here. Translating websites in Safari? Even text in images gets translated, super convenient! The only gripe i have is that it tries to be smart and tries to detect addresses, phone numbers. If the address or phone number is part of a text it is nearly impossible to copy the whole text since the phone number gets prioritised over the text (so you can only copy or call the number… )
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7. TheNewsIsHere ◴[08 Dec 25 13:35 UTC] No.46192057{3}[source]▶
A small nitpick: the translation and data detectors pre-date Apple Intelligence.

I do indeed love these features. They have definitely had some regressions in the data detectors over the past few years. I assume that they only test these automatically in “ideal” contexts that don’t account for real life. Not sure. They used to be more reliable.

8. TheNewsIsHere ◴[08 Dec 25 13:37 UTC] No.46192068[source]▶
They absolutely are. And you can turn them off. My comment is more about the technology industry’s general insistence on shoving AI down your throat whether or not it’s useful, usable, or desired.

I’m hopeful that whatever combination of factors at Apple prevent that from happening remain. Otherwise I’ll have to start considering GrapheneOS and defaulting to my Debian-based MacBook.