Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) takes place in just a few weeks. Everyone expects the company to explain its approach to AI deployment on its platforms. With that in mind, here’s what several months of speculation suggest Apple will announce, though the details remain to be disclosed.
Apple is investing billions of dollars in these plans; R&D spending reached 10.3% of revenue in the second quarter, up from 7.6% in Q1. Given Apple’s accelerating revenue, on a dollar basis this means the company’s R&D spend is up 34% from a year ago.
“We believe AI is a really important investment area for Apple, and we’re going to be doing that incrementally on top of what we normally invest in our product roadmap,” said Apple CFO Kevan Parekh during Apple’s latest fiscal call. (AI isn’t Apple’s only spending target, either.)
While the billions Apple is investing are dwarfed by the huge infrastructure investments made by pure AI players, Apple’s infrastructure already exists — in the form
Apple has agreed to pay $250 million to settle a class action lawsuit alleging it misled consumers about the AI capabilities of the iPhone 15 and 16. The complaint claimed Apple exaggerated the readiness and functionality of Apple Intelligence features, particularly an upgraded Siri, influencing purchase decisions with capabilities that were incomplete or delayed. Without […]
The mishaps around Apple Intelligence have gone beyond denting Apple’s reputation – they have also cost the company $250 million in damages over smarter Siri delays.
Think back to the original introduction of Apple Intelligence and you might recall a promotional video that explained how a new and smarter Siri would act as your contextually-smart AI companion, helping you get things done. Almost two years later, that smarter Siri still hasn’t shipped — and while Apple has made major changes in management, AI strategy, and approach, this contextual companion isn’t now expected until later this year.
Hopefully.
Apple Intelligence can be seen as a Maps-launch style debacle on the part of the company. (Apple even had to deny that the video presentation for those features shown at WWDC 2024 (no longer officially available) was made up.)
Apple Intelligence’s $250M punishment
The entire affair left some iPhone users unhappy, so they launched a class action lawsuit against the company for dela
Settlement, which includes no admission of wrongdoing, covers roughly 36m eligible devices in class-action lawsuit
Apple on Tuesday agreed to pay $250m to settle a class-action lawsuit accusing it of misleading millions of iPhone buyers by falsely touting artificial intelligence capabilities for its Siri voice assistant in late 2024.
Plaintiffs accused the California tech giant of having “promoted AI capabilities that did not exist at the time, do not exist now, and will not exist for two or more years” in order to boost iPhone sales, according to the suit. Apple’s more “personalized” version of Siri still has not been fully released despite its announcement nearly two years ago.
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Apple has agreed to pay $250 million to settle a class action lawsuit that accused it of misleading customers about the availability of its Apple Intelligence features. The proposed settlement would apply to people in the US who purchased all models of the iPhone 16 and the iPhone 15 Pro between June 10th, 2024 and March 29th, 2025.
The settlement will resolve a 2025 lawsuit, alleging Apple's advertisements created a "clear and reasonable consumer expectation" that Apple Intelligence features would be available with the launch of the iPhone 16. The lawsuit claimed Apple's products "offered a significantly limited or entirely absent version …
Read the full story at The Verge.
Some iPhone owners will be eligible to receive $25 to $95 over claims that the tech giant oversold its artificial intelligence system, Apple Intelligence.
With Apple's latest operating system updates, users will reportedly have their pick of which third-party AI models they want to use for a host of tasks.
The next update to Apple's operating systems could allow users to choose their preferred AI model for running Apple Intelligence. According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, Apple is planning to allow third-party chatbots to power its AI features system-wide in iOS 27, iPadOS 27, and macOS 27, all expected for this fall. In addition to running Siri, compatible third-party AI models, called "Extensions," will also now be able to run other Apple Intelligence features like Writing Tools and Image Playground.
According to Gurman, Apple will also allow users to choose different Siri voices for different AI models - Siri responses from one of Apple's …
Read the full story at The Verge.
Apple has held “exploratory” talks about manufacturing processors for its devices in the US, Bloomberg reports. The move seems to reflect Apple’s need to secure additional chip supplies to meet growing demand for its products, but could also represent a contingency plan to reduce the company’s reliance on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC’s) advanced manufacturing facilities in Taiwan.
I doubt this means Apple doesn’t want to work with TSMC, nor does it mean TSMC is cooling on Apple. I suspect company management is far more concerned about what might happen in the event China attacks TSMC’s home nation.
Contingency planning
That concern seems legitimate in the context of unravelling of international relations and a recently-disclosed warning the CIA gave to tech leaders back in 2023. Executives from Apple, AMD, and Qualcomm were all warned that China might attack Taiwan. Such an attack would comprise a huge threat to the entire tech industry. Speaking at the World Econ
Apple last week nixed its long-held “net cash neutral” target, a move analysts see as giving the company more flexibility to make massive infrastructure investments or acquisitions. Naturally, as AI is the only thing that seems to matter in tech these days, commentators rushed to speculate on potential acquisition targets in the AI space.
The thing is, this may not be about AI.
Now that Apple has confirmed John Ternus as its next CEO, the market can stop treating the company’s cash shift as speculative and start treating it as strategic. Ternus, a hardware‑first leader by background, understands the value of services and has pledged to expand Apple’s services business.
Services, services, services
The great thing about services is that they provide the company with a solid and predictable revenue stream to insulate it from fluctuations in product-driven business. We’ve seen this in the last few years, with Apple’s dramatically climbing services income acting as a cushion against slow
At TechCrunch's sold-out StrictlyVC event in San Francisco on Thursday night, we covered a lot of ground in a short time, beginning with the question everyone in the industry is asking right now: in a world where rival Cursor is reportedly in talks to be acquired by SpaceX for $60 billion, is Replit also bound to sell?
Outgoing Apple CEO Tim Cook’s swan song sings of success as the company on Thursday announced record revenue in its second quarter, while admitting demand for some products — including the new MacBook Neo — has wildly exceeded expectations.
The company reported a March quarter record of $111.2 billion revenue, up 17% from last year. This follows another strong Q1 and means Apple now has an installed base of an astonishing 2.5 billion devices.
iPhone, MacBook Neo, Mac mini and Mac Studio led the charge during a quarter in which Cook confirmed “record” numbers of new-to-Mac customers. The iPhone 17 family, “is now the most popular line-up in our history,” said Apple CFO Kevan Parekh.
Looking ahead to the ongoing leadership transition, Cook said, “We have the right leader ready to step into the role.” For his part, incoming CEO John Ternus said: “This is the most exciting time in my 25-year career at Apple to be building products and services.”
MacBook Neo: The ‘iPhone moment’ for the Ma
Apple’s Mac division outperformed Wall Street expectations in the second quarter, generating $8.4 billion in revenue — a 6% year-over-year increase that analysts had not anticipated. The company’s total revenue reached $111.2 billion, up 17% from the same period last year. CEO Tim Cook attributed part of the Mac’s strength to unexpectedly strong demand driven […]
