Apple's catching up

I think it’s clear that in a few years, the iPhone as we know it will not be the iPhone as we know it.

Replacing it will be a pervasive, all-seeing, all-knowing AI companion that you converse with normally, like a human assistant.

You’ll tell it what you want — “Order some more toilet paper!” — and it’ll execute your command to perfection. If it orders the wrong toilet paper, or pays too much, you’ll correct it, like you would a human assistant. Next time, it’ll do better.

The startup Humane — which spectacularly flamed out with its slow and underwhelming Ai Pin — was on the right track, but that device delivered too little, too soon.

Which is why the battle for AI assistants is so critical. All the major tech players (except Meta) have one, and where and how they run will be central to their adoption and success (it’s all about distribution).

As a leader in mobile computing, Apple has an obvious advantage here, but the company’s AI efforts have lagged.

As Apple users, we all know this from our day-to-day interactions with Apple’s smart assistant. Just this morning, I asked Siri what I thought was a simple question, and got instead the reply that drives me insane: “I can show you on your iPhone.”

Right now, Apple cedes a lot of territory to ChatGPT, which can be used to provide information and advice in Apple Intelligence. In my experience, it works great.

But Apple itself may not be so far behind. Apple’s actually catching up, according to a new report.

Also in today’s newsletter:

• In related news, you may be able to replace Siri as your iPhone’s default smart assistant — if you live in the European Union, that is. You can already kinda replace Siri with Amazon’s recently revamped and smarter Alexa+ — see the X post below.

• This new smart speaker looks suspiciously like a HomePod, but it comes with a couple of tricks up its sleeve that make it better than Apple’s offering (and a major downside, too).

• The latest iPad mini just went on sale with a not-too-shabby 20% off.

• The upcoming iPhone 17 Air looks set to get a relatively small battery — but it might be a new design that punches above its weight.

• If you had not one but two pricey Apple Studio Displays, would you pair them with an odd, square-shaped monitor from LG?

• I remember when Apple opened up its first retail stores. Everyone thought Steve Jobs had gone insane! But opening day brought crowds that haven’t thinned since.

— Leander Kahney, EIC.

^{A message from the Cult of Mac Deals team}

^{A message from the Cult of Mac Deals team}

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