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My wife has never been a huge fan of tech, despite being constantly glued to her iPhone and iPad, just like the rest of us.
In fact, her reaction to the original iPhone, which I bought at launch, was something like: “This thing is stupid! What do you want the internet on a phone for?”
At the time, the first iPhone was $499 more expensive than the free phones offered with cell plans, and it’s usefulness was far more limited than today’s handsets. The cost and limited utility were, for her, major minuses.
But for the last few weeks she’s leapfrogged herself to the front of the tech pack.
Unexpectedly, she’s become a dedicated fan of AI. She even jokingly calls AI her “new friend.”
Using mostly Google Gemini, she’s used AI for drafting emails, shopping advice, product comparisons, responding to official letters and a host of other tasks. She used AI intensely while involved in a billing dispute with a company, and it provided good guidance for dealing with an elderly relative with dementia.
I’ve also noticed that my mom increasingly uses Siri. She routinely asks it to open apps, answer simple queries, and perform basic tasks.
And this is the old version of Siri. Apple’s new Siri AI is far more capable and intuitive to use than the old one, and it’s going to be a massive change for regular Apple users.
Old habits die hard, but if my wife’s experience is anything to go by, millions of people will quickly switch to using AI — specifically Siri AI — to do most things on their devices.
Right now, there’s a long waitlist for the new Siri AI. It took more than a week for me to get access. There was a hack that helped you jumped the line, but Apple shut it down. But now there’s a new, better way to skip the waitlist — and who knows, it may not be around for long.
Also in today’s newsletter:
Cult of Mac writer D Griffin Jones tells me its a huge dopamine hit when one of your bug reports gets fixed by Apple. Here’s how to file them.
Your SSN and other sensitive data may be available on the dark web, but Incogni hunts it down and deletes it. Save 55% today with code CULTOFMAC.
🔥 DEAL OF THE DAY: Beats Solo 4 on-ear headphones are half-price for Amazon Prime Day. The big sale has some other good Apple deals, too.
Boo! I still use an old Airport Extreme for AirPlay-ing music to an older stereo. Maybe not for much longer.
Tim Cook is making a major bet using just two South Korean suppliers for most of Apple’s ambitious 2026 product lineup. It might prove risky.
— Leander Kahney, EIC.
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One more thing ...
To these Hewlett-Packard guys, $10,000 was cheap. To our market, to our distribution channels, $10,000 was impossible. So we produced a product [the Lisa computer] that was a complete mismatch for the culture of our company, for the image of our company, for the distribution channels of our company, for our current customers. None of them could afford a product like that. And it failed.
Today’s poll
Anyone still using AirPort hardware?
Results from yesterday’s poll:
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