The iPhone Must Think Anew to Salvage Apple Intelligence

Apple's AI offerings are too weak and it can't catch up on its own

- DAVE LEE

One reason Apple Inc.'s brand is so valuable is that for decades, it had a reputation for only making promises it could keep. It did this thanks to a notoriously stubborn CEO in Steve Jobs, who had talented executives and listened to what investors thought, but ultimately made decisions by consulting an advisory panel of one: himself.

Tim Cook is not Steve Jobs, but his gift for supply-chain logistics made him the right CEO when Apple's largest challenge seemed to be iterating and building the iPhone to sell billions of them around the world. In his own way, Cook was as good a promise keeper as Jobs. Yet, all of a sudden, Captain Cook seems to be in uncharted territory. He's there because he opened his decision-making to the whims of Wall Street, which was demanding big news on what Apple would do with artificial intelligence (AI). I don't think Jobs would have allowed himself to be rushed, but Cook did.

By prematurely introducing Apple Intelligence, Cook gave his company a deadline it wasn't sure it could meet, and it hasn't. Apple has broken promises to customers, with TV spots trumpeting features that are still nowhere near completion, nudging customers to buy smartphones that cost $1,000 plus but don't work as advertised (there was small print).