By John Moltz
March 10, 2023 2:00 PM PT
This Week in Apple: Stumbling into the future
Technology marches ever forward, even if it does stumble drunkenly from side to side, as it sometimes does. This week Apple contemplates its AI strategy, sets a ship date for its classical music app, and makes plans for new Macs. Reportedly.
Begun, the AI war has
Look out, Siri, because according to DigiTimes, Apple is going to re-examine its AI strategy.
It’s fine to reexamine your strategies at any time, and there are certainly some effective applications for AI, but given the current state of “AI” (which is really more machine learning than true “artificial intelligence”), this is an area where Apple should feel free to take its time.
Why? Well, let’s just pull a quote from thatMacRumors piece:
…companies like Apple, Meta, and Amazon… are purportedly making efforts to ensure Microsoft does not maintain its lead in AI.
Its what with the whatnow? Are we talking about the same AI?
“Microsoft says talking to Bing for too long can cause it to go off the rails”
“Microsoft limits Bing chat to five replies to stop the AI from getting real weird”
“Microsoft’s Bing AI plotted its revenge and offered me furry porn”
Is it this the AI we’re talking about? This is the one that’s supposedly ahead?
If I ship a personal jetpack that’s 15 liter-sized Diet Coke bottles, each hooked up to my own patented Mentos injection system, and all duct taped upside down to a backpack, does that put me in the lead in jetpack technology?
If so, forget I said that until I secure some VC funding.
As fun as these systems are to play with right now (mostly for the laughably incorrect answers they give to simple questions like “What year is it?”), this isn’t a kiddie pool Apple needs to play in yet.
Classic Apple
While Apple missed its deadline of the end of 2022 to ship a classical music app, the company announced this week that classical music stans can expect it to hit the App Store on March 28th. You can even pre-order it now and it’ll download automatically when it’s available.
But cue up Beethoven’s 5th, because there’s a catch.
Update: I’ve confirmed with Apple that Apple Music Classical will be iOS-only when it launches. No iPad app.
You people finally got a Weather app for the iPad and now you want a classical music app, too?! Unbelievable! Next you’ll want a Mac app. And four of you will want an Apple TV app. Where does it end?
Yeah, OK, probably right there. But, still.
Given how much Apple pushes developers to ship apps for all of its platforms, “ironic” seems too casual a word to describe the company shipping this app for just the iPhone. Let’s go with “cosmironic” or “ironimitastic”. Apple likes to make it seem easy to ship apps that work on all of its platforms, but it’s still work—work that it clearly doesn’t even want to do itself, sometimes.
And it doesn’t even have to go through the app approval process, which is still like having to run an obstacle course built on an ever-changing Rube Goldberg machine. Even a classic like Untitled Goose Game was, as Cabel Sasser details, rejected twice before Panic simply gave up.
It’s nice that Apple still ships some products that are just for a segment of its customers. It’s too bad this one’s just on a segment of its platforms.
Skip counting new Macs
The Mac rumors will continue until… well, long past when morale improves. And then degrades again. Possibly until the heat death of the universe, it seems.
A 15-inch Air could arrive as soon as April, according to display analyst Ross Young. But what’s it going to run on? Is Apple really going to ship an M3-based Air less than a year after it shipped the M2-based Air? I’m not privy to Apple’s processor release schedule—despite all the flowers and chocolates I’ve sent to Johny Srouji—but that seems quick.
You’re already crushing the competition in performance per watt, Apple. Slow down. Where’s the fire?
Inside Intel-based laptops! Zing.
An M3-based iMac is also reportedly in the works, per Mark Gurman. If this is the next iMac to ship, that would mean the iMac line would completely skip the M2. And then would Apple ship a Mac Pro based on an M2 Ultra?
Of course, that would be fine, it’s just something about the numbering of Apple silicon that makes these updates seem stranger than when Macs ran on Intel’s chips with their unintelligible cacophony of lake-based names. Was Lake Wobegon faster than Crystal Lake? Who knew?
Anyway, enjoy the fruit basket, Johny.
And call me.
[John Moltz is a Six Colors contributor. You can find him on Mastodon at Mastodon.social/@moltz and he sells items with references you might get on Cotton Bureau.]