By John Moltz
July 12, 2024 2:00 PM PT
This Week in Apple: The robots are coming
Phil Schiller’s schedule changes yet again, Apple sells a lot of Macs, and I, for one, welcome our robot overlords.
Or not
Remember a long time ago (last week) when Phil Schiller was set to join the board of OpenAI? Yeah, forget that. Not happening.
“Apple Drops OpenAI Board Observer Role Amid Regulatory Scrutiny”
Well, you’re not going to sit around this house doing nothing all summer, mister!
Lest you think that Schiller now has a free day again every quarter, he will instead attend regular “key strategic partner” meetings with OpenAI. So, essentially it’s the same thing, he just doesn’t get to update his LinkedIn profile.
Not only has Apple given up its “observer” seat (I think it would have worked like the Watcher in “What If…?”; Schiller could only have watched but not interfered) but Microsoft has as well. Considering Apple paid nothing for the seat at the table it’s not taking and Microsoft paid $13 billion, it seems like one company got the better deal.
Not a guarantee
Remember Macs? It turns out Apple still makes them. And a lot of them. According to Canalys, Apple’s Mac shipments went up by 6 percent in the second quarter, outpacing the PC market as a whole.
While the Mac is doing well, AI is expected to drive future sales of Windows-based computers because… uh… I guess people can’t wait for AI features like having screenshots of their passwords and financial account numbers stored in a database that’s fairly easy to hack. I honestly don’t know why analysts say the things they say.
I do love analyst projections, though, because it gives me yet another chance to link to the best analyst projection of all time. In May of 2011, an analyst for Pyramid Research said sales of Windows Phone would overtake Android in 2013. I don’t know if you were aware, but that did not happen. In fact, it did not happen times infinity. Android continued its ascendence through the 2010s and Windows Phone was discontinued in 2015. And Pyramid Research has apparently since gone out of business. So, when you read that analysts are predicting something, just do what I do: look up into the sky, smile, and fondly remember the best prediction of all time, ever.
That’s how you get a robot apocalypse
The Apple rumor mill took a wild turn this week as Mark Gurman said Apple was working on a table-top robot. Gurman did not give the robot a name but let’s assume for the purposes of this column its name is DEATH MACHINE 4000. Again, this may or may not be the actual shipping name, we will just use it as a placeholder until we hear what the actual name of this product is.
According to Gurman, the DEATH MACHINE 4000 will include a Center Stage-like feature where it is able to follow a speaker as they move around a room in order to keep them in frame for FaceTime calls. Further, it will be able to detect when a caller nods and nod up and down itself, because that’s not weird, you’re weird.
But wait, don’t throw down your money yet. Another rumor indicates that Apple is still working on a HomePod with a touchscreen display.
“tvOS 18 Hints at HomePod With Touchscreen Display”
It’s not clear if this would be the same product as the DEATH MACHINE 4000 or if Apple is simply hoping to take over your entire kitchen counter. I don’t know what your kitchen counter is like but that’s not going to work so well in my house unless the DEATH MACHINE 4000 is also a blender or an air fryer because we are at maximum counter capacity.
I’m all for Apple moving more into home automation. AI is less exciting than devices that can actually make your life easier. You know, as long as they don’t kill us.
[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.]