I suspect that this is Apple flexing their muscles and making a point where they feel they can without getting charged and/or fined.
But it may well cost them iphone upgrades in September (not that they were promising that Apple Intelligence would be ready for September(
The EU may not getting AI features this year but it doesn’t mean the US will be getting them. “Some features” may take up to a year to arrive and my guess is the best shall be last.
I don’t blame them 100%. From what I’ve read the DMA is complicated because it’s spirit vs letter of the law (reading from Gruber). And that complicates their calculus because they are expected to release something and just hope someone doesn’t challenge them, at which point they are forced to change things/pay fines.
I think the EU stuff is well intentioned, but here are the second and third order consequences/effects.
That sounds a lot like what developers go through with the App Store.
I’m not sure whether we (UK) are included in this, but if we are, then the opportunity to let others try the dubious ‘delights’ of more AI first seems welcome. I trust Apple to do it less badly than many others, but i’m not convinced of the wisdom of doing it at all - certainly not the cheat’s charter of images and content creation.
Let the guinea pigs do their work first. If it turns out Apple’s version can be trusted or turned off, then there’ll be time enough later on.
And similarly, no one forces developers to put apps in the App Store.
And before I get jumped on, please…I’m not agreeing with Apple’s treatment of developers and how locked down the platform is from certain types of apps. I do think Apple largely brought this on themselves by how they ran the App Store.
We are all speculating from the outside looking in, of course, but I tend to think Apple will release these features in the EU. But judging by how delayed some will be even in the US, it’s clear they have a lot of work to do. And because of the EU’s rules, I would think they are being very careful and deliberate on what and how they roll out features in the EU going forward.
I think it was Jason on Upgrade (could have been Myke, I can’t recall) who often reminds listeners that Apple is a for-profit company. He’s right to do that, because the fandom sometimes forgets that. Yes, Apple makes products we love. Yes, they generally seem to care about important issues like the environment. But because they are a publicly-traded company, make no mistake…they are a profit-seeking machine. The market then gets to react to their decisions.
I agree, and wonder why Apple would even mention “regulatory issues”? Apple’s stock spiked because investors think AI will cause a big increase in iPhone sales in the fall. If that doesn’t happen I expect Apple’s market value will fall once again. Are they planning on blaming the EU if this happens?
Well, first Apple’s stock could have spiked just because they are getting into AI…I don’t know that there’s proof that it’s anticipated iPhone sales.
Funnily enough, though (again, not my original idea…this was Myke on Upgrade), a spike of iPhone sales doesn’t actually help them that much. He posits (and I agree) that they didn’t like having to restrict the new AI features to iPhone 15 Pros and newer. The thought is, yes sales may spike, but then they could dip in following years. This has happened before and Wall Street punishes them in the “slower growth” year that follows. (Don’t get me started on how Wall Street’s desires are the cause for so many problems and drive companies to do some whacky things.)
I don’t know either, but that seems to be the option of some.
Bloomberg said: “Apple Inc. investors finally have a roadmap for how it will use artificial intelligence — and they’ve responded by pushing the stock to a record high this week.
Wall Street is betting that new iPhone AI features — including Apple’s agreement with OpenAI to integrate ChatGPT — will spur a massive upgrade cycle among users . . . “
Two things can be true at the same time.
The DMA is a bad law.
Tha App Store Rules are bad rules.
Ironically, the developers that protest the loudest against paying any distribution fee to Apple as the same ones that rushed to lock their apps behind subscription fees for dubious ‘continuous improvements’ to mundane one-and-done utility apps.
Observation: there is a perpetual tug-of-war in the Apple community between purists that want everything to be free and indie’s that come of age and realize you can’t feed your family if you give everything away and never charge a sustainable price for your product or services.
On the consumer side, a lot of Apple buyers are like first-time luxury goods buyers (Porsche, etc.) and after paying for a great car, they complain bitterly that the floormats cost $2,000 instead of $50 and that is unfair.
I don’t mind the $2,000 floormats. It’s the subscription required to use the seat hearters and coolers and remote start that bother me! 
The DMA does not apply in the UK, so there’s no reason for them to hold it back.
Oh well… just have to be self-restraint then. I’ll upgrade at some point but it won’t be for the AI stuff, most of which looks underwhelming when it’s not potentially harmful. Thanks.
I’m confused by this statement. Who are these “purists” that want “everything to be free”? I think moist of us know that it takes time and treasure to build great apps, that’s why we gladly pay for them.
I hope both regulators and Apple can get to grips with the deep issues here because they matter to consumers.
Apple wants a very big and very strong wall around its garden. There are some very bad people out there and lots of less evil ones who will cut corners and cause mayhem with their software or business practices. Apple hardware, curated and approved software collection and secure cloud is (almost) a garden of Eden in which you are much better protected and things “just work” with higher quality and better experience than if they take the garden wall down and let anyone into the ecosystem.
Regulators have a strong instinct, born from long, painful history, that companies who act as “gatekeepers” and regulate themselves inevitably end up exploiting those who go through the gate. They passionately believe in free competition and free markets as the remedy to exploitation.
There is fairly strong evidence on both sides.
Without wanting to get political, there is a lot of evidence that “leaving it to the market” is not a simple panacea despite having been a core belief in the West for a long time. Equally, (e.g. governments) controlling and effectively eliminating market competition has some very bad outcomes.
As a consumer, I don’t want either model, I want elements of both. I want a well-protected ecosystem, with a powerful gatekeeper (or set of gatekeepers) to keep out those who can’t or don’t want to play by the rules and who benefit me by helping to build a coherent, integrated environment. I like the Apple Ecosystem. I could go Android or Windows if I wanted a free-for-all. At the same time, I don’t like how big a slice Apple takes from anything going on in the “garden”, whether they’ve contributed anything beyond creating their hardware and OS, and I am pretty sure that the value I get from Apple in general is rather less than I end up paying them, directly or indirectly.
In this specific case, I really like as much processing on device as possible, and secure, encrypted, private cloud computing seamlessly available when it’s not. I wonder if only Apple can offer that for their OS or whether they could (as used to be the case for cloud sync) allow other companies to offer alternative services equally integrated into the OS.
I hope there are solutions better than a simple “free market” or a monopoly.
I am in the same boat with a 13 Pro that still has excellent battery life. I’m probably going to wait at least another year, as by then they will likely have a language model that runs 100% on device.
Let’s see how attractive they are when they’re announced!
There are a lot of us in that boat. My iPhone 11 will normally last 24 - 30 hours.
The only thing Apple has announced that interests me is a new Siri (I fired the old one a while back) and it isn’t due until next year so I’m waiting to see how well it performs.
I have an iPhone 14 Pro Max, it has 83% battery health and it still (somehow) gives me excellent battery life.
But in September I’ll be upgrading to a new Pro Max with the better camera. I resisted the upgrade last year as my phone was only 12 months old, but the 5x zoom was a strong draw and this alongside Apple Intelligence and any further camera improvements will be worth making the change.
Edit: And of course USB C instead of lightning
One of the things I enjoy most about the iPhone, coming from years on the excellent Pixel, is the battery life. I no longer have to worry about carrying a charger when I’m out for a day of travel, etc.
Before I upgrade my iPhone to be able to use Apple Intelligence, I’m going to wait for real-world battery life reports. I don’t want to return to the days of nervously watching my battery. Something tells me that using it will eat battery, and combined with Apple’s push towards thinner devices (maybe planned before realizing the need for AI to stay competitive?), I’m hoping for the best but won’t be an early adopter.