Where Is Apple in the AI Race?

On this week's episode of The MacRumors Show, we discuss Apple's place in the ongoing race to develop generative AI tools.

Earlier this week, Apple held its annual AI summit for employees at the Steve Jobs Theater, the first fully live in-person event at the company's Apple Park headquarters since the pre-COVID era. The latest AI summit comes at a time of great excitement surrounding the Microsoft-backed ChatGPT artificial intelligence chatbot and Google's recent announcement that it is releasing its own LaMDA-powered AI chatbot, called Bard.

Google is adding the technology behind Bard to the Google search engine to enable complex queries to be distilled into digestible answers, and Microsoft is expected to follow a similar path by integrating ChatGPT into Bing Search. AI image generation tools such as DALL-E 2 have also captured public interest in recent months, alongside the technology's potential for music creation, video editing, and more.

In February last year, Apple purchased an AI start-up focused on auto-generated music, but the company is publicly missing from the current race to innovate in the generative AI space. We look at where Apple may have advantages that it could leverage for AI, potential integrations in features like Siri and Spotlight search, and where we could see the first Apple generative AI tools emerge.

We also talk through some of the week's biggest news, including the apparent delay of Apple's mixed-reality headset to June, the indefinite delay of the company's 27-inch mini-LED external display, iMac skipping the M2 chip, and the method Apple apparently has in store to authenticate iPhone 15 USB-C accessories. In addition, we look at the increasingly tangible 15-inch MacBook Air with the M2 chip, which Apple could launch as soon as April.

00:00:00 Introduction
00:00:10 Apple AR Headset Delayed
00:07:18 New Mini LED 27" Display Delayed
00:09:40 Magic Spoon (Sponsor)
00:12:14 New M3 iMac coming this year?
00:21:54 USB C Regulation on iPhone 15
00:27:45 Apple's AI Event
00:53:27 Bonus: 15" MacBook Air Coming Soon?

[oh]

Apple needs to incorporate AI into their apps as soon as possible. If you look at Microsoft's recent announcement about Microsoft 360, Apple's software brand will become obsolete. Even if they partner with Google, they will still lose a lot of their hardware customers once AI is integrated into the Windows operating system, which will happen soon. AI is the future and it doesn't help that you ditching AI here. The competition is moving quickly, and the knowledge you are relying on here is already outdated and misleading."

[DOOMSDREAM]

I just charged siri with gpt 3.5 via shortcuts and that sparked my interest in this

[matteugenio]

Just made my Friday better with a new podcast episode!

[andgar]

Uh.... WWDC is a developer camp that lasts for a week. There’s also an online support system in place for developers. Apple has also announced hardware during the WWDC presentation and provided devs with developer models to use. I don’t understand why he’s confused why Apple won’t announce the VR glasses then.

[FemaleVillageElder]

What do I want Apple to do with AI? Make Siri awesome. For me, it is more interesting and helpful to have a voice interface with my iPad than even with Spotlight. I want Siri to be the personification of my iPad and do what I ask of it by voice. Of course, I’m a big fan of Jarvis.

[thatDigitalDen]

Improve Stable Diffusion with Core ML on Apple Silicon and enable training of models. As well as improvements to the Apple Neural Engine.

[johncollins]

I would like ChatGPT on the Apple iPads or MacBooks or Apple AI! I would like M3!

[bradbell]

19:30 I'd like a replacement for my elder 5k iMac, but so far every new iMac option means downgrading display, RAM and storage

[alexisgalea]

I got an iPhone XS Max, is it worth waiting for the iPhone 15 ultra or go for iPhone 14 Pro Max?

[DojoOfCool]

The iPad has USB-C because iPads are used a lot by musicians and USB-C is a common connection for audio interfaces and other gear. iPhones users don't connect much to outboard devices so the port is mainly just for charging and Apple makes a lot of money selling chargers and Lighting cables. I think Apple just switching to a USB-C connector, but internally still Lighting is there way to meet the EU regulation, but give them the finger at the same time.

[matthewmastrobuono]

I wanted that copper iPhone. That said, I do love my deep purple one.

[Co-opSource]

It’s not too much to get the HMD developer info dump at WWDC. It is going to take a long time for everyone to oriented so better get the info, and more importantly the HMD, sooner rather than later.

[respectfullydecline]

AI must concern the MacRumors staff. After all, the MacRumors writers only read and rewrite stories from light technology sites.

[DustinFultz]

13:02
M1 A14
M2 A15
M3 A17?
Wishful thinking imo hope I’m wrong

[johann]

I disagree. I think you primarily buy a apple device (at least an iPhone) for the software, and the way it smoothly interacts with the other devices in the ecosystem.

[BlairSlavin]

Ooooh…. Look at that HOT NEW Woof! Woof!

[tomsop]

this was a lame commercial - he mentioned expanding stuff but gave no use case scenarios to justify this $349 price.

[douglastompkins]

you didnt talk about how apple will use on there software products. How will they use A.I with logic? Final cut? Apple lost its power in production to microsoft, from music production, video production, image production and programing.