Apple pulled off a feat by unveiling its latest releases and innovations, including a sophisticated virtual and augmented reality headset, not to mention artificial intelligence (AI) – the now essential technology at any Silicon Valley event.
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Since the phenomenal launch of ChatGPT by Californian start-up OpenAI last year, every technology company has been competing in the field of generative AI.
You really don’t have a choice: Analysts, investors and consumers have fallen in love with these programs, which can produce natural language text, images and videos on simple request.
Microsoft and Google are rushing to integrate generative AI into their search engines and office software to attract users who are happy to see robots writing their emails and planning their vacations.
And many businesses, from Snapchat to banks and travel companies, are adding state-of-the-art chatbots to their services so they don’t get left behind.
But Apple, the neighbor of Google and Meta (Facebook, Instagram), never once mentioned generative AI or even artificial intelligence during its annual developer conference last Monday.
“Apple is ignoring the generative AI revolution,” was the headline in industry magazine Wired after the event.
Discretion?
Not that the iPhone maker is alien to artificial intelligence, a vague concept that covers many technologies that are neither rare nor particularly complex.
The phrase has been criticized in particular for conjuring up a sci-fi future in which conscious and omniscient machines would take control of humanity.
Because of this, some companies, including TikTok and Facebook (Meta), are deploying innovations that fall under AI, without necessarily emphasizing the term.
“We obviously build it into our products, but people don’t necessarily think of it as AI,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said in an interview with ABC News this week.
Several features highlighted on Monday actually make use of this technology.
For example, Craig Federighi, the software manager, said that “machine learning algorithms” would improve the automatic spelling correction tool.
He could have explained that thanks to AI, the keyboard becomes less constrained when a user wants to write certain common swear words, and also learn their preferences and give them suggestions.
However, he did not mention the famous algorithms.
AI will also play a big role in Apple’s first mixed reality headset, which will start at $3,500 next year.
In fact, the Vision Pro’s computer will be able to generate a hyper-realistic digital avatar of the user who wears it, thanks to video recordings of that person and sensors tracking the movements of the mouth and hands in real time.
Photo: AFP
Or delay?
For some observers, the AI taboo shows that Apple has lost ground to its competitors.
“They’re way behind,” says independent analyst Rob Enderle.
ChatGPT’s success “surprised them,” he said. “I think they thought this kind of AI wasn’t going to happen anytime soon. (…) Now they will be forced to acquire a start-up in this field.”
Also, the haphazard performance of Siri, Apple’s voice assistant, which launched a decade ago, gives the impression that the California giant has some catching up to do.
“Almost everyone is aware that Apple has lost its competitiveness compared to Siri. This is probably the product where the lag is most noticeable,” comments Insider Intelligence’s Yory Wurmser.
However, the expert also reminds that the company is primarily a manufacturer of computer equipment. For Apple, AI-based software is “a means of improving the user experience, not an end in itself”.
According to Wedbush’s Dan Ives, for all the unspoken, the presentation of the Vision Pro shows the potential of the group in the field of AI.
“It’s the first step in Apple’s broader strategy to build an ecosystem of generative AI apps,” he predicts of the new headset.