On the Cusp of Apple Intelligence’s Launch, Joanna Stern Interviews Craig Federighi

Joanna Stern, writing for The Wall Street Journal (News+):

If you’re expecting AI fireworks, prepare for AI … sparklers. Back in June, at the company’s annual developers conference, executives showed off do-it-yourself emojis, ChatGPT integration and a Siri that can recall the name of a person you met months ago. Apple has even been running ads for some features. None are in this release.

“This is a big lift,” Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering, told me at the company’s headquarters. “You could put something out there and have it be sort of a mess. Apple’s point of view is more like, ‘Let’s try to get each piece right and release it when it’s ready.’”

Yes, while other companies rush out generative-AI tools, sometimes with controversy, Apple is moving cautiously. Federighi denies the company is behind, saying it’s prioritizing privacy and responsibility.

It’s a very good interview, and also available on YouTube.

And yes, the higher-profile, more whiz-bang-y Apple Intelligence features aren’t shipping next week in iOS 18.1 and MacOS 15.1. But as Stern herself points out in the article, the features that are shipping are genuinely useful. Notification summaries are good — the occasional mistakes can be funny, but overall it’s solid, and especially helpful for batches of notifications from the same app or group text. The Clean Up unwanted-object-remover in Photos is great. I still haven’t spent much time trying the writing tools, but Stern has, and finds them useful. These are tools that will be used in everyday situations, in the apps they already use, by normal, non-technical iOS and Mac users. There’s a reason Apple is doing a full-court media press on this.

★ Tuesday, 22 October 2024