Jess Weatherbed (Hacker News, MacRumors, ArsTechnica):
iPhone and Android users will be able to exchange end-to-end encrypted (E2EE) RCS messages in the near future thanks to newly updated RCS specifications. The GSM Association announced that the latest RCS standard includes E2EE based on the Messaging Layer Security (MLS) protocol, enabling interoperable encryption between different platform providers for the first time.
The GSM Association said it had started working to enable E2EE on messages sent between Android and iPhone in September last year.
Dan Moren:
Personally, I never really thought it made sense for Apple, a company whose brand is about security and privacy, to withhold support for encryption on RCS. But the real issue was that the RCS standard did not include support for cross-platform encryption, even though other providers, like Google, enabled encryption on their platforms.
Joe Rossignol:
As noted by 9to5Mac’s Michael Burkhardt, Apple has indirectly confirmed that it will be adopting the RCS Universal Profile 3.0 specification, which includes not only end-to-end encryption, but also several other iMessage-like enhancements that were originally introduced in version 2.7 of the specification. iOS 18 supports RCS Universal Profile 2.4.
John Gruber:
I have also noticed recently that Google Messages and Apple Messages now do a pretty good job of supporting each other’s tapbacks.
[…]
But what happens when new/updated Android phones support the new RCS encryption spec, and older devices don’t? A lock icon for the encrypted chats? If it were up to me, iOS would drop support for non-encrypted RCS — iOS should use RCS with E2EE for every device that supports it, and fall back to dumb old no-encryption-at-all SMS for all devices that do not.
Previously:
Android iOS iOS 18 Mac macOS 15 Sequoia Messages.app Privacy Rich Communication Services (RCS)
treblewoe:
A modest proposal for how Apple can come to dominate the AI race without ever actually matching with the current leaders[…]
[…]
So what is Apple the platform vendor to do? Stop thinking like an app ecosystem participant or even an app store referee, and start thinking like a platform vendor again. Apple’s value-add here will never be by producing its own “frontier” model that does everything best.
[…]
Right now all these AI providers are returning documents in response to user intent, and everyone is treating those documents like the finished product. Here’s your poem. Here’s your picture. Anything else?.
The brilliance of OpenDoc was that each of those were raw material.
Gus Mueller:
Build a semantic index (SI), and allow apps to access it via permissions given similar to what we do for Address Book or Photos.
[…]
And similar to the Spotlight indexing API, developers should be able to provide data to the SI along with rich metadata.
[…]
But give developers the opportunity, and then customers will have something to choose from. Make the Mac and iOS the best platform to build personalized LLMs.
Let the apps die and live based on their own merit and reputation. Apple can build the platform, and maybe expand on it over time and use it themselves.
Apple Intelligence has so far been the opposite of the platform strategy that had previously served it so well. Modern Apple is more about providing closed solutions and services.
Previously:
Apple Intelligence Artificial Intelligence iOS Mac
Mark Gurman (Hacker News, MacRumors):
Robby Walker, who serves as a senior director at Apple, delivered the stark comments during an all-hands meeting for the Siri division, saying that the team was facing a bad period. Walker also said that it’s unclear when the enhancements will actually launch, according to people with knowledge of the matter, who asked not to be identified because the gathering was private.
[…]
But when Apple demonstrated the features at WWDC using a video mock-up, it only had a barely working prototype, Bloomberg has reported.
[…]
Walker defended his Siri group, telling them that they should be proud. Employees poured their “hearts and souls into this thing,” he said.
Chris Welch (Hacker News):
He also said it’s not a given that the missing Siri features will make it into iOS 19 this year; that’s the company’s current target, but “doesn’t mean that we’re shipping then,” he told employees.
Chance Miller:
As far as accountability is concerned, Walker told staffers that there is “intense personal accountability” shared by John Giannandrea, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Machine Learning and AI Strategy, and software boss Craig Federighi.
Bloomberg reports that Apple “doesn’t plan to immediately fire any top executives over the AI crisis.” It is, however, planning “management adjustments” in response to the problems, including “moving more senior executives under Giannandrea to assist with a turnaround effort.”
Joe Rossignol:
While it may sound obvious that at least some of the features are now functional within Apple, this was not entirely clear, as the company has not shown any public demos of the features being in a working state. Apple now faces the task of ensuring that the features not only work, but work well, before making them available to customers. Walker reportedly said the features were only working “up to two-thirds to 80% of the time.”
Benjamin Mayo:
Two thirds to eighty percent success rate is like half of the Siri feature set tho
Ryan Jones:
- not held by JG, Tim, or Craig
- AI only works 66-80% of the time (that’s VERY low, the last 20% is 80% of the work, even 95% is un-shippable) So it basically didn’t exist at WWDC. Ouch.
- also blamed MarCom, fairly, for the tv ad
[…]
- “As of Friday, Apple doesn’t plan to immediately fire any top executives over the AI crisis”. Notice the word immediately.
- “It has discussed moving more senior executives under Giannandrea to assist with a turnaround effort.” That’s setup for “this was the plan, but we mutually decided new leadership would be beneficial”
Quinn Nelson:
This is wild. Every part of it. How none of the three heads responsible were there is unreal.
Jim Dalrymple:
Two of these need to be fired immediately. Doesn’t matter which two.
Maynard Handley:
Do we have a TECHNICAL analysis? Examples of TECHNICAL analysis include:
is the problem lousy models, or that Apple is trying to integrate models into APIs in ways never done before, or that the models are crippled by DNC levels of political correctness?
are the models limited by being forced to run on hardware that’s not powerful enough (because of local execution mandate?)
has a deliberate choice been made (if so why?) to not use open source even when that provides better models (eg the claim that Whisper provides much better text to speech than Apple Dictation)?
Ultraviolet:
Remember the system prompt where they asked it not to hallucinate? That was a massive red flag.
John Gruber (Mastodon):
The quotes are juicy AF, but don’t really start until the 10th paragraph. Like, for example, which Siri features does Walker think are “incredibly impressive”?
[…]
Walker compared the endeavor to an attempt to swim to Hawaii. “We swam hundreds of miles — we set a Guinness Book for World Records for swimming distance — but we still didn’t swim to Hawaii,” he said. “And we were being jumped on, not for the amazing swimming that we did, but the fact that we didn’t get to the destination.”
I’d say it’s a little more like selling customers tickets for a cruise that includes a stop in Hawaii, then never actually getting to Hawaii, and hoping they didn’t notice when the ship returns to port to disembark.
M.G. Siegler:
Robby Walker is not a name most people will know, but he has been at Apple for 11 and a half years. In fact, he came over when Apple acquired the startup he co-founded, Cue (originally named Greplin – one of the OG “social search” products) back in 2013. Why did Apple acquire that company? Because Google – specifically, the product known as ‘Google Now’ – was destroying Siri, as Matthew Panzarino noted at the time. Siri, of course, was still not good, way back then. And Walker has been working to try to fix that within Apple ever since.
[…]
This is seemingly a “well, we tried, but it didn’t work, so we’re back-burnering those ideas and moving forward”. It raises a question that sounds like a troll but is actually legitimate at this point: are we ever going to see these features? Is this truly the AirPower of Apple Intelligence?
Nick Heer:
Based on my experience in an Apple Store this week, this disappointment has not trickled down to retail employees. I was in for an appointment after I shattered my fifteen year record of keeping my screen intact, and I was told that even though my iPhone 15 Pro was “fine” because it supports Apple Intelligence, I could get nearly $700 towards a newer one after I had mine repaired. This was something I should at least consider, apparently. And, by the way, had I tried the new Apple Intelligence features?
John Gruber (Mastodon):
So let’s just examine how extraordinary and singular Gurman’s Friday report was.
Mark Gurman (tweet):
The company’s AI crisis will be the talk of its “Top 100” offsite meeting this week, and it’s planning some of the biggest iOS and macOS redesigns in its history.
Dave B.:
If Apple’s takeaway from
@gruber’s piece was merely that they need to improve their AI, then it seems Apple missed the whole point.
Previously:
Apple Apple Intelligence Artificial Intelligence Craig Federighi iOS iOS 18 Mac macOS 15 Sequoia Siri Tim Cook
