Apple doesn't rush to be first. It watches competitors pioneer, then launches a better version. Siri is intentionally weak because Apple prioritizes hardware integration over AI leadership, following the same pattern that made the iPod, iPhone, and AirPods dominant.
Article after article has come out over the past years talking about how much of a joke Siri is, and also the AI strategy for Apple has been just totally a joke. If you're like me, Siri is so bad, which is Apple's AI stuff, right? Is so bad that you have it turned off on your phone. But it turns out this is all by design. Apple has never actually won a market by being first. They have a different playbook entirely. Started back in 1976, and they've dominated market after market by being late. Not by being first. iPod was launched in 2001. You say, well, that was pretty early, right? Well, they had actually been on the market for over 3 years, and then Apple came in and crushed everybody. In 2007, they launched the iPhone, which you're like, cool. Well, IBM had had a smartphone around since 1994, and BlackBerry and Microsoft had smartphones out on the market for years. The iPad, that came out in 2010. Believe it or not, Microsoft had started pushing tablets back in 2001. Apple Watch, Pebble, and Fitbit were way ahead of Apple. They came in and dominated anyway. Same story with AirPods, smart speakers, Apple TV. They came in late and they dominated in each and every one. Apple has learned that they let everybody else tackle the frontier war. They can spend their billions trying to figure out what customers are actually going to want, how to make it all done cheaply. And then Apple comes in later and attacks them. And they do that by producing a better product that customers like better. And in some regards, that thing is because it all works better with their other Apple devices. Why is a Mac so good? Well, if you happen to have an iPhone, there's a good reason you want to be on a Mac. You can send texts from your desktop. It's pretty great. I do it. Your AirPods, they work better with your Mac and with your iPhone than with any other type of device. People today are like, Apple is behind on AI. That's not a bug. That's the whole playbook. So if you're interested in a story of how it all comes together and why Siri is designed to actually suck, that's all Apple's plan. You can see the long-form video I did on the rise and fall of Siri. There's a link to it in the comments below.
