logo
Apple Is Pushing AI Into More of Its Products—but Still Lacks a State-of-the-Art Model

Apple Is Pushing AI Into More of Its Products—but Still Lacks a State-of-the-Art Model

WIRED10-06-2025
Jun 9, 2025 8:22 PM Apple took a measured approach to AI at WWDC. A new research paper suggests the company is skeptical about some recent AI advances, too. At WWDC25, Apple showed it was taking a more incremental approach to AI development. Courtesy of Apple
Apple continued its slow-and-steady approach to integrating artificial intelligence into devices like the iPhone, Mac, and Apple Watch on Monday, announcing a raft of new features and upgrades at WWDC. The company also premiered the Foundation Models framework, a way for developers to write code that taps into Apple's AI models.
Among the buzzier AI announcements at the event was Live Translation, a feature that translates phone and FaceTime calls from one language to another in real time. Apple also showed off Workout Buddy, an AI-powered voice helper designed to provide words of encouragement and useful updates during exercise. 'This is your second run this week,' Workout Buddy told a jogging woman in a demo video. 'You're crushing it.'
Apple also announced an upgrade to Visual Intelligence, a tool that uses AI to interpret the world through a device's camera. The new version can also look at screenshots to do things like identify a product or summarize a webpage. Apple showcased upgrades to Genmoji and Image Playground, two tools that generate stylized images with AI. And it showed off ways of using AI to automate tasks, generate text, summarize emails, edit photos, and find video clips.
The incremental announcements did little to dispel the notion that Apple is playing catch up on AI. The company does not yet have a model capable of competing with the best offerings of OpenAI, Meta, or Google, and still hands some challenging queries off to ChatGPT.
Some analysts suggest that Apple's more incremental approach to AI development is warranted.
'The jury is still out on whether users are gravitating towards a particular phone for AI driven features,' says Paolo Pescatore, an analyst at PP Foresight. 'Apple needs to strike the fine balance of bringing something fresh and not frustrating its loyal core base of users,' Pescatore adds. 'It comes down to the bottom line, and whether AI is driving any revenue uplift.'
Francisco Jeronimo, an analyst at IDC, says Apple making its AI models accessible to developers is important because of the company's vast reach with coders. '[It] brings Apple closer to the kind of AI tools that competitors such as OpenAI, Google and Meta have been offering for some time,' Jeronimo said in a statement.
Apple's AI models, while not the most capable, run on a personal device, meaning they work without a network connection and don't incur the fees that come with accessing models from OpenAI and others. The company also touts a way for developers to use cloud models that keeps private data secure through what it calls Private Cloud Compute.
But Apple may need to take bigger leaps with its use of AI in the future, given that its competitors are exploring how the technology might reinvent personal computing.
Both Google and OpenAI have shown off futuristic AI helpers that can talk in real time and see the world through a device's camera. Last month OpenAI announced it would acquire a company started by the legendary Apple designer, Jony Ive, in order to develop new kinds of AI-infused hardware.
Even if Apple still lags behind in terms of building advanced AI, the company is publishing AI research at a steady clip. A paper posted a few days before WWDC points to significant shortcomings with today's most advanced AI models—a convenient finding, perhaps, if you are still getting up to speed.
The paper finds that the latest models from OpenAI and others, which use a simulated form of reasoning to solve difficult problems, tend to fail when problems reach a certain level of complexity. The Apple researchers asked various models to solve increasingly complex versions of a mathematical puzzle known as the Tower of Hanoi, and found that they succeeded up until a point, then failed dramatically.
Subbarao Kambhampati, a professor at Arizona State University who previously published similar work on the limits of reasoning models, says Apple's research reinforces the idea that simulated reasoning approaches may need to be improved in order to tackle a wider range of problems. Reasoning models 'are very useful, but there are definitely important limits,' Kambhampati says.
But even if the work suggests that a more cautious approach to AI is warranted, Kambhampati does not believe Apple is being complacent. 'If you know what's going on inside Apple, they're still pretty gung-ho about LLMs,' he says.
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Expedia's Quarterly Earnings Preview: What You Need to Know
Expedia's Quarterly Earnings Preview: What You Need to Know

Yahoo

time21 minutes ago

  • Yahoo

Expedia's Quarterly Earnings Preview: What You Need to Know

With a market cap of $23.6 billion, Expedia Group, Inc. (EXPE) is a Seattle-based travel technology company that connects global travelers with lodging, transportation, and activity providers through an expansive portfolio of brands. The travel titan is expected to announce its fiscal Q2 2025 earnings results after the market closes on Thursday, Aug. 7. Ahead of this event, analysts expect the company to report a profit of $3.50 per share, up nearly 22.4% from $2.86 per share in the year-ago quarter. It has surpassed Wall Street's earnings estimates in two of the last four quarters while missing on two other occasions. More News from Barchart Opendoor Stock Is Surging Higher in a Frenzied Retail Rally. How Should You Play OPEN Shares Here? Nvidia Stock Warning: This NVDA Challenger Just Scored a Major Customer Analysts Are Cutting Their Price Targets for UnitedHealth Stock Before Q2 Earnings. Is It Time to Ditch Shares? Get exclusive insights with the FREE Barchart Brief newsletter. Subscribe now for quick, incisive midday market analysis you won't find anywhere else. For fiscal 2025, analysts expect the company to report an EPS of $12.10, up 28.6% from $9.41 in fiscal 2024. Shares of EXPE have gained 40.9% over the past 52 weeks, outperforming both the S&P 500 Index's ($SPX) 13.4% rise and the Consumer Discretionary Select Sector SPDR Fund's (XLY) 18.8% return over the period. Expedia Group shares dropped 7.3% after the company released its Q1 2025 earnings on May 8. Revenue for the quarter grew 3.4% year-over-year to $3 billion, but fell short of Wall Street expectations amid weaker travel demand in the U.S. The company's net loss deepened by 49% from the same period last year. Although adjusted EPS surged 90.5% year-over-year to $0.40, it still missed analyst estimates by 4.8%. Analysts' consensus view on Expedia's stock is cautiously upbeat, with a "Moderate Buy" rating overall. Among 32 analysts covering the stock, 11 recommend "Strong Buy," one suggests "Moderate Buy," 19 indicate 'Hold,' and the remaining analyst gives it a 'Strong Sell.' EXPE's mean price target of $190.24 represents a marginal upswing from the current market prices. On the date of publication, Kritika Sarmah did not have (either directly or indirectly) positions in any of the securities mentioned in this article. All information and data in this article is solely for informational purposes. This article was originally published on Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data

Dave Portnoy says anybody who doesn't think WNBA players deserve a salary raise is a moron: "This is marketing and the ability to make money on this league"
Dave Portnoy says anybody who doesn't think WNBA players deserve a salary raise is a moron: "This is marketing and the ability to make money on this league"

Yahoo

time31 minutes ago

  • Yahoo

Dave Portnoy says anybody who doesn't think WNBA players deserve a salary raise is a moron: "This is marketing and the ability to make money on this league"

Dave Portnoy says anybody who doesn't think WNBA players deserve a salary raise is a moron: "This is marketing and the ability to make money on this league" originally appeared on Basketball Network. Barstool Sports president Dave Portnoy is 100 percent with the WNBA players in their quest for better pay. In a video which he posted on his official "X" account, Portnoy said he supports the WNBA All-Stars for wearing their "Pay us what you owe us" shirts during Saturday's warmups. The man known as El Presidente explained that he understands that the league has been a losing venture since its inception, but also admits that the future is limitless, as the WNBA's current financial indicators say. Because of that, he says it's a no-brainer that the players should get a raise. "The WNBA is exploding by every single metric you look at - TV ratings, merch, revenue, ticket sales, you name it. They just had an expansion team, the Valkyries in Vegas; the fee was $50 million. They have sold out every single game. They are averaging more attendance than a third of the NBA teams. The franchise fee has gone up to $250 million," said Portnoy. The WNBA has some of the most marketable athletes in all of sports According to Portnoy, if the WNBA offered him a franchise in Boston, he would pay the $250 million fee in a heartbeat because the league is "red hot" right now. He is confident that the association is heading to an upward trend in the coming years because of the star power of new players like Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese, Paige Bueckers and even JuJu Watkins, who is expected to join after her NCAA career. Portnoy added that these young stars are some of the most marketable players in any sport right now and if only the WNBA knew how to use their star power, there's tons of money that the league can make. He went on to say that the $250 million franchise fee will be worth $1 billion in ten years. "I don't care about the past. I don't care what they've done for the past 10 years. I'm talking about right now. I'm talking about all the sponsors who want to be a part of this league, the TV deals they're gonna be able to sign," added the American businessman. "They have a product that people are watching. It may not be for you, but this isn't a handout. This isn't 'Oh, we feel bad for women, so let's pay them.' This is marketing and the ability to make money on this league, and right now, it's endless. If you don't get that, you're a moron." Stewart says the money is there, and they just want a piece of the pie WNBA Players Union board member Breanna Stewart of the New York Liberty shares Portnoy's point of view on the matter. During an interview with SiriusXM NBA radio, the two-time WNBA MVP said that although it's hard to predict what will happen in the future, the expansion and new TV deal will bring in new money for the league, and all they want is their fair share. "Obviously, some of the numbers are happening so quickly and so dramatically that it's hard to really figure out what's gonna happen in a few years from now. But our explanation behind it is like you have new teams coming to the league paying like $75 million, a lot of money to come in, plus the new TV deal that's starting to affect next year, there is money there, and we just want a piece of our pie. Like, that's really what we want and we know that we're very important to this league and the success that it has," said Stewie. It's easy to understand why the league insists on its stand because of the historical performance of the WNBA, money-wise. However, as El Presidente mentioned, past numbers are irrelevant because when we look at the present situation, it's clear that the league has made tremendous progress and it's only going to be better moving story was originally reported by Basketball Network on Jul 21, 2025, where it first appeared.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store