Apple’s AI Play Isn’t About Shock and Awe – It’s About Subtlety, Strategy… and a Bit of Siri Setback

There’s a lot of noise in the world of artificial intelligence right now. Chatbots, copilots, digital clones. All the tech companies are falling over themselves to outdo each other. But amid the chaos, Apple is, well, being Apple.

At WWDC 2024 Apple announced “Apple Intelligence”, it’s system-wide approach to how its products work using generative AI. It’s not a chatbot. It’s not a gimmick. And it’s not really a headline-grabber in the traditional sense. It’s AI that’s designed to “just work.”

And yet, it hasn’t all gone to plan.

The Siri Promise That Wasn’t

Let’s get this out of the way upfront: Apple promised a smarter, more context-aware Siri, and it hasn’t arrived. Last year, the company demoed features that would allow Siri to understand more about you, your relationships, your calendar, even details hidden in messages or emails, so you could ask things like “When’s Mum’s flight landing?” and Siri would know who Mum is, find the flight info from a text, and give you a straight answer.

But that feature never made it to our devices.

In a sit-down interview at Apple Park, I asked Greg “Joz” Joswiak – Apple’s Senior VP of Worldwide Marketing – what happened. The answer? It wasn’t ready. Not to Apple’s standards, at least.

“It just wasn’t quite hitting our quality standards,” Joz told EFTM. “We thought we’d ship by later in the year… then by the spring. But too many times it was not working correctly.”

So the team pulled it. Cancelled the rollout. Not because it didn’t work, but because it didn’t work well enough.

“We had to make a tough call,” Joz said. “Do we ship it and tick the box? Or wait and do it better?”

That’s the Apple difference. And while some may see that as a stumble, Joz sees it as the right move in a bigger, longer journey.

Critically, there’s no regrets, Joz says “I would make that call again. To say that we want to deliver a better experience, not just checkbox that we shipped it, but shipped an experience that hit our level of quality. And so, while we never want to disappoint people, I think we disappoint them more if we ship something that didn’t work well”

Not a Chatbot – A Strategy

It’s tempting to compare Apple to OpenAI, Microsoft, Google, Meta. All of whom have gone big and bold with their AI efforts. But Apple isn’t building a ChatGPT clone. In fact, it’s not building a chatbot at all.

“Our approach is to take generative AI and use it to make the features across our apps, across our operating systems, across our products… better,” Joz explained. “Sometimes you don’t even know or care that you’re using generative AI. It just works.”

Apple Intelligence is designed to fade into the background. It doesn’t want you to marvel at the technology, it wants you to just enjoy the result. That means rewriting an email with better grammar, summarising a long article, creating your own Genmoji, or getting a live translation during a FaceTime call, all powered by generative AI, but none of it screaming “LOOK, THIS IS AI!”

“We’re not trying to impress people with AI,” Joz told me. “We’re trying to help them do more with the devices they already use.”

And yes, if you want that AI chatbot experience, Apple will give you access to ChatGPT, seamlessly integrated via a partnership with OpenAI. But that’s your choice.

Apple’s AI Game is the Long Game

While competitors have sprinted to the top of the AI hype cycle, Apple is playing a longer, quieter game.

“This isn’t a one-year thing, or a two-year thing,” Joz said. “It’s something we’ll be working on for a decade, if not decades.”

It’s not about racing to market with a half-baked idea. It’s about evolving the entire Apple experience over time, powered by intelligence that helps rather than dazzles.

Some of that intelligence is already live, if you’re using an iPhone 15 Pro or a Mac with an M-series chip, you’ve likely seen tools like:

• Writing Tools that rewrite, summarise or proofread your text
• Genmoji that let you create custom emoji-like images from a prompt
• Live Translation in Messages, FaceTime, and even during phone calls *Coming in iOS26 later this year
• Image Cleanup features that allow you to remove unwanted objects from photos
• Magic Wand tools that can turn rough sketches into polished graphics on iPad

And Joz says the writing tools are already changing the way he works:

“I write all the time,” he told me. “I often type faster than I think, or think faster than I type. I’m not sure which it is. But now I proofread everything as a matter of course… I deliver nicely written messages to everybody else.”

Apple wants to build features that slot into your life and make it easier, not more complicated. No separate AI app. No jargon. Just better tools.

The Big Redesign: A New Look for a New Era

Alongside all the intelligence, as we mentioned at WWDC, Apple’s also giving the entire user interface a major facelift, its first in over a decade.

From iOS to macOS to iPadOS, a new glass-like design language (inspired by Vision Pro) is rolling out across the ecosystem. Apple calls it “liquid glass,” and it’s about unifying the experience across devices.

“You don’t refresh a UI every year,” Joz told me. “This allowed us to take another look at how to make it even fresher.”

That redesign isn’t just cosmetic, it’s part of the same strategy. A more consistent, seamless experience. Smarter features that feel native. A platform that evolves together, rather than piecemeal.

Health, Hardware and the Human Impact

AI may be the headline, but Apple’s focus on health is just as significant. Australia has just approved Apple Watch’s sleep apnea detection feature, a potentially life-saving tool that Joz says joins a long list of features on Apple Watch that have had dramatic impacts globally

“The amount of people that have reached out to us to let us know that literally it has saved their life, it’s amazing,” he said.

From heart rate alerts to sleep tracking and now hearing health via AirPods, Apple’s focus on wellbeing shows where AI and health tech can intersect in powerful ways.

“There’s nothing better than keeping your customers alive,” Joz added.

Final Thoughts: Apple’s Quiet Revolution

Apple isn’t chasing the AI crown. It’s not trying to out-chatbot ChatGPT. What it’s doing is building a future where intelligence is expected, not explained. Where features get better, not busier. And where the devices you already own get more helpful every day.

Yes, the Siri delay is a miss. But it’s also a signal of Apple’s north star: get it right, or don’t ship it.

Apple Intelligence is rolling out now for compatible devices, with more coming later this year in iOS 26. You’ll need an iPhone 15 Pro or newer, or a Mac/iPad with an M-series chip. You’ll also need to enable Apple Intelligence in Settings.

But once it’s on, you might just find your iPhone gets a little more helpful, without making a big fuss about it.