A tool that can handle more than one question at a time is useful. Modern LLMs handle that with ease. So it's completely reasonable to be critical of that limitation.
Sure, what’s not reasonable is expecting Siri to be a modern LLM, when they know it’s not. They asked a question they knew Siri couldn’t handle just to slam it. I’m not critical of a 5-function calculator for not one-shotting complex equations like a computer.
While Siri only does one thing at a time, I trust the answer more, because it’s doing the actual math and not just guessing what the most likely answer is, like an LLM. We need to pick the right tool for the right job. Frankly, I don’t think an LLM is the right tool for conversations like this, and jumbling multiple questions into a single question is something people do with LLMs to get more use out of them during the day, this is an adaptation to a limitation of the free tier (and sometimes speed) of the LLM.
On Android phone, the equivalent voice assistant (Gemini) handles the question gracefully. Regardless of what you think about Google, having a single-button LLM-powered voice assistant, deeply integrated into the phone's OS, is a very useful feature, and Apple is quite far away from developing a competing version of this. They'll have to buy it or go without.
The unreasonable part is acting like Siri got its big LLM update, when they know it didn’t. Just like it would be unreasonable to expect any famously delayed, or unannounced, feature to magically start happening.
Amazon just needs a generic LLM. Apple, from the sound of it, is trying to create deep integration with the OS and on-device data. That’s a different problem to solve. They also seem to be trying to do it while respecting user privacy, which is someone most other companies ignore.
I don’t see what the big deal is. I’d rather wait for something good than have them rush out a half-ass “me too” chatbot, that is indistinguishable from the dozens of other chatbots I can simply download as an app for that.
If we believe what Craig Federighi said, they had something, it just wasn’t up to their standards when talking about rolling it out to a billion devices. Which is fair, I run into bad data from ChatGPT and other LLMs all the time. Letting it mature a little more is not a bad thing.
ChatGPT spent a couple months getting my dad pumped up for an elective open heart surgery; he was almost arrogant going into it about how the recovery would go, thinking ChatGPT gave him all the info he could possibly need and a balanced view of reality. Reality hit him pretty hard in the ICU. He sent me some of the chats he had, it was a lot of mutual ego stroking. He was using ChatGPT to downplay the negatives from the doctors and boosting the positives. While it’s good to feel confident, I think it went too far. I spent the whole week in the hospital trying to pull him out of his depression and recalibrating the unrealistic expectations that ChatGPT reinforced. I hope Apple finds a way to be more responsible. If that takes time, great.
A plethora of LLMs are available on Apple platforms. If someone wants a chatbot, they can get a chatbot on Apple products. It’s not hard.
Are all Android users using Gemini exclusively? Are all Windows users only using Copilot? Where is the native Linux desktop LLM?
I really don’t understand this criticism. Would it be nice if Siri could do more, sure. Do I have tolerance for Siri to start hallucinating on simple problems it used to use real math for, no. Do I have other options to use in the meantime to get the best of both worlds, absolutely. Where is the hardship?
Siri is the default and only voice assistant that has access to all the data on your phone. It doesn't matter if I have ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, or another SOTA model on my iPhone—I can't easily activate them in the car or another handsfree situation or use them with any other app or data on my iPhone.
The LLMs aren't necessarily competitors. Apple doesn't need to have the best all around LLM. They need to create an AI with excellent integration into their OS and the data the user's store on those systems. Beyond that, they need to have a good system for plugging into whatever other generic LLM a person might want/need. Having something decent out of the box is nice, for basic questions, but being able to easily switch to whatever specialist company is in the lead, or best suited for a user's need, is a lot better than being stuck with one first-party option. Based on how ChatGPT looks in the Apple Settings, I wouldn't be surprised if this is the plan.
Much like with the internet, Apple didn't need to re-invent every website to own it all. From Apple platforms a user can access Amazon, Google, or whatever else. Apple didn't create the internet, they sold a gateway to it. AI could be done largely the same way. This way it doesn't matter who wins, Apple can support it. At the end of the day, an LLM doesn't exist on its own, it needs to be accessed through hardware/software people enjoy using, and not be yet another device to charge and carry. Apple has a very popular phone and the most popular wearable. This positions them very well. They are often late to the party, but tend to be best dressed. The first iPhone didn't even have video, and people clowned them for it, and now iPhone video is largely considered one of the best in the smartphone world.
