At the grocery store this week, I walked by someone who was having trouble figuring out the label of a specific item. He flagged me down. There was a language barrier, but it’s kind of heartwarming how much you can communicate just by smiling, pointing, thumbs-up, and inserting a couple words in both languages.
If I had fancy AI-powered AirPods, would I have put them in and translated back and forth more accurately? Probably not in this case. It’s great technology, but there is also something more human about working through a small problem together.
One of the frustrations people have with AI is that it is pushed at us all the time, in features that don’t need it. Technology this powerful should be mostly seamless, yet it’s so new that it’s put in places that are awkward or that increase friction.
Apple had one job for Siri in iOS 27: ship what they promised at WWDC 2024. They’ve done that, but they’ve also gone further, experimenting. That’s okay, but Apple is so far behind the frontier now, I think it would be a better strategy to focus only on a great foundation. The pace at OpenAI and Anthropic is nuts. Let them push the cutting edge and then bring in the best ideas once they’re proven.
And don’t forget the human element. That has always been Apple at its best.
