Aesop tells us that once upon a time there was a boastful hare that raced a tortoise, got ahead, took a nap, overslept, and lost the race. Just like Apple, the tortoise was slow, steady, and consistent – and just like Apple, the chelonian, eventually took the prize.
Stop to think about it and Apple has often been the tortoise in the tech race.
Sure, it made the first personal computer, but it didn’t make the first music player, did not make the first phone, and arguably didn’t make the first smartwatch. Despite which once it entered all of those markets it quickly climbed to the top.
Now it’s going to do it again with AI.
Think about what we saw last week: vapor-cooled smartphones operating delivering MacBook Pro performance in a tiny frame; powerful new A19 processors, AI-boosted power management; new networking chips all coupled with operating system enhancements to exploit all this new power.
Apple has made numerous references to the potential in its products to deliver AI experiences, and as we look at its secure, private by design systems it’s impossible to reject its claims. Partly because as yet we can’t test them.
But it’s all infrastructure. And as we wait to see the extent to which Apple is able to exploit these new designs in new Macs, iPads and M-series chips based on the A19 hardware, one thing we can be completely certain about is that, given a bigger heat sync, those Mac chips will deliver more power, more performance, at lower energy requirements than anyone else, making these systems enormously powerful even as Apple ships Apple Intelligence 2.0.
The tortoise will defeat the hare
Combined with the partnerships the company is putting in place with third party AI providers, and in contrast to other platforms, Apple is, like the tortoise, slowly and steadily building a user ecosystem to support AI, even as more and more people navigate to its platforms.
While it’s true developoing Apple intelligence has taken a lot longer than the company originally planned, it continues to slowly, steadily, put the infrastructiure in place, and now offers a viable AI platform across mobile, smartphone, computer, television and beyond – and that platform is simply faster than what anyone else can provide.
As I see it, over the next 12-months Apple will make its move, and once it does we’ll forget that anyone ever thought it had fallen behind in AI.
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