Tech – Life on the Wicked Stage: Act 3

Tim Cook Captured, Trapped, and Caged

Tough to be a performing monkey in a cage

Om Malik has a great piece about Tim Cook and Apple’s current fail mode when it comes to dealing with the Trump administration called A CEO, Captured. M.G. Siegler sees Cook as trapped in his post Aside From That Mr. Cook, What Did You Think of the Movie?

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If you haven’t been paying attention, Cook has indeed seemingly been captured by his efforts to hang onto Apple’s success in the face of the Trump administration’s intent to drag everyone into his ever increasing cesspool view of the world. Attending the premiere of the Amazon produced film Melania on the night that Alex Pretti was murdered in Minneapolis is just the latest in a series of what can politely be called missteps by Cook, but in my view more appropriately called sucking up out of naked and unabashed fear.

Cook, hearing the large number of complaints about his latest knee bending issued a memo to Apple employees expressing his heartbreak over the events in Minneapolis and notes that he had a good conversation with the president about trying to deescalate the situation. From the reactions I’ve seen nobody is buying it. Issuing memos designed to be leaked is another cowardly PR move, certainly from a company once admired for its supposed civic conscience.

Sure, corporations are corporations and do what they need to do to protect their market share and shareholders. You can make that argument with assurance until the MBAs are all penned up in the same pasture. But when you’ve built much of your success by heavily marketing civic engagement, and I dare say a civic conscience, it becomes not just a dent in that hard earned reputation, but a tougher row to hoe going forward. But we are living in the age of melting myths and laughing at legends.

Malik posits:

When your company is worth more than most nations, you cannot afford principles that inconvenience presidents. The moral equation changes. What once seemed unthinkable becomes necessary. Cook learned this the hard way after he skipped a presidential photo op and was thrown back under the tariff bus. So now he shows up. He sits in the front row. He claps when expected. This is what happens when valuation becomes destiny.

Siegler says Cook should have pulled out of the event and “has lost his way,” and probably should wait out Trump or the GOPs defeats before passing on his dimmed torch.

I don’t disagree with Malik or Siegler. But if you carry the captured analogy further it makes one wonder if reaching the top doesn’t just turn you into just another zoo animal behind bars.

I wonder if they teach that in business school.Photo by Artem Bryzgalov on Unsplash

You can also find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.

Treading Through the Storms

Rough weather on all fronts still ahead.

Those blobs on weather radar maps that blanketed vast amounts of the U.S this past weekend felt not just predictive, but also somewhat defining. The traditional red and blue color schemes signaling rough weather almost hinted at our political and social divisions, reminding those that pay attention that Mother Nature doesn’t pick sides when she chooses to show her wrath.

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And she’s tossing a torrent in this, our winter of discontent. Weather, politics, culture and technology all seem to be conspiring to obscure our view in a swirling tempest that chills to the bone, while boiling the blood.

We’ve all seen movies where folks get lost in winter terrain during a storm and can’t find their bearings. It feels like we’re all in that movie, or maybe it’s a stultified streaming series, given how it just keeps stringing us along and clogging up the queue, long after we’ve figured out the formula.

But this is a tortuous tempest. Minneapolis murders. Booting Bovino (or not?) Now US owned TikTok being more ruthless censoring than the Chinese. The gun nuts prematurely treading all over their cherished 2nd amendment, only to retreat after the muzzle blew up in their faces with the shots they just fired. Tim Cook continuing to debase himself and Apple by attending the Melania premiere at the White House. ICE here, there, and everywhere including the Winter Olympics. Consumer confidence hitting a 12-year low. The Doomsday Clock moving closer to midnight. Greenland. Venezuela. Canada. Europe. Iran.

Billy Joel in his heyday would have a rough time chronicling all that’s currently swirling in this winter’s winds for a new version of We Didn’t Start the Fire.

I’m not sure if we’ve reached a tipping point, but it feels like we’re closer to it than we have been since these idiots started shredding all of the life preservers and poking holes in the rowboats on their version of the Titanic. (Thanks for that reference J.D. Vance.)

They wanted to flood the zone with shit so that we couldn’t keep up. By and large they’ve succeeded to this point, but you can sense that the smell may be shifting. There’s chaos all over, but there’s just as much chaos in their inner sanctums as they try to trim sails to survive the storms they’ve created. Small victories add up. Take the wins when they happen and build on that.

It’s up to us to keep the pressure on, because if you’re relying on any of those lifeboats or life preservers (Congress, media, the business community) we’re all going to freeze before we go under with them.

It’s not going to happen overnight. There will be setbacks. It’s One Battle After Another. (Talk about a prescient film release.)

No one knows how this is going to end. No one knows when it’s going to end. No one knows what will be once it does end. But certainly it will end.

Rough weather still ahead. Uncharted waters in a storm. No horizon in sight.

Bundle up. Buckle up. Trust your own compass. Follow the lead of the good folks from Minneapolis causing good trouble. As my friend, David Todd McCarty says, Stand Your Ground.

(Photo by Viktor Mogilat on Unsplash)

Sunday Morning Reading

Thoughts tumble down on a chilling weekend

I’m going to avoid the horrific news that continues out of Minneapolis (and the rest of the U.S.) for this week’s Sunday Morning Reading. But, then I guess I didn’t avoid it by saying that. Think of it as a wound too sore to touch rather than avoiding. Anyway, onto this week’s sharing.

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I’m going to kick this off with a blog post from Mathew Ingram called Why Blogging Is Better Than Social Media. Title says a lot of what I believe. I wish more believed it also.

I love watching those younger than I live the same lives, fears, and joys I did. Nothing ever changes. But it’s always entertaining and worth reflection. Check out Alex Baia’s I Thought I Would Have Accomplished A Lot More Today And Also By The Time I was Thirty-Five.

Gray Miller suggests You Should Put A Codex In Your Pocket Instead Of Your Phone. If you don’t know what a Codex is, read the piece.

Cory Doctorow in The Guardian says AI Companies Will Fail. We Can Salvage Something From the Wreckage. Salvaging things from wreckage is what we do. Avoid wrecking things not so much.

Speaking of wreckage, AI-Powered Disinformation Swarms Are Coming For Democracy says David Gilbert.

Follow that up with Brynn Tannehill’s piece ‘Trump Has Already Rigged The 2028 Presidential Election’: Us Defense Insider. You didn’t need AI to tell you that. Or insiders. All you had to do was pay attention.

We do seem to like and be drawn to adversity like so many moths. Funny how we know what happens to moths that fly too close, yet can’t predict own fate when we do the same. But if we break that cycle, there wouldn’t be anything to salvage. David Toddy McCarty says We Like It Hard.

Aaron Vegh blogs A Canadian’s Call To Arms, Being Totally Pissed Off At The State Of Computing In The 21st Century. I don’t think the Canadians are alone in their feelings. I know a number of Americans are as well.

I said I would stay away from this weekend’s events. I lied. Sota. Kinda. I admire those like Dan Sinker who are finding ways to do what they feel can in the face of this adversity. Check out his piece We Are All We Have.

(Image from Aga Putra on Unsplash

If you’re interested in just what the heck Sunday Morning Reading is all about you can read more about the origins of Sunday Morning Reading here. If you’d like more click on the Sunday Morning Reading link in the category column to check out what’s been shared on Sunday’s past. You can also find more of my writings on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome.

A Disturbing Piece Of The AI Future We’re All Headed Into

AI generated headlines are just the tip of the iceberg we’re sailing into

It’s difficult enough to trust anything you read, see, or hear these days. Trust used to be the coin of the realm, but those days seem to have gone the way of the dodo. It’s bad enough that what used to pass for journalism has devolved into stenography, cheerleading, and blatant lying damaging enough to cost Fox News millions. Yet all of that continues. But we haven’t seen anything yet.

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The Verge is out with a report that says Google Won’t Stop Replacing Our News Headlines With Terrible AI. Sean Hollister lays out the case well, and he’s right, this shouldn’t happen. But it does and it’s only going to get worse, because… well AI is the name of the game that everyone who controls any sort of publishing and most search engines are playing.

Here’s the rub. Content used to be king. Or so the theory went. That king fed his court by selling advertising. But that king got toppled by online advertising usurpers. Yes, there’s still content, but it doesn’t matter what the content is, and long as it can be advertised against. We’re already seeing such an overwhelming avalanche of AI generated content all over the Internet that merely dismissing it as AI Slop diminishes the definition of slop.

As an example, Meta’s on a quest to just create users out of nowhere to feed content to your feeds to make sure the advertising turnstiles always spin whether you’re doomscrolling or not.

Content, much less headlines, really doesn’t matter to those who control the channels. In fact, I’m guessing we’re not far off from seeing the same piece of content (whether AI generated or by humans) recycled with different AI generated headlines. I’m guessing It consumes less compute cycles to gin up a new headline than it does to create a full article.

I remember the days when human editors wrote headlines that often confused readers and pissed off reporters when they slanted or misrepresented the nature of a story’s content. Some of that still happens. But that will pale in comparison to the future we’re just beginning to live in.

(Image from Google, PC Mag, The Verge)

Chatbots, Pins, and Other Talking Distractions

The world of talking to chatbots just isn’t for me

In the end everything boils down to a question of taste or a matter of preference. In the beginning everything bubbles up in a hot tub with the jets on high. That’s kind of how I’m viewing all the bubbling around chatbots, AI Pins , possible AI earbuds, AI glasses, and any other kind of method or gadget folks are devising to talk to computers — those with screens, and those without.

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Apple rumors popping like champagne corks are going to turn up the heat on discussions about chatbots, especially since Apple had been previously saying they weren’t interested in creating a chatbot for its Apple Intelligence portfolio. Fortunately most of those discussion will be between humans.

Mark Gurman reports that we’ll see changes to what we currently think of as Siri this spring, but stay tuned for a revamped version that offers the back and forth conversational approach that existing chatbots offer, codenamed Campos, later this year.

Almost simultaneously, MacWorld reports that Apple employees are being encouraged to use a chatbot called Enchanté in their work. So, it sounds like Apple is seeding the ground for what’s to come.

For the record, I’m not big on voice computing. Yes, I use my Apple Watch to ask Siri to set a reminder or send a text message, but that’s about the extent of what my experimenting with voice computing has boiled down to.

I’ve tried some of the existing chatbots on smartphones and on computers, and I’ve been in the company of others who enjoy using voice as their primary method of interacting with smartphones. I don’t begrudge anybody using voice as their input method if that’s their preference, and I certainly don’t if it makes computing accessible to those who can’t type. But it’s just not for me.

Part of it is I find myself being more accurate when I can type, and part of it is the social aspect. While microphone technology continues to improve to allow better pickup in noisy environments I find it awkward when someone pulls out their smartphone and starts talking to it with others around. I feel compelled to silence myself while they are doing so. I couldn’t imagine using it in my theatre work, compared to using an iPad with pen to take notes, because my talking would be distracting to everyone else in the rehearsal hall. Goodness knows being in a room with small children laughing/crying/talking at the top of their lungs doesn’t strike me as a suitable environment.

I spent a good portion of this fall watching the Chicago Bears on their improbable run, while texting back and forth on several chains with my nephews and others. I can’t imagine doing that in my local sports pub trying to do so via voice input.

I won’t get into a conversation about how some are using existing chatbots for social interactions like therapy and companionship except to say that I’m guessing if those trends continue as voice input as chatbots proliferate, we’ll eventually see similar reactions to curtail that type of usage similar to what we saw back in the day about decreasing smartphone and screen time usage.

There are some interesting questions out there though. OpenAI has already announced its inevitable move into advertising for ChatGPT. I’m sure the others aren’t far behind. I’m not sure how viable advertising really is in a voice chat environment, whether it’s a smartphone, pin, or set of headphones. I certainly wouldn’t want a “conversation” interrupted with an ad. Amazon certainly doesn’t seem to have come close with its Alexa products. To my way of thinking, ads in chatbot conversations will give new meaning to the clichés about intrusive advertising.

I’m also of the opinion that while the non-smartphone AI devices might be clever gadget accessories, I don’t see them ever replacing smartphones or significantly denting that market. Too much of everyday life has become so inextricably linked to smartphone usage that requires a screen that I just don’t see voice chatbots replacing it. Someday your voice may be your password, but I think we’re a long ways off from that for interacting with the businesses and other institutions we deal with daily.

But who knows where this is all headed. Quite frankly, I don’t think anybody does. Including the chatbots.

Sunday Morning Reading

Inquire and think for yourself

Whew. Regular readers here will know that since the middle of December we’ve been spending time helping my daughter and her family move into a new house, with an interim stop to an Airbnb over the holidays until the new place was ready. It’s been as chaotic as any move could be, multiplied by the antics of our two grandchildren who had their small worlds turned upside down. The chaos didn’t allow for much Sunday Morning Reading, but here we are again, playing a little catch up as well as looking ahead. As much as anybody can look ahead these days.

What Just Happened? That title for Andrea Pitzer’s piece sort of explains the look I see on most people’s faces during the events of this January. If it seems like too much to think about. That’s because it is. Think on it.

Brian Merchant’s Abolish The Senses plays on the same themes and the dismay we’re all feeling.

“Do math. Check your facts.” That’s the message from Neil Steinberg in Wrapping Our Heads Around A Trillion, Now That The Alphabet is Worth $4,000,000,000,000. Don’t let others think for you.

Dealing with much smaller numbers, NatashaMH’s Five Dollars For Catastrophe explains how a $5 book about genocide can offer much more value, should you actually inquire and think for yourself. Words have meaning folks.

And while I’m linking to posts on the numbers, let’s talk gambling. Apparently it’s reaching epidemic proportions and you can bet on when the USA is going to invade other countries, among other catastrophic outcomes these days. Especially if you’re in the know. Saahil Desai says America Is Slow-Walking Into A Polymarket Disaster. I’m not so sure about the slow-walking part.

If gambling is betting on predictions, Artificial Intelligence, with its ability to predict the next word ought to be able to figure out most outcomes ahead of time. It’s all math, right? Remember that earlier admonition to think for yourself? While doing so, check out Steven Adler’s AI Isn’t “Just Predicting The Next Word” Anymore.

Are Tech Companies Allies Or A Threat To Press Freedom? I’m not spoiling Emily Bell’s conclusions with the obvious answer, because the piece is about more than that.

Jill Lepore explores How Originalism Killed The Constitution. It’s an earlier piece that contains context that most have no idea about. I’d suggest finding out.

Speaking of killing things, Russel Berman and Elaine Godfrey ask the simple question, Does Congress Even Exist Anymore? Applying the Ian Betteridge law of headlines, that any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no, you don’t have to guess at my answer. Berman and Godrey call it a fast fade. I call it a slow self-suicide.

Closing out this week, I’m pointing to a venture from a raconteur I feature here often, David Todd McCarty. He’s gathering up his words and images from over the years on a new website. David is quite a storyteller. If you think for yourself, I suggest you pay attention. For a taste check out David Dreams Of Everything.

Go Bears!

(Image from Rey Seven on Unsplash)

“Then No Line Exists”

Musk’s Grok has erased them all

I recently linked to Eizabeth Lopatto’s excellent and scathing article pointing fingers at Apple and Google for continuing to allow Elon Musk’s Grok AI to undress without consent adults and children. Calling Tim Cook and Sundar Pichai cowards in the headline on this issue is, in my opinion, table stakes and will be until they take public action and actually apologize for violating their own rules and the privacy of the users that pump money into their bank accounts.

Following that up I’m linking to another excellent article on the topic from Charlie Warzel and Matteo Wong, published in the Atlantic. The headline is strong, saying Elon Musk Cannot Get Away With This. The article is stronger still. Yet, the sad reality is that he already has, and even if Cook and Pichai suddenly change direction, the damage has already been done. Like the political figures they have bent knees to, they won’t be able to find a mirror to look in that won’t reflect their cowardice back at them.

Hiding under their respective rocks, both Cook and Pichai have let Musk turn this from a ruinous troubling feature into a paid premium feature, which is not only ridiculous but makes a mockery of both Apple and Google. I’ve already said that any X users who still hang onto that platform are just as culpable.

But then that’s the world we live in. We ignore the horrible nature of what’s unfolding in front of our faces. So many demons have flown out of this era’s Pandora’s Box we find ourselves it is impossible to count them, much less have any hope of banishing them. But then, that’s what the demons are counting on. As the article says:

This crisis is an outgrowth of a breakneck information ecosystem in which few stories have staying power. No one person or group has to flood the zone with shit, because the zone is overflowing constantly. People with power have learned to exploit this—to weather scandals by hunkering down and letting them pass, or by refusing to apologize and turning any problem into a culture-war issue.

As Warzel and Wong also say, “the silence says everything.”

Apple’s New Siri Will Be Google’s Gemini

Giving Up The Chase

In news you wouldn’t need AI to hallucinate, Apple and Google in a joint statement to CNBC announced that Apple will be using Google’s Gemini to power Apple’s long anticipated and delayed New Siri in a multi-year deal.

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You can call it a surrender. It is. You can call it an admission of failure. It is. Even if Apple rarely admits mistakes.

Stating that the new models will continue to run on Apple’s private cloud compute in a joint statement, (published on Google’s news blog and to my knowledge not in any Apple press release), the statement said,

Apple and Google have entered into a multi-year collaboration under which the next generation of Apple Foundation Models will be based on Google’s Gemini models and cloud technology. These models will help power future Apple Intelligence features, including a more personalized Siri coming this year.

After careful evaluation, Apple determined that Google’s Al technology provides the most capable foundation for Apple Foundation Models and is excited about the innovative new experiences it will unlock for Apple users. Apple Intelligence will continue to run on Apple devices and Private Cloud Compute, while maintaining Apple’s industry-leading privacy standards.

Given the delay in releasing the promised and once heralded update to Siri, this isn’t really news and has been thought to be the path Apple would adopt for quite some time. Speculation is that users might see this as early as this spring, but I’m still thinking it won’t roll out until WWDC 2026 this summer.

For what it’s worth, the statement to business network CNBC tells everyone who the audience is for this news that isn’t news and I’m guessing the complete retrenchment from Apple’s initial endeavors to try and create a AI powered Siri is quite a blow and the fallout won’t blow over soon.

Saying “Apple determined…” is quite some shade from Google, even in a joint statement.

I doubt this is the end of this saga, but in the end, does this really matter? Who knows. But given the C-suite shakeups at Apple, whatever happened with Apple Intelligence and New Siri has changed how iPhone users, investors, and probably a bot or two view Apple going forward.

For future curiosity purposes it will be interesting to see how Apple’s New Siri/Gemini will respond if someone prompts it to generate a summary of this news.

You can also find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.

Souring On Artificial Intelligence

The new butt of family holiday jokes

There’s an interesting article in the New York Times called Why Do Americans Hate A.I.? The article goes through the litany of some of the bugaboos just about anyone can recite from memory these days: jobs, trust, and agency. As fast as Artificial Intelligence has dominated the conversation, warnings about the pitfalls have run side by side in what I think resembles a barefooted three-legged sack race over broken glass.

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Over the holidays at what seemed like an infinite number of family gatherings I picked up on some interesting themes that I mentioned in my end of year post about all things Apple that I think is worth calling out here again. Everyday Janes and Joes are souring on artificial intelligence, not for any of the now almost clichéd anti-AI reasons, but after everyday unsatisfactory encounters with their doctors, banks, and any number of the other institutions and business that they deal with.

As I said in that post about Apple,

I also think Apple and the other tech companies need to pay attention to the warning signs that are starting to bubble up about Artificial Intelligence. I think most of the growing distaste of AI comes not from what these tech companies are offering on computing platforms, but from the day to day encounters people are experiencing in their daily lives as more and more non-tech companies roll out versions of AI support. The way I’m hearing and feeling it, jokes and complaints about AI at holiday gatherings this year are starting to compete in numbers with ones about government and politics.

Because money rules the roost, most of the conversations we hear about Artificial Intelligence center on how much money is being spent propping up and expanding the bubble that is keeping a sagging economy afloat like a hot balloon on a cloudy day. There’s only so much liquefied propane in any tank once things lift off.

Here’s the thing about holiday family gatherings. I can’t remember one when conversations didn’t at some point offer up a “you’ve got to try this” recommendation or some sort of eye-grabbing new thing or trend that captured attention along with the usual complaints and grievances. But AI-negative conversations seemed to take precedence on the grievance side of the ledger this year.

Everyday folks don’t care about who wins the AI technology race or who has the best on device AI or how many tokens a system offers. They care about getting results in less time and more so, getting it done with a human they can talk to, not a robot in a chat window. So far based on the jokes, swearing and condescending attitudes I’m hearing (anecdotally, I admit) everyday folks aren’t buying the pitch, but they’re getting closer to picking up the tar.

We can talk about data centers, job efficiencies and job losses, chatbots, AI slop, and scientific advancements all day long, but when everyday folks on the ground develop a distaste for what you’re selling and turn your efforts into the butt of a joke, eventually you need to discount or clear out the inventory no matter how many data center servers you pop up.

Even so, perhaps that’s the aim of the A.I. purveyors. If they salt the fields with enough of their product to the point that everyone condescendingly abides it the way they do government, it may not matter if it doesn’t offer any harvest that yields nutrition, just that it yields a ubiquitous tolerance.

(Image from Andres De Santis on Unsplash)

My Year In The Apple Fruit Basket 2025

Not a good fruit crop yield for Apple

2025 was an odd year toiling in Apple’s orchard.

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Getting this out of the way upfront, it was a year that Apple’s corporate behavior, personalized by Tim Cook, made me think seriously about looking to fill my computing needs and habits elsewhere. That’s an ongoing discussion I’m having with myself. As it rattles around my brain, I don’t see an alternative that is any better or any worse from a corporate posture point of view. Apple has plenty of company.

From a technology point of view I also don’t see any better alternative beyond reliving my past hobbyist days with Linux that I’m far too old to contemplate. I used to be that geek. I’m not anymore. Aside from communal political knee bending, every tech company’s plunge into the Artificial Intelligence swamp has mucked up everything, everywhere all at once, in one way or another.

I have to touch Windows now and again and every time I do I feel like I need to take a purgative and wash my hands. I feel much the same about Google’s products. Life as a geek was already becoming increasingly more distasteful in the days when it was just the algorithms that enshittified everything, but adding Artificial Intelligence into the mix has created a slop that even hogs are beginning to turn away from. I know that’s all here to stay and I’m honestly sad that it is.

Hardware

This was the first year that I didn’t upgrade much Apple hardware. I don’t think it was a conscious choice correlating with Apple’s corporate behavior, but I won’t rule out my subconscious working against my small contribution to Apple’s bottom line. Let’s put it this way, I didn’t feel the usual gadget lust tugs and twinges over anything Apple announced this year.

I did upgrade to an iPhone 17 Pro and didn’t even think twice about taking a serious look at the iPhone Air. Apparently I wasn’t the only one. There’s nothing really remarkable to say about the 17 Pro. It’s as good and solid as it’s predecessor and if that’s incremental, than incremental is more than enough for me. I think that’s also true for most users.

I did pick up a pair of AirPods Pro 3 and wrote a quick review that you can read here. The battery life on the AirPods Pro 2 was approaching end of life, so it was time, and I use AirPods a lot.

I also upgraded to the Apple Watch Series 11 from the Series 10. It’s not that the Series 11 does anything more remarkable from a technology perspective. It doesn’t. But I’m in sort of a trap of upgrading every year due to the technology I use to monitor my diabetes.

I use the Dexcom G7 sensor that pairs with both my iPhone and Apple Watch to show me and my doctor how I’m doing with my blood sugar readings. I’ve come to rely on the constant monitoring on the Apple Watch app more than I do on the iPhone. But the two devices and their apps are married. On the Apple Watch that constant monitoring takes a heavy toll on Battery Life and Battery Health. Since I’ve been using that technology Battery Health can degrade at or below 70% in a year. That’s enough for me to upgrade every year.

That is an excellent example of one of the pitfalls of Apple’s development pace that drops new operating systems annually, but trickles out fixes over the course of a year. Dexcom developers take quite a bit of time to catch up with new hardware and software. They have to. They are a medical device company. That lag is certainly more acute with a device that monitors medical conditions, but this year’s round of operating system changes have been challenging for developers in all software categories leading us all into a perpetual year of beta software.

Summing up what I feel about Apple’s 2025 hardware releases I’ll leave it this way. Apple continues to make good improvements with each hardware iteration. Quite frankly, I’d be content to see Apple continue iterating the way it has since the dawn of the M-series chip change, but the many voices continually calling for something newer and bolder seem like they’ll have their day in the next few hardware cycles.

The current crop of Apple hardware has matured into the best I’ve seen on the market. Here’s hoping all that’s rumored continues that trend. That said, I don’t really see the appeal of a vastly more expensive folding iPhone beyond it being a regressive retro move and small enough to make it easier to stuff in a pocket. I guess the next big retro innovation will be to bring back mechanical keyboards. But, hey the Commodore 64 also made a come back this year. I’m guessing a folding iPhone will be enough to excite the faithful. For a few months.

Software

Software provided the real color on Apple’s fruit plate this year with what they shipped and what they still haven’t. The Apple Intelligence slices are browning around the edges, leaving an unappetizing anticipation for what may or may not be unveiled. I say “may not” because in Apple’s announcement last spring delaying the rollout of how Apple Intelligence integrates with the “new Siri” there was an important word that most seem to have overlooked. Here’s the statement:

“Siri helps our users find what they need and get things done quickly, and in just the past six months, we’ve made Siri more conversational, introduced new features like type to Siri and product knowledge, and added an integration with ChatGPT. We’ve also been working on a more personalized Siri, giving it more awareness of your personal context, as well as the ability to take action for you within and across your apps. It’s going to take us longer than we thought to deliver on these features and we anticipate rolling them out in the coming year.”

The key word in that statement is “anticipate.” Most conventional assumption makers believe whatever Apple is working on will roll out sometime in the first half of 2026. But that word “anticipate” is a great hedge that only a PR professional or lawyer could love. I don’t doubt the pressure is on to release something. I wouldn’t bet a dime on it happening before WWDC 2026.

As for what Apple Intelligence is currently, it’s still nothing to write home about. Notification summaries remain a comedy gold mine. I think I’ve touched the Writing Tools a few times, but fall back on other proofreading habits and tools. Whatever Siri is or is not doing, it’s gotten worse and even less predictable than it was before. Every time an accidental touch of the camera button light’s up the border of the screen it’s more a reminder of what’s not there than what it was promised to do. Whatever Apple is planning, the current iteration feels like it’s been largely abandoned like a rotting piece of fruit.

Liquid Glass was the feature that did ship. Countless words have proliferated around the Internet about the design change. I’ve written a few myself. My take at year end is that Liquid Glass is neither here nor there.

Legibility issues and design disasters need lots of work and attention, most of which won’t come while the number 26 is still affixed to the operating systems. Devices still work, even though I’m seeing more and more haphazard weirdness as app developers try to play catch up while Apple itself is still trying to chase down its own problems.

Given the leadership turmoil within Apple who knows what Liquid Glass may or may not become in the future. But then who knows what it was actually intended to be in the first place, beyond a distraction from the Apple Intelligence miss. It certainly wasn’t designed to fulfill anything Apple’s marketers thought it might. If there’s harmony in trying to unify things across platforms, someone needs a basic course in music theory.

While I don’t hate Liquid Glass my continuing impression is that it still feels childish in a bubbly sort of way that doesn’t jive with the sophistication that the advanced hardware platforms seem to beg for. That was my first impression when Liquid Glass rolled out, and it was solidified after spending a large junk of time with my grandkids and other relatives’ kids watching them play children’s games on their non-Apple tablets over the holidays.

CleanShot 2025-12-30 at 15.43.21@2x.

It may look cool to some, but it feels like undercarriage lighting on a car to me.

There Were Some Good Things

The most important operating system change that Apple made was iPadOS 26, finally instituting, and then continuing to iterate on, a much better windowing system for iPads.

And, the best new feature on any of the Apple devices I use the most is the Wrist Flick to dismiss a notification on my Apple Watch. It’s simple, it’s effective, it makes sense on all levels. It should have existed earlier. And it should be what Apple aspires to with everything it creates.

Spotlight was given an overhaul offering new features like a clipboard manager. I’m still experimenting with it, but can see how it might replace Raycast in the future if Apple continues iterating on it. It’s a good addition that still needs work.

I think Apple is on to something with the changes it made for the Phone app to try and help alleviate spam calls. I hope they continue to improve this, because as good an effort as it is, I and others still find it confusing.

Perhaps the best thing about the OS 26 releases beyond that is that all of my devices are working as I anticipate if I look past (not through) Liquid Glass and avoid Apple Intelligence.

Summing Up

In the end, I think 2025 will be considered a lost year for Apple. I maintain that Apple’s ability to take the long view strategically hindered more than it helped. And I think that some of the executive level changes reflect that. But the fact that it takes a long time to see any new substantial change in an already crowded and confused orchard didn’t argue well for the year to be a success. The political posturing alongside the product missteps has led to my personal disgruntlement and I know it has for many others as well.

One of the many Apple mantras that we’ve become accustomed to is that Apple designs its products for 90% of its users. That may indeed still be true. As much as I feel comfortable with steady iteration in hardware and software, it feels to me increasingly that Apple is reaching more and more for innovations that excite the remaining 10%. I get that. And to a degree it’s commendable. But in my experience with the users I support, the majority of those in that 90% probably never even attempt to use many of these new innovations. It’s not a case of reach exceeding grasp in my opinion. Rather, it’s reaching in the wrong direction.

Apple has already made some noise that the next OS versions will be more fixing and futzing rather than feature rich. How could it not be? By the same token, how could it be if, I as feel is increasingly likely, it will be the first time we see what the new Siri and Apple Intelligence will really offer.

I also think Apple and the other tech companies need to pay attention to the warning signs that are starting to bubble up about Artificial Intelligence. I think most of the growing distaste of AI comes not from what these tech companies are offering on computing platforms, but from the day to day encounters people are experiencing in their daily lives as more and more non-tech companies roll out versions of AI support. The way I’m hearing and feeling it, jokes and complaints about AI at holiday gatherings this year are starting to compete in numbers with ones about government and politics.

I don’t think that’s an accomplishment that augurs well.

(First image from Johann Lensless on Shutterstock)