John Gruber is one of the more high-profile Apple commenters, and generally takes a pretty upbeat view of the company, so it was a big surprise to see him launch a blistering attack on the iPhone maker.
Referring to Apple advertising Siri features which donât yet exist, he argues that the company is âin disarray if not crisis,â is making âbullshitâ claims, and has âsquanderedâ its reputation with âa fiascoâ âŚ
The background in a nutshell
Apple recently had to admit that plans for three new Siri features are âgoing to take us longer than we thoughtâ â with no real explanation, and no new delivery date. Crucially, these are the very features which promise to make Siri truly intelligent:
- Personal context (understanding things like âWhen is my momâs flight landing?â)
- On-screen awareness (being able to do things like âAdd this address to her contact cardâ)
- In-app actions (for example, âMake this photo pop, and add it to my Miami 2025 noteâ)
The company also quietly deleted an iPhone 16 ad in which it promoted these features.
However, it continues to promote these features on its website, albeit with new disclaimers.
Gruberâs attack
On Daring Fireball, Gruber says the reality of any product claims can be judged on a four-point scale:
- Demonstrated, but nobody allowed to try it for themselves
- Hands-on demos for media in very controlled conditions
- Beta versions anyone can try for themselves
- Shipped features
He says the level below this â concept videos of features which cannot even be carefully demonstrated â is just BS. And thatâs where Apple is with the above Siri features.
There were no demonstrations of any of that. Those features were all at level 0 on my hierarchy. That level is called vaporware. They were features Apple said existed, which they claimed would be shipping in the next year, and which they portrayed, to great effect, in the signature âSiri, when is my momâs flight landing?â segment of the WWDC keynote itself, starting around the 1h:22m mark. Apple was either unwilling or unable to demonstrate those features in action back in June, even with Apple product marketing reps performing the demos from a prepared script using prepared devices [âŚ]
What Apple showed regarding the upcoming âpersonalized Siriâ at WWDC was not a demo. It was a concept video. Concept videos are bullshit, and a sign of a company in disarray, if not crisis.
Gruber argues that if there was any level of reality at all to these features then the delay announcement would have been the perfect time to demo the current state of play to some tech writers, to show what is currently working and what isnât yet.
That didnât happen. If these features exist in any sort of working state at all, no one outside Apple has vouched for their existence, let alone for their quality [âŚ]
The fiasco is that Apple pitched a story that wasnât true, one that some people within the company surely understood wasnât true, and they set a course based on that.
There are a lot of companies who make obviously BS claims about AI products, and Gruber said he never expected Apple to be one of them. While there have been occasional disasters like AirPower, you could normally trust the companyâs claims, he says. But no more.
But their credibility is now damaged [âŚ] Damaged is arguably too passive. It was squandered.
He says if CEO Tim Cook hasnât done what Steve Jobs did when something didnât work â go nuclear, and either demand a fix from the team or pull the plug â the company is, well, doomed.
Tim Cook should have already held a meeting like that to address and rectify this Siri and Apple Intelligence debacle. If such a meeting hasnât yet occurred or doesnât happen soon, then, I fear, thatâs all she wrote. The ride is over. When mediocrity, excuses, and bullshit take root, they take over. A culture of excellence, accountability, and integrity cannot abide the acceptance of any of those things, and will quickly collapse upon itself with the acceptance of all three.
9to5Macâs Take
Gruber has never been an Apple shill â he has voiced criticisms of the company on many occasions â but he has been someone who clearly has a close relationship with the iPhone maker. Heâs one of a number of friendly ears Apple uses from time-to-time to help get a message out. So when Gruber goes thermonuclear in this way, thatâs no small thing.
I do my best to be objective about Apple, being appreciative and critical as appropriate. But while Iâve tried to be patient about Siri, it is getting increasingly difficult.
One of the odder aspects of Appleâs history is that the company has gone in 14 years from one of the leaders in intelligent assistants to one of the biggest laggards. Weâve gone from the futuristic-feeling Siri way back in 2011 to a painfully inadequate-feeling Apple Intelligence in 2025 [âŚ]
Back in 2015, I outlined the future capabilities Iâd like to see, including giving it the ability to interact with our apps. Itâs taken a full decade for Apple to even begin providing this feature! Whatâs even wilder to me is that in 2018 I created a list of really basic things Siri still couldnât do, and it still canât do several of these things today!
While I donât quite subscribe to Gruberâs argument that Apple has completely trashed its reputation here, there can be no denying that its credibility has been very badly damaged. And yep, creating a video ad for a phone which is currently pure fiction was really not a smart idea.
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