Every time I Visit the Apple Park campus, my mind flashes to A tour I made Months before the end of the construction, when there was dust on the soils of the terrazzo and mud where the lush vegetation is now flourishing. My guide was Tim CookCEO of Apple. With the pride of an owner, he made me pass through the circular colossus of $ 5 billion, explaining that engaging on the new campus was a “100 -year decision”.
Today, I come back to the ring – subscribing with energy seven years after its opening – to see Cook again. The world of technology is at an inflection point. The most powerful companies will trip or ensure their domination for decades. We are here to discuss the big cook movement in this high challenges environment: the imminent release of Apple Intelligence, the first significant offer of the company in the field of White Hot of AI Generative. Some consider it late. All year round, Apple competitors have gained buzz, dazzling investors and dominated the news cycle with their chatbotsWhile the most precious company in the world (when I write) showed an expensive and bulky augmented augmented reality headset. Apple must do the AI. Societies, after all, are less likely than buildings to remain proud for a century.
Cooking did not panic. Like his predecessor Steve Jobs, he does not believe that the first is the best. “Classic Apple”, as he says, enters a first -step cacophonic field and, with a strong understanding of the novelty against the utility, reveals products that make the latest relatable and even sexy technologies. Rethink How the iPod Rethink digital music. It was not the first MP3 player, but its compactness, ease of use and integration with an online store delighted people with a new way of consuming their tunes.
Photography: Joe Pugliese
Cook also maintains that Apple has been preparing for the AI revolution from the start. As of 2018, he poached the best director of Google AI, John Giannandrea, for a rare expansion of the ranks of vice-president of the company. Then he disconnected on a long -standing smart car program (a secret of Polichinelle has never been publicly recognized by Apple) and gathered the company’s automatic learning talents to integrate AI into its software products.
In June, Apple announced the results: a layer of AI for its entire range of products. Cook had also negotiated an agreement with the gold stallion in Chatbots, Openai, so that its users can have access to Chatgpt. I had obtained a few demos of what they planned to reveal, including a tool to create personalized emoji with verbal prompts and an AI Easy to use image generator called Image Playground. (I had not yet tested Siri’s revivification, Apple AI Agent.)
Perhaps what distinguishes the most AI from Apple – at least according to Apple – is the accent on privacy, a characteristic of the Cook diet. AI tools, which take place via software updates on the latest iPhone and relatively recent Macs, will largely run on the device itself – you do not send your data to the cloud. The calculation of more complicated AI tasks, provides Cook, occurs in secure regions of Apple data centers.
Another thing that I remember my return to the ring is how clever Cook is to boast the results of its big decisions, from Apple Watch to its bet on personalized silicon tokens, which trigger innovations that stimulate Apple phones and portable computers. (And not mentioning the decisions that did not take place, like this project of several billion dollars.) When he walks in the conference room where we meet, I know that Cook will be meticulously cordial, displaying sharp manners during his childhood in Alabama, while calmly hyperbolizing the virtues of Apple products and pushing the critics of his very powerful society. (And when they were asked for comments on the results of the elections, which arrived after our speech, he chose to keep his point of view for him.) Steve Jobs came to a journalist like the rain in Buenaventura, by aggressively presenting his message; Cook envelops his interlocutors in a sweet mist and entrusts his business assessments.
Ultimate assessments, of course, will come from users. But if 40 years of Apple cover taught me something, this is this: if this first iteration of the AI fails, an unrepentant cook will appear in the future prefabricated Keynote greeting a new version like “the best intelligence of Apple that we have never built”. Despite all the pressure, Tim Cook never lets you see him sweat.