Apple hasn’t handled the sudden demand for generative AI products particularly well. It made too big a deal about its Apple Intelligence suite and a much smarter and proactive Siri but the actual implementation was underwhelming or did not show up at all.

It’s become a familiar refrain at this point for analysts, industry watchers and some users to say that Apple is “behind” on AI, or that it is “playing catch-up”. And to be sure, Apple seemed to avoid the subject as much as possible at its iPhone 17 reveal event earlier this week.

But to what extent does Apple actually need to develop and deploy its own generative AI?

Apple introudced the iPhone Air this week, alongside the iPhone 17, and barely mentioned AI.

Google’s current phones are filled with the stuff. You can hold down the power button and start a two-way conversation with its Gemini assistant as though you’ve just called a friend for a chat. You can wave your camera around, asking for information on stuff you see and have Gemini respond by circling or pointing bits out for you. You can have your keyboard completely rewrite your words.

I understand the excitement around seeing a machine that can give a good impersonation of human thought through its speech and suggestions, but I’m a little mystified by the implication that this is an essential or important part of a smartphone. Gemini is still utterly wrong a shocking amount of the time and attempts to integrate it or other chatbot-like features into the core of the smartphone experience tend to be more annoying than useful.

Apple has some AI features of its own, but at its event this week, it seemed to want to double down on what it’s actually good at. And I hope it continues to do that until the AI buzz goes away.

Apple is not the only player in the consumer tech health space, and in fact, Google has been pushing further into the space since its acquisition of Fitbit. But the Apple........

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