Apple needs to become a software company again

The Al features baked into iOS 18 and macOS 15 need to be compelling enough to convince people to upgrade.

- JASON SNELL

I have an admission: Though I frequently review new Apple products, I don't always buy them. Like many of you, I can't afford to update every bit of Apple hardware every time the company revises one of its products. So I have to carefully measure when my stuff has now become too old and needs to be replaced with the shiny and new versions.

Of course, Apple would love us all to buy new stuff all the time. But the company has to earn its sales the hard way. I might buy a new iPhone because of an upgraded camera or a new MacBook Air because of a new design and a faster processor. I might bypass the latest Apple Watch because the new features just don't matter to me.

As the heat from the iPhone's huge acceleration of growth begins to cool down and iPad and Mac sales drop from their pandemic-driven heights, Apple is looking for reasons to sell new hardware. And now, it may have found a big one in a somewhat unexpected place: artificial intelligence.

AI MODELS EAT RAM

AI algorithms are software, of course. Theoretically, all current Apple hardware should be able to run AI stuff. Apple's been building Neural Engines into its chips for years, for example. And yet the rumored addition of major AI features to Apple's platforms starting this fall may fuel a new wave of upgrades.

This is because when we discuss AI these days, we're largely discussing large language models (LLMs), things like OpenAl's Chat GPT and Google's Gemini.

Apple is reportedly building its own LLM, intending to run it natively on Apple devices rather than outsourcing it to the cloud. This could increase speed dramatically, as well Neural Engines have as enhance privacy.