Slade’s Corner

As a self-proclaimed Apple fanboy, who has owned and used every type of modern Apple device (in order: iPad, Mac, iPhone, Apple Watch, and Apple TV) for the better part of a decade, I’m also — like so many others — pretty worried about what’s going on at the company. With the era of Apple Intelligence upon us, we were promised a lot at last year’s WWDC 2024 Keynote and Platforms State of the Union.

My biggest question is — and I truly hope John Gruber doesn’t take offense to this — why was Daring Fireball told about the delay first? Why didn’t Apple issue the statement on its website and break the stories themselves? This was a very strange PR move that still boggles my mind. Apple knows better, and did better under Jobs with the Antennagate controversy with the release of iPhone 4 many years ago. And I’ve watched companies like Google and Microsoft maneuver their way through similar in the past.

My point is, this is not their first rodeo. I’m not sure who approved this particular PR move, whether it was VP of Worldwide Communications Kristin Huguet Quayle or if it was Jacqueline Roy (who was attributed to the statement) going rogue, but rest assured: it lit the entire internet on fire (and not in a good way). This is even including Gruber with an absolutely strongly-worded post on Daring Fireball just last night.

To me, it came across to me as borderline unprofessional. I’m a believer that, if you make a mistake or can’t fulfill a promise until later, you must apologize. Another blog cannot apologize for you.

Now, if I had to take a guess as to why this even happened: I think Gruber got a statement because Apple was too embarrassed to say anything directly to customers themselves. Perhaps that’s obvious to anyone reading. I think the weirder thing was choosing Gruber. Maybe because, like me, Gruber is also a fan of Apple products and would thus be more sympathetic? I’m not sure.

But in the modern iteration of Apple, the company has rarely apologized for mistakes they’ve made–the most recent example I can think of is the May 2024 “Crush” ad for the iPad–but most of the time, they simply cancel the thing and move on (the emailed press statement I linked there never appeared in Apple.com’s newsroom, from what I can tell).

They went hard on promoting Siri’s now-delayed personal context features and on-screen awareness in WWDC 2024, and more especially the promotions for the new Mac models, iPhone 16 and 16 Pro family, as well as several other devices I’m probably forgetting to mention. They ran ads on web and TV for it. They sold products on the basis of what is now a lie — the features will not come as part of iOS 18, and may have been delayed to iOS 19.4 or 20. And I think that’s part of a bigger issue.

What I’m also frustrated with is the wording I’ve seen from mainstream media. Apple didn’t “announce” any delays. There’s nothing on Apple.com that says the features are delayed besides a new, hard-to-notice tag under the marketing copy on the Apple Intelligence subpage. What they actually did was issue a statement to Daring Fireball’s John Gruber to break the news for them.

They made him do their work–in short, he was used. Which is incredibly sad to see in and of itself. Frankly, if a statement like that was sent to me, I would’ve declined to publish it, and asked why this wasn’t being published to the Apple Newsroom as a Press Release. I’m a believer that everything said on the internet should come from the primary source–the individual themselves or the organization, in this case. Apple chose to hide behind perhaps their most influential fan, John Gruber, and his publication. And yes, they probably did that so as to not piss off their investors and customers who bought the thing expecting it to arrive this year in a software update when it simply won’t.

The hard truth is that Apple has now lost all credibility. Its pre-recorded keynotes, which have been the standard since WWDC 2020 (in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic), are no longer trustworthy sources of information for many. Apple was showing mockups and concepts, not real working products and features like they were previously. So who’s to say any of what we saw in any of the keynotes we’ve seen since the switch to pre-recorded events in 2020 was real?

Being able to edit and do post-production can be a benefit, but it can also be an opportunity to manipulate. Fundamentally, it is a marketing department’s dream not to do any live demos. Apple was once a very credible company–when you saw something presented to you, you knew it was real and going to come out soon, even if that wasn’t truly the case. That’s the beauty of in-person events. But now, in this new era, that is no longer the case.

We are post-pandemic now, and probably two years ago Apple should’ve began transitioning back to in-person events. Hell, even their Steve Jobs Theater has not been used much in the past five years. It was constructed specifically for events!

I leave you with the following. 1) You cannot trust the marketing, and thus, any company holding prerecorded events at this point. I believe their customers deserve to hear from the company first-hand when they misstep, or can’t deliver a feature they promised and pushed so hard in marketing to make a quick buck off of you. That’s abusing your position as a trustworthy source to sell people on something that will never come. I mean, thank God Apple never took AirPower preorders. And 2) honestly, it seems the market agrees with what I’ve said here today. Apple’s stock has been in free fall since the 10th, going from $235.64 on Monday to $209.68 at close today. For those keeping track, that’s a 10% drop since Friday’s close, which was $238.65.

When your stock is in free fall because investors are unhappy, developers are unhappy, and your most influential fans and customers are unhappy–you’ve messed up. Trust is hard to come by in the modern era. I believe Apple’s going to have to make some serious, significant changes in order to be trusted once more.

And for everyone’s sake, I hope they do.