Also interesting was the large number of Neutral engine cores.
These two together seem to be very much about enhancing AI and Siri to be mostly on-device (something which they already started on).
A frequent complaint I read on HN is "why aren't there LLM based assistants as yet from any vendor" - but the answer to this is straightforward, it's not realistic to deploy cloud-based LLM at Siri-size user bases. Most queries also don't need LLM-style responses. (Also the rapid development of the field means that processing requirements are rapidly decreasing.)
In a prior keynote Apple noted that Siri was the most used assistant in the world. I don't have 3rd party data to support that, but it's a big enough claim that we could take their word on it just for conjecture purposes about the processing power needed to deploy LLM-based Siri.
So if we're going to see LLM-based usability enhancements to Siri, both in the types of data it's allowed to work with and enabling natural, context-driven interactions. That will have to be fully on device, and ultimately that will be a better experience for users as internet connectivity is an unreasonable barrier for such interactions (especially as it can stutter natural-language conversations).
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On the gaming topic: Look at the newly released Hello Kitty Island Adventure on Apple Arcade. It is an exclusive and playable across iPad/iPhone/Mac/AppleTV. The quality of this game is unusual, it delivers an experience that equals/exceeds Nintendo's wildly popular Animal Crossing. This signals that Apple are refocusing on gaming in a new way: bringing popular game paradigms to Arcade in a compelling, exclusive way, and this perhaps forms an extension of Arcade bringing ad-free versions of the App Store's most popular titles.
So while I think we're far off Apple's hardware being a destination for gaming enthusiasts, we're now definitely past the point of Apple pushing people with an itch for gaming onto other platforms.
These two together seem to be very much about enhancing AI and Siri to be mostly on-device (something which they already started on).
A frequent complaint I read on HN is "why aren't there LLM based assistants as yet from any vendor" - but the answer to this is straightforward, it's not realistic to deploy cloud-based LLM at Siri-size user bases. Most queries also don't need LLM-style responses. (Also the rapid development of the field means that processing requirements are rapidly decreasing.)
In a prior keynote Apple noted that Siri was the most used assistant in the world. I don't have 3rd party data to support that, but it's a big enough claim that we could take their word on it just for conjecture purposes about the processing power needed to deploy LLM-based Siri.
So if we're going to see LLM-based usability enhancements to Siri, both in the types of data it's allowed to work with and enabling natural, context-driven interactions. That will have to be fully on device, and ultimately that will be a better experience for users as internet connectivity is an unreasonable barrier for such interactions (especially as it can stutter natural-language conversations).
---
On the gaming topic: Look at the newly released Hello Kitty Island Adventure on Apple Arcade. It is an exclusive and playable across iPad/iPhone/Mac/AppleTV. The quality of this game is unusual, it delivers an experience that equals/exceeds Nintendo's wildly popular Animal Crossing. This signals that Apple are refocusing on gaming in a new way: bringing popular game paradigms to Arcade in a compelling, exclusive way, and this perhaps forms an extension of Arcade bringing ad-free versions of the App Store's most popular titles. So while I think we're far off Apple's hardware being a destination for gaming enthusiasts, we're now definitely past the point of Apple pushing people with an itch for gaming onto other platforms.