At 81, I’m still waiting to hear about how AI is supposed to help our World, economy or life/etc. I simply do not understand why I should want to use “Artificial” intelligence. Hopefully, AI will be at least half as helpful as spel-cheque can bee?
1 Like
Don’t forget, advertisers are the clients of ad agencies. An ad agency cannot do anything without the participation and approval of the advertiser. So while Apple’s current advertisements do not resonate with some people as they did historically—and let’s also recognize that humans’ selective memories have filtered out a lot of “bad” ads that ran in the past from our recollections—only part of the responsibility lies with the ad agency.
2 Likes
Well, let’s ask a generative AI!
https://www.perplexity.ai/search/im-still-waiting-to-hear-about-qmf6f7wnQrO70Gc9p3hcDA
2 Likes
Great example.
Check out the sources. It’s a mishmash of European parliament staffers trying to produce more paper, PWC, and McKinsey. Anybody who would take those 3 as serious sources for such a question deserves every bit of what’s about to come. 
Yes, this type of analysis is best left to YouTube influencers and crypto-bros!
1 Like
Let’s stay focused on the ads, please.
Those are great. They identify a real-world problem that we can all identify with and show Apple Pay solving it instantly. Simple, effective, and funny.
With Apple Intelligence, I could also imagine someone putting together a slideshow for a retirement party or graduation or the like, and finding photo after photo that has something completely ludicrous sticking out of the person’s head, then fixing them all with Clean Up.
1 Like
This horrendous campaign was just one enormously big glitch. It was not anything even remotely resembling a continuing saga.
Remember how Jony Ive pushed a reluctant Steve Jobs into making a line of super duper Apple Watches that have a bunch of super super super duper expensive and very, very, very high fashion targeted models and accessories costing into the many, many thousands of dollars? The ad campaign for it ran for a very, very, very very few years and turned out to be very, very, very super extremely unprofitable. Tim Cook was the one who wanted to focus on watches and watch bands to be very health, fitness and communications focused. Steve stayed with Tim, and sent Jony went running out into the hills.
Except for this current ad campaign, which is not a large one, I think Tim has and is doing an excellent job. And the revenue he has been generating for decades proves it.
Personally, I don’t view the Apple Intelligence ads as good or bad. Apple is a huge, multinational company with a broad and diverse customer base that buys a wide range of products and services. It no longer is a company offering a couple of personal computers to a mostly homogenous set of people. As such, a particular series of ads cannot—and doesn’t need to—appeal to every single Apple customer.
I’d say the ads are targeted to audiences that (clearly!) are very different from the TidBITS Talk user base. And if I was somebody charged with identifying market segments with a high growth potential or a high future revenue potential, I’m not sure TidBITS users would be my first priority (no offense, I’m talking about demographics and spending habits here, not personality traits).
As for how the Apple Watch product assortment and marketing has evolved, I’d say it reflects how Apple’s corporate focus in recent years has shifted from a mass luxury, physical objects-driven position that was personified by Ive and Ahrendts to a utilitarian, services-driven position that is personified by Cook and Cue. In any case, I believe Ive’s push to position Apple Watch as a high fashion item at the beginning was effective because the Watch received a great deal of non-tech media coverage that allowed the Watch to be seen as something other than a FitBit competitor.
3 Likes
Apple is a multinational corporation with a market capitalization of $3,446,709,960,460. As usual, they continue to have the highest market cap in the entire world. If they want to keep it this way Apple will have to continue to build, develop and promote products and services that will keep devoted fans happy as well as attract new and existing buyers.
To do so, they will have keep their current and new hardware, services, and product development way ahead of the very competitive market. And they need to continue to keep and attracting new buyers and keeping current purchasers happy. That’s where advertising and PR come in. It’s what’s keeping Apple alive and happy.
Just a quick note about market cap. Market cap is simply share price x number of shares outstanding. So AAPL has many ways to influence its market cap beyond organic growth, such as adjusting its cash holdings, issuing or buying back shares, spinning off businesses, moving revenues to low tax countries, and issuing or retiring debt. External factors also affect market caps, including interest rate expectations, economic forecasts, and geopolitical events.
I’d call it apple stupidity. Just upgraded from 17.x to 18.1 on my iPad. Yesterday I asked Siri (something I frequently do) what the temperature was. I get a “can’t tell you because I have no clue about your location (words to that effect).” Today I asked for my location and she knew exactly where it was. BUT could NOT tell me the temp because she had no clue about my location.
This seems to me to be all about marketing and nothing about failed technology (admittedly this is only one tiny example, but enough to sour me on what they are doing).
OK, let’s stay on the topic of ads, not Apple’s corporate finances.
Just to reiterate, Apple Intelligence has made only minor updates to Siri. See my post in another thread: Apple Intelligence is wicked stupid! - #6 by ddmiller
Full AI to Siri is coming with to later versions of iOS 18, I’ve heard through the releases into next spring (though there is no official calendar that I know of.) For now we are essentially still using the same Siri we’ve been complaining about more and more for years. I believe it’s confirmed that 18,2 will bring optional ChatGPT integration to Siri requests.
The “daytime TV” flavor of the ads we’ve been discussing in this thread combined with the observations in this Bloomberg story may point to an effort at Apple to target women as part of its Apple Intelligence marketing campaign:
1 Like