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Apple’s top software executives decided early last year that Siri, the company’s virtual assistant, needed a brain transplant. The decision came after the executives Craig Federighi and John Giannandrea spent weeks testing OpenAI’s new chatbot, ChatGPT. Introduced in 2011 as the original virtual assistant in every iPhone, Siri had been limited for years to individual requests and had never been able to follow a conversation. The realization that new technology had leapfrogged Siri set in motion the tech giant’s most significant reorganization in more than a decade. race, Apple has made generative A.I.

Persons: Siri, Craig Federighi, John Giannandrea Organizations: Apple Locations: San Francisco, New York

☆ Apple Says Destructive iPad Ad ‘Missed the Mark’
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-09 | by ( Tripp Mickle | More About Tripp Mickle | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Apple doesn’t make mistakes often and seldom apologizes, but on Thursday, its head of advertising said the company had erred in making a new iPad commercial that showed an industrial compressor flattening tools for art, music and creativity. “Creativity is in our DNA at Apple, and it’s incredibly important to us to design products that empower creatives all over the world,” said Tor Myhren, the company’s vice president of marketing communications, in a statement provided to the publication AdAge. “Our goal is to always celebrate the myriad of ways users express themselves and bring their ideas to life through iPad. We missed the mark with this video, and we’re sorry.”Mr. Myhren said Apple would no longer run the ad on TV. They found the crushing of a trumpet, piano, paints and a sculpture particularly unnerving at a time when artists fear that generative artificial intelligence, which can write poetry and create movies, might take away their jobs.

Persons: ”, Tor Myhren, Mr, Myhren Organizations: Apple, Big Tech

☆ Apple’s New iPad Ad Leaves Its Creative Audience Feeling … Flat
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-08 | by ( Tripp Mickle | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Then the industrial compressor flattens a row of paint cans, buckles a piano and levels what appears to be a marble bust. In a final act of destruction, it pops the eyes out of a ball-shaped yellow emoji. When the compressor rises, it reveals Apple’s latest commodity: the updated iPad Pro. Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive, posted the advertisement, called “Crush,” on Tuesday after the company held an event to announce new tablets. “Meet the new iPad Pro: the thinnest product we’ve ever created,” Mr. Cook wrote, adding, “Just imagine all the things it’ll be used to create.”

Persons: Tim Cook, ”, Mr, Cook

☆ Apple Reports Decline in Sales and Profit Amid iPhone Struggles in China
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-02 | by ( Tripp Mickle | More About Tripp Mickle | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Apple said sales fell 4 percent to $90.8 billion for the three months that ended in March. Revenue from iPhones, iPads and wearables like the Apple Watch declined from the same quarter last year, while sales of software and services rose. Apple’s struggles were most worrisome in China, the world’s second-largest smartphone market, where sales fell 8 percent. Last quarter, Apple’s share of smartphones sold in China fell 4 percent, according to Counterpoint, a technology research firm. Shares of Apple rose 6.5 percent because the results slightly exceeded Wall Street predictions for quarterly sales and profit and were better in China than feared.

Persons: Apple’s, Trump Organizations: Apple, Justice Department, Revenue, Apple Watch, Huawei Locations: iPhones, China

Since mid-March, the financial pressure on several signature artificial intelligence start-ups has taken a toll. Inflection AI, which raised $1.5 billion but made almost no money, has folded its original business. Stability AI has laid off employees and parted ways with its chief executive. And Anthropic has raced to close the roughly $1.8 billion gap between its modest sales and enormous expenses. “You can already see the writing on the wall,” said Ali Ghodsi, chief executive of Databricks, a data warehouse and analysis company that works with A.I.

Persons: Anthropic, ”, Ali Ghodsi Organizations: Google, Microsoft, Meta, A.I Locations: Silicon Valley

Apple said it pulled the Meta-owned apps WhatsApp and Threads from its app store in China on Friday on government orders, potentially escalating the war over technology between the United States and China. The House of Representatives was preparing to vote on a bill as soon as this weekend that would force the Chinese internet company ByteDance to sell its popular video app TikTok or have it be banned in the United States. U.S. lawmakers have said TikTok poses a security threat because of its ties to China. Apple said that China’s internet regulator, the Cyberspace Administration, ordered the removal of WhatsApp and Threads from its app store because of national security concerns. “We are obligated to follow the laws in the countries where we operate, even when we disagree,” an Apple spokesman said.

Persons: Apple Organizations: U.S, Cyberspace Administration, Apple Locations: China, United States

Alphabet, Apple and Meta were told by European Union regulators on Monday that they were under investigation for a range of potential violations of the region’s new competition law. The law requires Alphabet, Apple, Meta and other tech giants to open up their platforms so smaller rivals can have more access to their users. The investigations center on whether Apple and Alphabet, the parent company of Google, are unfairly favoring their own app stores to box out rivals. Meta will be questioned about a new ad-free subscription service and the use of data for selling advertising. The European Commission, the European Union’s executive arm, can fine the companies up to 10 percent of their global revenue, which for each runs into the hundreds of billions of dollars each year.

Organizations: Meta, European Union, Apple, Google, European Commission

For years, Apple dominated the market for high-end smartphones in China. But evidence is mounting that, for many in China, the iPhone no longer holds the appeal it used to. Meanwhile, sales for one of Apple’s longstanding Chinese rivals, Huawei, surged 64 percent. Analysts say its latest product, a $3,500 virtual reality headset released in February, is still years away from gaining mainstream appeal. For a decade, China has been the iPhone’s most important market after the United States and accounted for roughly 20 percent of Apple’s sales.

Organizations: Apple, Research, Huawei, Analysts Locations: China, U.S, United States, Beijing

OpenAI said on Friday that Sam Altman, its high-profile chief executive, would rejoin its board of directors more than three months after he was briefly pushed out of the company. The move caps a highly anticipated report by a law firm hired by OpenAI’s board of directors to investigate Mr. Altman and his sudden removal from the company in November. “The special committee recommended and the full board expressed their full confidence in Mr. Altman and Mr. Brockman,” Mr. Taylor said, referring to Greg Brockman, the company president who quit in protest after Mr. Altman was removed. “We are excited and unanimous in our support for Sam and Greg.”The company said that the report found that OpenAI’s board acted within its broad discretion to terminate Mr. Altman, but also found that his conduct did not mandate removal. Mr. Taylor said the company would continue to expand its board.

Persons: OpenAI, Sam Altman, Altman, Bret Taylor, . Brockman, ” Mr, Taylor, Greg Brockman, Greg, ”

☆ Apple Fined $2 Billion by E.U. for Using App Store to Thwart Competition
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-04 | by ( Tripp Mickle | Adam Satariano | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Apple on Monday was fined 1.8 billion euros ($1.95 billion) by European Union regulators for thwarting competition among music streaming rivals, a severe punishment levied against the tech giant in a long-simmering battle over the powerful role it plays as gatekeeper of the App Store. antitrust regulator, is the culmination of a five-year investigation set in motion by one of its biggest rivals, Spotify. Regulators said Apple illegally used its App Store dominance to box out rivals. “For a decade, Apple abused its dominant position in the market for the distribution of music streaming apps through the App Store,” said Margrethe Vestager, the European Commission executive vice president who oversees competition policy. “From now on,” she said in a news conference, “Apple will have to allow music streaming developers to communicate freely with their own users.” The size of the fine, she added, “reflects both Apple’s financial power and the harm that Apple’s conduct inflicted on millions of European users.”

Persons: ”, Margrethe Vestager, “ Organizations: Apple, Monday, European Union, Spotify, European Commission

☆ How Regulations Fractured Apple’s App Store
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-04 | by ( Tripp Mickle | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Since introducing the App Store in 2008, Apple has run it largely the same way across 175 countries, right down to the 30 percent commission it has collected on every app sold. The company calls the result an economic miracle. The store has generated more than $1 trillion in sales, helped create more than seven million jobs and delivered Apple billions of dollars in annual profits. But as the App Store approaches its 16th anniversary, a patchwork of local rules are upending Apple’s authority over it. On Thursday, European Union regulators will begin enforcing the Digital Markets Act, a 2022 law that requires Apple to open iPhones in the bloc to competing app marketplaces and alternative payment systems for in-app sales.

Organizations: Apple, European Union, Digital Markets

☆ What Elon Musk and Sam Altman Said About Each Other
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-01 | by ( Yiwen Lu | Tripp Mickle | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

A decade ago, Elon Musk and Sam Altman bonded over a shared concern about the dangers of artificial intelligence. In 2018, Mr. Musk departed OpenAI after a power struggle with Mr. Altman. Mr. Musk later expressed dismay that the lab had turned into a for-profit company. On Thursday, Mr. Musk sued Mr. Altman and OpenAI, accusing them of breaching the founding contract between Mr. Musk and Mr. Altman by putting profits and commercial interests ahead of the public good in developing A.I. Here’s what Mr. Musk and Mr. Altman have said about each other over the years, and what they have jointly said.

Persons: Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Musk, Mr, Altman Organizations: Mr, OpenAI

☆ Behind Apple’s Doomed Car Project: False Starts and Wrong Turns
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-28 | by ( Brian X. Chen | Tripp Mickle | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

For the last decade, many Apple employees working on the company’s secretive car project, internally code-named Titan, had a less flattering name for it: the Titanic disaster. Throughout its existence, the car effort was scrapped and rebooted several times, shedding hundreds of workers along the way. As a result of dueling views among leaders about what an Apple car should be, it began as an electric vehicle that would compete against Tesla and morphed into a self-driving car to rival Google’s Waymo. The car project’s demise was a testament to the way Apple has struggled to develop new products in the years since Steve Jobs’s death in 2011. But it festered and ultimately fizzled in large part because developing the software and algorithms for a car with autonomous driving features proved too difficult.

Persons: Google’s Waymo, Apple, Steve Jobs’s Organizations: Apple, Tesla

OpenAI has completed a deal that values the San Francisco artificial intelligence company at $80 billion or more, nearly tripling its valuation in less than 10 months, according to three people with knowledge of the deal. The company would sell existing shares in a so-called tender offer led by the venture firm Thrive Capital, the people said. The deal lets employees cash out their shares in the company, rather than a traditional funding round that would raise money for business operations. The deal is another example of the Silicon Valley deal-making machine pumping money into a handful of companies that specialize in generative A.I. The funding boom kicked off early last year, after OpenAI captured the public’s imagination with the release of the online chatbot ChatGPT.

Persons: OpenAI Organizations: SpaceX Locations: San Francisco

☆ Why Is Big Tech Still Cutting Jobs?
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-05 | by ( Tripp Mickle | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

After a year of big layoffs, job cuts at the tech industry’s largest companies trickled into the first month of 2024. Google started the year with layoffs of several hundred employees and a promise of more cuts to come. Amazon followed by trimming hundreds of jobs in its Prime Video department. Microsoft also cut 1.900 jobs in its video game division. That disconnect, tech insiders and analysts say, is reflective of an industry facing two big challenges: coming to terms with frenetic work force expansion during the pandemic while also making an aggressive move into building artificial intelligence.

Organizations: Google, Meta, Microsoft

☆ Apple Takes Messaging Crackdown to Customers’ Macs
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-26 | by ( Tripp Mickle | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

When Apple blocked the Beeper Mini app last month from giving Android users access to the tech giant’s messaging service, Beeper encouraged customers to use their Mac computers instead to connect and continue sending messages. But in recent days, dozens of Beeper customers have reported that they no longer have access to Apple’s messaging service on their Android phones or their Mac computers. Several have called Apple’s customer support and been told that the company had revoked their Mac’s access to iMessage because of irregular activity. For Beeper customers, many of whom prefer Android devices to iPhones but favor Mac computers over PCs, Apple’s move shows just how far the company will go to maintain control over its services. In these instances, Apple cut off one of the services that it provided with its computers because it had objected to the way its customers used it.

Persons: Beeper, they’re, ”, Matvei Vevitsis, iMessages Organizations: Apple

☆ Cruise Says Hostility Toward Regulators Led to Grounding of Its Autonomous Cars
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-25 | by ( Tripp Mickle | Cade Metz | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Cruise, the driverless car subsidiary of General Motors, said in a report on Thursday that an adversarial approach taken by its top executives toward regulators had led to a cascade of events that ended with a nationwide suspension of Cruise’s fleet. The roughly 100-page report was compiled by a law firm that Cruise hired to investigate whether its executives had misled California regulators about an October crash in San Francisco in which a Cruise vehicle dragged a woman 20 feet. The investigation found that while the executives had not intentionally misled state officials, they had failed to explain key details about the incident. The report is central to Cruise’s efforts to regain the public’s trust and eventually restart its business. Cruise has been largely shut down since October, when the California Department of Motor Vehicles suspended its license to operate because its vehicles were unsafe.

Persons: Cruise, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart, Kyle Vogt Organizations: General Motors, California Department of Motor Vehicles Locations: California, San Francisco, Sullivan

☆ Apple Overhauls App Store in Europe, in Response to New Digital Law
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-25 | by ( Adam Satariano | Tripp Mickle | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Since Apple introduced the App Store in 2008, it has tightly controlled the apps and services allowed on iPhones and iPads, giving the company an iron grip on one of the digital economy’s most valuable storefronts. Now Apple is weakening its hold on the store, in one of the most consequential signs to date of how new European regulations are changing consumer technology. To comply with a European Union competition law taking effect on March 7, Apple on Thursday announced major changes to the App Store and other services for consumers in Europe. In Europe, customers will now have access to competing app stores and other services. In the United States, where there are fewer laws and regulations, Apple and other tech giants have more flexibility to operate as they please.

Organizations: Apple, European Union Locations: Europe, China, United States

☆ Apple Takes a Humble Approach to Launching Its Newest Device
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-19 | by ( Tripp Mickle | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

When Apple released the Apple Watch in 2015, it was business as usual for a company whose iPhone updates had become cultural touchstones. But as Apple prepares to sell its next generation of wearable computing, the Vision Pro augmented reality device, it is marching far more quietly into the consumer marketplace. The company said in a news release this month that sales of the device would begin Friday. No big product event was scheduled, though Apple has created a catchy commercial about the device and offered individual demonstrations of it to tech reviewers. And in a departure for the secretive company, the Vision Pro has been tested with more developers than past Apple products were to see what they like and don’t like about it.

Persons: Apple Organizations: Apple, Apple Watch, Vogue

☆ Apple Expected to Remove a Health Feature From New Apple Watches
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-17 | by ( Tripp Mickle | More About Tripp Mickle | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Apple is expected to begin selling its flagship smartwatches without the capability to detect people’s pulse rate. The court ordered Apple to stop selling its Apple Watch Series 9 and Watch Ultra 2 devices. Rather than discontinue sales, the company sought permission to continue selling the devices after removing the infringing technology. People with Apple watches capable of detecting their pulse will continue to be able to use that feature, analysts said. The International Trade Commission in October found that several Apple Watches had infringed on patents held by Masimo, a medical technology company in Irvine, Calif., that helped pioneer some pulse oximeter technology.

Persons: Apple, Masimo Organizations: Apple, International Trade Commission Locations: Irvine , Calif, Asia

☆ Microsoft Tops Apple to Become Most Valuable Public Company
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-12 | by ( Tripp Mickle | Karen Weise | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

For more than a decade, Apple was the stock market’s undisputed king. It first overtook Exxon Mobil as the world’s most valuable public company in 2011 and held the title almost without interruption. On Friday, Microsoft surpassed Apple, claiming the crown after its market value surged by more than $1 trillion over the past year. The change is part of a reordering of the stock market that was set in motion by the advent of generative artificial intelligence. The values of Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft and Google dwarfed former market leaders like Walmart, JPMorgan Chase and General Motors.

Persons: Apple, JPMorgan Chase Organizations: Exxon Mobil, Microsoft, Apple, Bloomberg, Exxon, Facebook, Google, Walmart, JPMorgan, General Motors

☆ Nvidia C.E.O. Is Not Worried About Rising A.I. Industry Competition
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-29 | by ( Tripp Mickle | More About Tripp Mickle | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

But Jensen Huang, the chief executive of Nvidia, said on Wednesday that he’s not worried about the rising competition. The machine, which was delivered five years later, changed the way computers worked, allowing them to generate sentences, images and videos. was not a chip problem. It’s a reinvention-of-computing problem,” Mr. Huang said, speaking at the DealBook Summit in New York. Every aspect of the computer has fundamentally changed.”Mr. Huang said that it will take time for competitors to catch up.

Persons: Jensen Huang, he’s, “, Mr, Huang, ” Mr Organizations: Nvidia Locations: New York

This year’s DealBook Summit will include conversations with global leaders and powerful figures from Wall Street, Silicon Valley and Hollywood. Jamie Dimon has been the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase since 2006 and its chairman since 2007, making him one of Wall Street’s longest-serving banking leaders. Bob Iger returned as Disney’s chief executive last year, after stepping down from the role in 2020. David Zaslav orchestrated Discovery’s takeover of WarnerMedia and became the chief executive of the new company, Warner Bros. The transaction helped transform his modest cable television company into an empire that includes the Warner Bros. movie and TV studios, HBO and CNN.

Persons: Andrew Ross Sorkin, Kamala Harris, Ms, Harris, Biden’s, Tsai Ing, Tsai, Elon Musk, Musk, Jamie Dimon, Jensen Huang, chipmaker, Bob Iger, Long, Iger, Lina Khan, Khan, ”, David Zaslav, Jay Monahan, LIV Golf, Monahan, Kevin McCarthy, Mr, McCarthy, Shonda Rhimes, Rhimes Organizations: Wall, Israel, Elon, SpaceX, JPMorgan Chase, First, Nvidia, Fox, Marvel, Pixar, Hollywood, ESPN, Federal Trade Commission, Columbia Law, WarnerMedia, Warner Bros, HBO, CNN, Republican, Republican Party, Shondaland, Netflix Locations: Silicon Valley, Hollywood, United States, California, San Francisco, Gaza, Taiwan, China, First Republic, Saudi

In a blog post, Mr. Altman, who was rapidly reinstated last week, also outlined his priorities for OpenAI as he retakes the reins of the high-profile artificial intelligence start-up. He added that its board would focus on improving governance and overseeing an independent review of the events that led to and followed his removal as chief executive. Microsoft expands a three-person board that OpenAI announced last week. Microsoft will be able to participate in OpenAI’s board meetings but not vote on business decisions. “Part of what good governance means is that there’s more predictability, transparency and input from various stakeholders, and this seemed like a good way to get that from a very important one,” Mr. Altman said in an interview, referring to Microsoft.

Persons: OpenAI, Sam Altman, Altman, Mr Organizations: Microsoft

For much of the past year, OpenAI’s board of directors has been criticized as too small and too divided to effectively govern one of the fastest-growing start-ups in Silicon Valley history. On Friday, the board’s dysfunction spilled into public view when four of its members fired Sam Altman, OpenAI’s popular and powerful chief executive. Mr. Altman, 38, returned to the company on Tuesday night, after days of haggling over his job and over the makeup of the board. The board and Mr. Altman’s allies discussed more than a half dozen options for its future. The departing board wanted to be sure the replacements would be independent thinkers and experienced enough to stand up to Mr. Altman.

Persons: Sam Altman, OpenAI’s, Altman, Altman’s, Laurene Powell Jobs, Steve Jobs, Brian Chesky Organizations: Emerson Locations: Silicon Valley

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