According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, who tends to be well plugged in to the Job’s Mob rumour mill, those hoping for a proper Apple Intelligence debut are in for disappointment. “Probably won’t be happening at this year’s WWDC,” he warns. Apparently, “people within the company believe that the conference may be a letdown from an AI standpoint.”
Letdown doesn’t quite cut it. This was supposed to be the grand comeback, the moment when the Fruity Cargo Cult proved it hadn’t completely missed the generative AI train. Instead, we’re getting the usual lipstick on a pig. Gurman says there’ll be a new AI-powered battery mode and a bit of Foundation Model access for third-party developers.
Of course, the Tame Apple Press is already lining up to praise this watered-down nonsense. Features in Safari and Photos are apparently getting a quiet rebrand so they can be called AI-powered now. That’s Apple’s idea of innovation these days, slap AI on existing stuff and hope nobody notices.
Gurman’s doing his best to dig up positives, bless him. But he admits the good stuff, like the much-hyped LLM-powered Siri, won’t be appearing in iOS 19. Sorry, iOS 26, after they finish fiddling with numbers to make it sound futuristic. Apple’s AI voice assistant, which was supposed to rival Gemini and ChatGPT, is nowhere to be seen. It is so late it is being aimed at 2026, which, given Job’s Mob’s track record, probably means even later.
There’s talk of a more innovative Shortcuts app, but again, don’t hold your breath. It’s been punted to 2026. Apple's AI doctor effort, called Mulberry, resembles a chatbot bolted onto the Health app. Think less of a medical marvel and more of Clippy with a stethoscope. You’ll probably get that in spring 2026, assuming nothing explodes in testing.
And then there’s Knowledge, Job’s Mob’s answer to ChatGPT. It is meant to pull data from the web but is already bogged down by the same mess that crippled the Siri revamp. Project lead Robby Walker has been shoved aside in favour of Mike Rockwell, nothing says “this is going well” quite like a sudden leadership swap.
If this is Apple’s AI strategy, it’s no wonder the company and its obedient media chorus are trying to bury expectations ahead of WWDC. Gurman’s sources say 2026 is when Job’s Mob hopes it can convince consumers that it’s an AI innovator. Of course by then any products it has on offer will be a long way behind what users will have had on Android or Windows for years.
