The future belongs to technology that can warn people – to leave early for a doctor's appointment if traffic is bad, or a car that drives itself to that doctor's appointment. The future belongs to technology that lets someone see virtual images of sofas in their living room so they can pick the best one. The future is technology that sifts through years of data to notify a corporate executive about an inventory shortage before it happens.
This future of smart software and computing woven into every molecule of life is coming fast. And Apple isn't ready for it.
In the technology industry, it's conventional wisdom that Apple is weak in crucial areas such as cloud computing and artificial intelligence that are foundations for driverless cars, complex data predictions and computing that blends seamlessly into work and personal lives.
Apple on Monday outlined how the company's phones, computers, tablets, watches and web TV hardware are becoming smarter and more capable. Apple's message was the company is on the cutting edge of emerging trends such as artificial intelligence and about how Apple is ushering in the future. Don't believe it.
One small example is a voice-activated home speaker that Apple introduced called "HomePod". I'm sure it will be beautiful and have excellent sound quality, but that's not what these gadgets are about. These are all Trojan horses for the future of technology and how we interact with it.
Apple gets this, but it's not up to the task. Siri is good enough for many people, but the relative stupidity of Siri, iTunes and Apple's mapping app are a tech industry punchline.
Snapchat, Facebook and Microsoft – yes, Microsoft – are blurring the lines between the real world and the virtual in ways that could help doctors better learn surgical techniques or let people communicate in entirely new ways. Google's parent company and Uber are fighting in court over technology for driverless cars. Amazon is trying to reinvent how people learn about and buy products online and in stores.
Apple is practically nowhere so far in these emerging areas of technology.
Apple is hardly standing still and it has the resources to try to future-proof the company. The company is spending more of its financial firepower than ever before – about $US11 billion in the past year – on developing new technologies. The company could surprise everyone as it has many times before, but it doesn't feel possible at the moment.
Its history was about defining technology and waiting for everyone else to catch up. Now other companies are inventing the future and it is Apple that is simply trying to keep up.
Bloomberg
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