Apple CEO Tim Cook willing to buy a big company but there is a twist which is...
'Apple must do this. Apple will do this. This is sort of ours to grab. We will invest to do it,' said Cook as he acknowledged Apple's historical pattern of entering markets later than competitors but ultimately reshaping them with superior products. 'We've rarely been first. There was a PC before the Mac; there was a smartphone before the iPhone; there were many tablets before the iPad; there was an MP3 player before the iPod. This is how I feel about AI,' he said. What did he say about Apple Intelligence?
It is noteworthy that Apple has not kept pace with rivals such as OpenAI, Alphabet, and Microsoft in publicly launching AI capabilities, but Cook displayed an intrepid confidence in the company's approach. Apple Intelligence, introduced last year, faced delays that impacted the iPhone 16 rollout, yet Cook downplayed the timeline issues, reaffirming Apple's commitment to delivering best-in-class solutions. 'To not do so would be to be left behind, and we can't do that.' How much quarterly revenue did Apple report?
This meeting was reported by Bloomberg, citing sources. It came just days after Apple reported $94.04 billion in quarterly revenue, up 10% year-on-year (YoY), much above the $89.35 billion estimate of Wall Street. iPhone revenue came in much stronger than expected at $44.58 billion (up 13% YoY), setting a June-quarter record and surpassing Wall Street's $40.29 billion estimate.
'AI is one of the most profound technologies of our lifetime. And I think it will affect all devices in a significant way,' Tim Cook told analysts during the earnings call.
Apple is establishing a dedicated AI server facility in Houston, indicating the gravity of the situation and how keen the company is to move up the AI market.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Indian Express
4 minutes ago
- Indian Express
Anthropic blocks OpenAI's API access to Claude ahead of GPT-5 launch: Report
In a clear sign of intensifying rivalry in the AI race, Anthropic has accused OpenAI of violating its terms of service and partially blocked the ChatGPT-maker from accessing its Claude series of AI models via API (application programming interface). OpenAI has been granted special developer access (APIs) to Claude models for industry-standard practices like benchmarking and conducting safety evaluations by comparing AI-generated outputs against those of its own models. However, according to a report by Wired, Anthropic has now accused members of OpenAI's technical staff of using that access to interact with Claude Code – the company's AI-powered coding assistant – in ways that violated its terms of service. The timing is notable as it comes ahead of the widely anticipated launch of GPT-5, OpenAI's next major AI model which is purportedly better at generating code. Anthropic's AI models, on the other hand, are popular among developers due to its coding abilities. Anthropic's commercial terms of service prohibits customers from using the service to 'build a competing product or service, including to train competing AI models' or 'reverse engineer or duplicate' the services. 'Claude Code has become the go-to choice for coders everywhere, and so it was no surprise to learn OpenAI's own technical staff were also using our coding tools ahead of the launch of GPT-5. Unfortunately, this is a direct violation of our terms of service,' Anthropic spokesperson Christopher Nulty was quoted as saying by Wired. Anthropic will 'continue to ensure OpenAI has API access for the purposes of benchmarking and safety evaluations as is standard practice across the industry,' he added. Responding to Anthropic's claims, OpenAI's chief communications officer Hannah Wong reportedly said, 'It's industry standard to evaluate other AI systems to benchmark progress and improve safety. While we respect Anthropic's decision to cut off our API access, it's disappointing considering our API remains available to them.' This is not the first time that Anthropic has taken such measures. Last month, the Google and Amazon-backed company restricted Windsurf from directly accessing its models following reports that OpenAI was set to acquire the AI coding startup. However, that deal fell through after Google reportedly poached Windsurf's CEO, co-founder, and tech for $2.4 billion. Ahead of cutting off OpenAI's access to the Claude API, Anthropic announced new weekly rate limits for Claude Code as some users were running the AI coding tool 'continuously in the background 24/7.' Earlier this year, OpenAI accused Chinese rival DeepSeek of breaching its terms of service. The Sam Altman-led company said it suspected DeepSeek of training its AI model by repeatedly querying its proprietary model, a technique commonly referred to as distillation.
Time of India
an hour ago
- Time of India
Who is Andrew Tulloch? Former OpenAI engineer and Mira Murati's co-founder who rejected a $1.5 billion offer from Mark Zuckerberg
Andrew Tulloch, an Australian computer scientist and machine learning expert, has made headlines after turning down a $1.5 billion offer from Mark Zuckerberg to rejoin Meta. A former OpenAI engineer, Tulloch is now the co-founder of Thinking Machines Lab alongside ex-OpenAI CTO Mira Murati. The AI startup, still in its early stages, is already valued at $12 billion. Tulloch's decision to decline Zuckerberg's aggressive recruitment attempt reflects a broader trend of top AI talent prioritizing independence, mission-driven work, and long-term impact over staggering financial packages. Andrew Tulloch: From Wall Street to the frontier of AI Tulloch's journey began at the University of Sydney, where he graduated with first-class honours and a University Medal in mathematics. He later earned a Master's in Mathematical Statistics from Cambridge and pursued a PhD at UC Berkeley. Tulloch worked at Meta (then Facebook) from 2012 to 2023, contributing to machine learning systems and the development of PyTorch. He joined OpenAI in 2023, focusing on GPT-4 pretraining and reasoning models, before co-founding Thinking Machines Lab in early 2025. Co-founded with Mira Murati, Thinking Machines Lab is focused on building AI systems that are safer, interpretable, and customizable—going beyond traditional chatbot interfaces. The startup, though yet to release a product, has secured a $2 billion seed round with backing from Andreessen Horowitz, Nvidia, AMD, and Google Cloud. Its ambition and leadership have made it a top target for recruitment, especially from Zuckerberg's new "superintelligence" division at Meta. Mark Zuckerberg's offer and Tulloch's viral rejection According to The Wall Street Journal, Zuckerberg personally tried to lure Tulloch back to Meta with a six-year offer worth up to $1.5 billion, contingent on bonuses and stock performance. Tulloch declined, joining other Thinking Machines Lab co-founders in resisting Meta's poaching attempts. The bold rejection has gone viral, with Tulloch's LinkedIn profile celebrated for charting a rare career driven by principles rather than payouts. Meta later disputed the exact terms of the offer but confirmed outreach efforts were made.
Indian Express
2 hours ago
- Indian Express
Saint, Satan, Sam: Chat about the ChatGPT Man
For many people, AI (artificial intelligence) is almost synonymous with ChatGPT, a chatbot developed by OpenAI, which is the closest thing tech has had to a magic genie. You just tell ChatGPT what you want in information terms and it serves it up – from writing elaborate essays to advising you on how to clear up your table to even serving up images based on your descriptions. Such is its popularity that at one stage it even overtook the likes of Instagram and TikTok to become the most downloaded app in the world. While almost every major tech brand has its own AI tool (even the mighty Apple is working on one), AI for many still remains ChatGPT. The man behind this phenomenon is Samuel Harris 'Sam' Altman, the 40-year-old CEO of OpenAI, and perhaps the most polarising figure in tech since Steve Jobs. To many, he is a visionary who is changing the world and taking humanity to a better place. To many others, he is a cunning, manipulative person who uses his marketing skills to raise money and is actually destroying the planet. The truth might be somewhere between those two extremes. By some literary coincidence, two books have recently been released on Sam Altman, and are shooting up the bestseller charts. Both are superbly written and researched (based on interviews with hundreds of people), and while they start at almost the same point, they not surprisingly come to rather different conclusions about the man and his work. Those who tend to see Altman as a well-meaning, if occasionally odd, genius will love Keach Hagey's The Optimist: Sam Altman, OpenAI, and the Race to Invent the Future. Hagey is a Wall Street Journal reporter and while she does not put a halo around Altman, her take on the OpenAI CEO reflects the title of the book – she sees Altman as a visionary who is trying to change the world. The fact that Altman collaborated on the book (although he is believed to have thought he was too young for a biography) might have something to do with this, for the book does articulate Altman's vision on a variety of subjects, but most of all, on AI and where it is headed. Although it begins with the events leading up to Altman's being dramatically sacked as the CEO of OpenAI in November 2023, and his equally dramatic reinstatement within days, Hagey's book is a classic biography. It walks us through Altman's childhood, his getting interested in coding and then his decision to drop out from Stanford, before getting into tech CEO mode by first founding social media app Loopt and then joining tech incubator Y Combinator (which was behind the likes of Stripe, Airbnb and Dropbox) after meeting its co-founder Paul Graham, who is believed to have a profound impact on him (Hagey calls him 'his mentor'). Altman also gets in touch with a young billionaire who is very interested in AI and is worried that Google will come out with an AI tool that could ruin the world. Elon Musk in this book is very different from the eccentric character we have seen in the Trump administration, and is persuaded by Altman to invest in a 'Manhattan Project for AI,' which would be open source, and ensure that AI is only used for human good. Musk even proposes a name for it: OpenAI. And that is when things get really interesting. The similarities with Jobs are uncanny. Altman too gets deeply influenced by his parents (his father was known for his kind and generous nature), and like Jobs, although he is a geek, Altman's rise in Silicon Valley is more because of his ability to network and communicate than because of his tech knowledge. In perhaps the most succinct summary of Altman one can find, Hagey writes: 'Altman was not actually writing the code. He was, instead, the visionary, the evangelizer, and the dealmaker; in the nineteenth century, he would have been called 'the promoter.' His speciality, honed over years of advising and then running…Y Combinator, was to take the nearly impossible, convince others that it was in fact possible, and then raise so much money that it actually became possible.' But his ability to sell himself as a visionary and raise funds for causes has also led to Altman being seen as a person who literally moulded himself to the needs of his audience. And this in turn has seen him being seen as someone who indulges in doublespeak and exploits people for his own advantage (an accusation that was levelled at Jobs as well) ) – Musk ends up suing Altman and OpenAI for allegedly not being a non-profit organisation, which it was set up as. While Hagey never accuses Altman of being selfish, it is clear that the Board at OpenAI lost patience with what OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutstkever refers to as 'duplicity and calamitous aversion to conflict.' It eventually leads to his being sacked by the OpenAI board for not being 'consistently candid in his communications with the board.' Of course, his sacking triggered off a near mutiny in OpenAI with employees threatening to leave, which in turn led to his being reinstated within a few days, and all being seemingly forgotten, if not forgiven. Hagey's book is a compelling read on Altman, his obsession with human progress (he has three hand axes used by hominids in his house), relationships with those he came in touch with, and Silicon Valley politics in general. At about 380 pages, The Optimist is easily the single best book on Altman you can read, and Hagey's brisk narration makes it a compelling read. A much more cynical perception of Altman and OpenAI comes in Karen Hao's much talked-about Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman's OpenAI. Currently a freelancer who writes for The Atlantic, Hao had previously worked in the Wall Street Journal and had covered OpenAI as back as in 2020, before ChatGPT had made it a household name. As its name indicates, Hao's book is as much about Altman as it is about OpenAI, and the place both play in the artificial intelligence revolution that is currently enveloping the world. At close to 500 pages, it is a bigger book than Hagey's, but reads almost like a thriller, and begins with a bang: 'On Friday, November 17, 2023, around noon Pacific time, Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, Silicon Valley's golden boy, avatar of the generative AI revolution, logged on to a Google Meet to see four of his five board members staring at him. From his videosquare, board member Ilya Sutskever, OPenAI's chief scientist, was brief: Altman was being fired.' While Hagey has focused more on Altman as a person, Hao looks at him as part of OpenAI, and the picture that emerges is not a pretty one. The first chapter begins with his meeting Elon Musk ('Everyone else had arrived, but Elon Musk was late usual) in 2015 and discussing the future of AI and humanity with a group of leading engineers and researchers. This meeting would lead to the formation of AI, a name given by Musk. But all of them ended up leaving the organisation, because they did not agree with Altman's perception and vision of AI. Hao uses the incident to show how Altman switched sides on AI, going from being someone who was concerned about AI falling into the wrong hands, to someone who pushed it as a tool for all. Like Hagey, Hao also highlights Altman's skills as a negotiator and dealmaker. However, her take is much darker. Hagey's Altman is a visionary who prioritises human good, and makes the seemingly impossible possible through sheer vision and effort. Hao's Altman is a power hungry executive who uses and exploits people, and is almost an AI colonialist. 'Sam is extremely good at becoming powerful,' says Paul Graham, the man who was Altman's mentor. 'You could parachute him into an island full of cannibals and come back in 5 years and he would be the king.' Hao's book is far more disturbing than Hagey's because it turns the highly rose-tinted view many have not just of Altman and OpenAI, but AI in general, on its head. We get to see a very competitive industry with far too much stress and poor work conditions (OpenAI hires workers in Africa at very low wages), and literally no regard for the environment (AI uses large amounts of water and electricity). OpenAI in Hao's book emerges almost as a sort of modern East India Company, looking to expand influence, territory and profits by mercilessly exploiting both customers and employees. Some might call it too dark, but her research and interviews across different countries cannot be faulted. It would be excessively naive to believe either book as the absolute truth on Altman in particular and OpenAI and AI in general, but they are both must-reads for any person who wants a complete picture of the AI revolution and its biggest brand and face. Mind you, it is a picture that is still in the process of being painted. AI is still in its infancy, and Altman turned forty in April. But as these two excellent books prove, neither is too young to be written about, while definitely being relevant enough to be read about.
