Apple Executives Take Jabs at AI PC Push, Microsoft Recall Feature

Apple executives are throwing some shade at the Windows ecosystem, including the industry’s recent push to promote AI PCs. 

Although Microsoft, AMD, and Intel have been hyping up AI PCs, Apple executives asserted in a talk this week that Cupertino is years ahead of the competition by developing AI-ready chips for iPhones and Macs.

“That’s been the funny bit now with the ‘AI PC,'" said Apple SVP of software engineering Craig Federighi. “It’s like someone discovered the idea of a neural engine this year.” (Apple's own neural engine debuted in 2017 with the A11 chip for the iPhone 8.)

Federighi made the comment after WWDC during a two-hour talk with blogger John Gruber, who runs Daring Fireball. The discussion, which has since been posted on YouTube, reveals that Apple is shrugging off concerns that the company is late to the AI rush. 

Federighi pointed to Apple’s decision to use its Arm-based M1 chip in MacBooks starting in 2020. Now Microsoft and Qualcomm are trying to do the same by using Arm chips to unleash a new wave of Copilot+ PCs, also known as AI PCs. 

During his remarks, Federighi couldn’t help but laugh at the marketing push from the Windows PC industry. “I guess we missed the boat to name it an AI PC because we’ve been making great ones this whole time,” he said. “That’s not the point. They’re great Macs.”

In the same talk, Apple SVP for Marketing Greg Joswiak took a jab at Microsoft’s recent fumble with one feature for its Copilot+ PCs, Recall, which records all the activity on your computer. The privacy backlash prompted Microsoft to indefinitely delay the feature for further testing. 

“Is that frustrating to you? That it plays into the consumers’ worst fears about this [AI] stuff,” asked Gruber, who later added: “Is that frustrating to you as you’re building out features that you’re trying to build trust in?”

“Are we frustrated by the failings of our competitors?” Joswiak replied to laughs from the audience: “The answer is no.”

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In another shot at Microsoft, Federighi also explained why Apple doesn't plan on bringing a dual-booting macOS-iPadOS capability to future iPads. “When you use your iPad Pro right now, it’s the best iPad experience you can ever imagine, and that’s worth a lot, to a lot of people,” he said. “We are not trying to create a Windows 8 PC or whatever.”

During the talk, Apple executives were also willing to poke fun at their own company, including its decision at WWDC to finally bring home screen customization to iOS 18 — a feature that Android users have had for years.  

“We thought 18 years was about the right moment to move an icon from the top, down to the bottom,” Federighi said. “There were actually developers that were born — we had to wait until they could mature and join Apple and finish the project.”

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About Michael Kan

Senior Reporter

I've been with PCMag since October 2017, covering a wide range of topics, including consumer electronics, cybersecurity, social media, networking, and gaming. Prior to working at PCMag, I was a foreign correspondent in Beijing for over five years, covering the tech scene in Asia.

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