WWDC 2025: Apple's Nokia Moment
All eyes on Ive x Altman!
Good morning AI entrepreneurs & enthusiasts,
The rumors of Apple’s AI “gap year” appear painfully accurate, as WWDC 2025 opened with a keynote barely managing to disguise Apple's apparent indifference toward its lagging Apple Intelligence.
With minor, predictable enhancements to its already outdated system, Apple's biggest annual spectacle came across as grandiose window dressing—totally disconnected from the fiercely competitive, AI-dominated landscape.
In today’s AI news:
Apple phones it in with AI at WWDC
Google Expands Project Mariner Access
Meta Negotiating Over $10B Investment in Scale AI
How to Become an AI PM in 90 Days
Top Tools & Quick News
Apple phones it in with AI at WWDC
The News: Apple just kicked off WWDC 2025, hyping new design tweaks and branding updates across its OS lineup, while barely acknowledging significant developments in its increasingly lackluster Apple Intelligence.
The details:
The new Live Translation provides real-time translation for Messages, FaceTime, and calls—but still confined to local processing for Apple's signature privacy pitch, rather than ambitious functionality.
Visual intelligence enhancements offer users the novel ability to find products and interact with ChatGPT about on-screen images—solidly incremental, nothing revolutionary.
The Shortcuts app now includes predictable AI-powered actions and integrates ChatGPT for basic automation—useful, but hardly headline-worthy.
Apple threw developers a bone by providing access to on-device models, cutting cloud API fees and enabling offline AI—more groundwork than immediate innovation.
Why it matters: Apple’s cautious and incremental AI updates at WWDC are underwhelming at best, reinforcing widespread beliefs about Apple's current AI stagnation. In a year when AI breakthroughs have become the norm, Apple's conservative strategy leaves it glaringly out-of-step and comfortably behind its rivals.
Google Expands Project Mariner Access to More Ultra Subscribers
The News: Google has expanded access to Project Mariner, its experimental AI-driven browser assistant, positioning it as a core feature of the premium $249.99/month Ultra subscription.
The details:
Project Mariner autonomously performs online tasks such as booking tickets, shopping, and research via a Chrome extension.
The tool runs on cloud-based virtual machines, multitasking efficiently and handling up to 10 simultaneous tasks without disrupting the user's browsing activities.
Frequent permission prompts prioritize user privacy, though they sometimes slow down workflows.
Google plans deeper integration with its Gemini API and Vertex AI, enabling developers to build advanced, agent-driven applications.
Why it matters: Project Mariner represents a significant step toward autonomous, agent-driven web experiences, potentially revolutionizing productivity for power users and professionals, despite its limited current availability and premium pricing.
Meta Negotiating Over $10B Investment in Scale AI
The News: Meta Platforms is in advanced negotiations to invest over $10 billion in Scale AI, a leading AI infrastructure and data labeling startup, marking Meta’s largest external AI investment to date.
The details:
The deal, expected to exceed $10 billion, is still under negotiation, with both companies declining public comments.
Scale AI provides critical labeled data to major companies like OpenAI and Microsoft, crucial for developing advanced AI systems including Meta's own Llama models.
Scale AI generated $870 million in revenue in 2024 and is projected to reach $2 billion in 2025, potentially pushing its valuation to approximately $25 billion after the investment.
Meta’s strategic commitment highlights its competitive stance to aggressively contend with AI leaders like Google, Amazon, and Microsoft.
Why it matters: This deal represents Meta's largest investment to date, dramatically signaling the company's intensified focus on foundational AI infrastructure. Additionally, the investment catapults 28-year-old Alexandr Wang, Scale AI's CEO, to become the youngest billionaire ever, highlighting the transformative financial scale and impact of strategic AI partnerships.
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Today's AI Tools
🗣️ Advanced Voice Mode – Enhanced expressiveness and translations
⚙️ Cursor v1.0 – Remote coding and automatic PR review
🤝 Portraits – AI coaching platform by Google Labs
Quick News
Sam Altman expands proof of personhood verification in the UK
Meta AI’s Yann LeCun critiques Anthropic CEO's AGI perspectives
EleutherAI introduces Common Pile v0.1, an 8TB training dataset
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Is Apple’s deliberate pace a sign of discipline or drift? Privacy sells, but only if the experience feels magical. Curious to see how this tension shapes next year’s adoption curves.
Apple’s subtle AI upgrades vs. Google’s premium agent subscription two very different value props. Which one persuades mainstream users first?