Less than six months after rolling out a slew of artificial intelligence features, Apple is shutting down one of its signature capabilities: aggregating and summarizing news alerts.
The company revealed the change Thursday in a software update for developers. This follows an outcry from British media that Apple’s software was misrepresenting news reports.
In December, the BBC was among the first to ask Apple to change its software. The call came after the BBC sent readers a notice about Luigi Mangione, the man arrested in the New York City killing of health insurance executive Brian Thompson. Some iPhone summed up the BBC news saying: “Luigi Mangione shoots himself”. He had not.
In addition to disabling News Feeds, Apple said it would add a warning to users who choose to receive feed notifications for other apps. The warning means that the feature is still under development and may contain bugs.
The flawed summaries feature is the latest in a series of issues that have plagued new AI products. Last year, Google unveiled a chatbot that recommended people eat rocks and use glue to make pizza. Microsoft pushed back features on an AI computer due to security vulnerabilities. And Humane, a start-up that raised $240 million for a device called the Ai Pin, was scrutinized by tech reviewers because its system sometimes submitted claims incorrectly.
Early struggles with AI products have prompted questions about the technology’s near-term potential. The technology, which can answer questions, create images and write code, has been heralded for its potential to disrupt businesses and create trillions of dollars in economic value. But some on Wall Street and Silicon Valley have expressed doubts about whether AI will quickly produce enough benefits to justify its staggering costs.
“It’s difficult, and it’s early, and there’s not yet a clear value proposition for mainstream consumers,” said Ben Bajarin, chief executive of Creative Strategies, a technology research firm. “It will take time and it will be a slow shoot. “Nobody knows yet what somebody is going to look at and say, ‘This is really valuable.'”
In a note to developers, Apple said it was working to improve notification summaries for news and entertainment apps. He plans to make the feature available again in a future software update.
A BBC spokesman said it was pleased Apple had listened to its concerns and decided to make a change. “Our priority is the accuracy of the news we deliver to the audience, which is essential to building and maintaining trust,” he added.
The news of Apple’s changes was reported earlier by several websites devoted to Apple, including MacRumors and 9to5Mac.
Apple was among the last major tech companies to enter the AI arms race. Last year, the company introduced the iPhone with an AI software system called Apple Intelligence. He said the system will be able to sort messages, offer typing suggestions and create a more capable Siri powered by generative artificial intelligence.
But the features weren’t available on iPhones that Apple started shipping in September. Instead, over the past few months, it has gradually introduced several features, such as tools to improve email and the ability to access ChatGPT through Siri.
The AI capabilities are only available on the iPhone 15 and 16 models. The company has limited its availability to English-speaking countries, including the United States, Australia and Britain. In April, Apple plans to add support for Chinese, French, German, Italian, Spanish and other languages.
The company made Apple Intelligence the focus of its iPhone 16 promotions. But its lack of availability in some key markets, such as China, weakened demand for the device. Apple’s share of the global smartphone market fell to 18 percent last year from 19 percent in 2023, according to Counterpoint Research, a firm that tracks device sales.
“There are a lot of big questions about the initial efforts to do AI in devices,” said Bob O’Donnell, principal analyst at TECHnalysis Research, a market research firm. “In the long run, it’s definitely going to be the way to go, but it’s not a trivial task.”