Apple plays catch-up at WWDC | TechCrunch

Last day to exhibit your breakthrough to 10,000+ tech leaders at Disrupt is on Oct 2. Book Exhibit Table Now. Disrupt doors open Oct. 13. Get your pass and bring someone with you at 50% off. REGISTER NOW. Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference on Monday started off with an apology of sorts. Instead of jumping right into the headline news about a revamped AI-powered Siri, Apple’s senior vice president of Software Engineering Craig Federighi spent the first stretch of the keynote on a list of repairs. For the past two years, Apple has been racing to catch up in AI while frustrations with its core software quietly added up: a design overhaul users hated, a search function that barely worked, a file-sharing feature that routinely failed, and a Health app that didn’t focus enough on half its user base. Apple didn’t say any of that on Monday. But the structure of its WWDC keynote said it for them, leading with fixes before features, and framing a better Siri as one item on a long list of improvements rather than the main event. At minimum, the sequencing suggests Apple believes the foundation needs shoring up before it can credibly ask users to trust it with something as consequential as