Less than six months after rolling out a slew of AI features, Apple is disabling one of its signature features: news notification aggregation and summarization.
The company revealed the change Thursday in a software update for developers. This followed an outcry from the British media that Apple software was misrepresenting the news.
In December, the BBC was among the first to urge Apple to change its software. The call came after the BBC sent readers a notification about Luigi Mangione, the man arrested for the murder of Brian Thompson, the health insurance executive, in New York City. Some iPhones summarized BBC news by saying: “Luigi Mangione shoots himself.” He hadn’t.
In addition to disabling news summaries, Apple said it will add a warning for users who have opted in to receive notification summaries for other apps. The warning will say that the feature is still under development and that there may be errors.
The flawed summary functionality is the latest in a series of issues that have marred new AI products. Last year, Google unveiled a chatbot that advised people to eat rocks and use glue to make pizza. Microsoft has postponed AI computer features due to security vulnerabilities. And Humane, a start-up that raised $240 million for a device called Ai Pin, was panned by tech reviewers because its system sometimes responded to requests inaccurately.
Early difficulties with AI products fueled 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 doubt that AI can quickly produce enough benefits to justify its staggering costs.
“It’s difficult, and it’s early, and there’s no clear value proposition yet for mainstream consumers,” said Ben Bajarin, managing director of Creative Strategies, a technology research firm. “It will take time and it will be a very slow process. No one knows yet what someone will look at and say, “That’s really valuable.”
In a note to developers, Apple said it is working to improve notification summaries for news and entertainment apps. We plan to make the feature available again in a future software update.
A BBC spokesperson said he was pleased that Apple had listened to his concerns and decided to make a change. “Our priority is the accuracy of the news we provide to the public, which is essential to building and maintaining trust,” he added.
News of Apple’s changes was previously reported by several Apple-dedicated websites, including MacRumors and 9to5Mac.
Apple was among the last major technology companies to join the AI arms race. Last year, the company introduced iPhones with an AI software system called Apple Intelligence. He said the system would be able to sort messages, offer writing suggestions and create a more capable Siri powered by generative artificial intelligence.
But the features weren’t available on the iPhones that Apple began shipping in September. In recent months, however, it has gradually introduced some features, such as tools to improve email and the ability to access OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot via Siri.
The AI features 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 Great Britain. In April, Apple plans to add support for Chinese, French, German, Italian, Spanish and other languages.
The company has made Apple Intelligence the centerpiece of its promotions for the iPhone 16. But its lack of availability in some key markets, such as China, has weakened demand for the devices. Apple’s share of the global smartphone market fell to 18% last year from 19% in 2023, according to Counterpoint Research, a firm that tracks device sales.
“There are a lot of big questions about early efforts to build AI on devices,” said Bob O’Donnell, chief analyst at TECHnalysis Research, a market research firm. “In the long term it will undoubtedly be the right way to go, but it is not a trivial task.”