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Reactions to WWDC: Day 1

June 9, 2026

Happy Tuesday.

We’re live on YouTube and 𝕏.

The current thing in tech and business is the U.S. expands its list of Chinese tech companies it says assist Beijing’s military.

Today’s lineup

Rivian Founder & CEO RJ Scaringe at 11:30 AM
Chip War Author Chris Miller at 12:00 PM
Standard Bots Co-Founder & CEO Evan Beard at 12:30 PM
Sandstone Co-Founder & CEO Nick Fleisher at 12:40 PM
NinjaOne Co-Founder & President Chris Matarese at 12:50 PM
Sources Author Alex Heath at 1:00 PM
Vinyl Equity Founder & CEO Rob Schoder at 1:10 PM

Run of ShowApple

WWDC Reactions

Yesterday on the show, I called out my wildcard topic for WWDC. We knew we were going to get a bunch of AI features, specifically a new Siri, and the technology and UI patterns are mature enough that this was going to be easy for Apple to nail. As I predicted, they are giving Siri an app, and the models are strong enough that I expect random hallucinations to be completely acceptable from a daily use perspective.

But my wildcard was something in the presentation loosely linking to the topic of the fertility crisis that Derek Thompson has been covering recently. The correlation isn’t perfect, but there’s enough evidence that reasonable people are putting phones in the “probably linked” bucket of reasons for the modern fertility declines. But Apple isn’t a fear-based marketing company. Their execs don’t go on podcasts and make freewheeling proclamations about doom scenarios. They identified environmental concerns about fossil fuels and energy use early, created concrete plans to get to carbon neutral, and then started talking about their solutions in their marketing materials. They didn’t put the cart before the horse here. And it seems like they are doing the same thing here with parental controls, phone addiction, etc. Instead of giving a long speech about how bad endless scrolling can be for a kid, and how it might lead them to a less flourishing life down the road, they only talk about solutions. Parental controls. 12 minutes of content in a notably short keynote. I think many parents are very hesitant to give kids smartphones these days. There’s a whole niche market in “dumb” devices for kids (like a watch with GPS and the ability to call home but not much else). Being proactive about building solutions, and then talking only about those solutions is extremely refreshing. — John

Timeline in Turmoil: Gruber vs Gurman

John Gruber and Mark Gurman threw the timeline in turmoil over the rollout of Apple’s new Siri integration strategy. Here’s the play by play:

March 26, 2026 - Mark Gurman reports in Bloomberg that Apple Plans to Open Up Siri to Rival AI Assistants in iOS 27 Update. Here’s the key quote:

The company is developing new tools to allow AI chatbot apps installed via the App Store to integrate with the Siri assistant, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the plans haven’t been announced. The chatbots will also work with an upcoming Siri app and other features in the Apple Intelligence platform. That means, for instance, if users have Alphabet Inc.’s Google Gemini or Anthropic PBC’s Claude installed, they’d be able to send queries to those services from within the Siri voice assistant, just like they have been able to with ChatGPT since Apple Intelligence launched in 2024.

But as of yesterday, Apple hasn’t fully announced exactly that, at least according to John Gruber who says: “Maybe Apple ran out of time today, and will announce this tomorrow? Maybe they forgot to announce it? Maybe they scrapped the next-generation Siri that existed two months ago and in the last month rebuilt another entirely new next-generation Siri? I’ll bet something like that is what happened.”

But Gurman fired back, showing screenshots of integrations that match his original reporting:

I think the core question is expectations vs reality. There was some hope from hardcore AI users that the “Siri Button” would be able to be fully remapped to their AI model of choice, and that the AI app they had installed would get access to everything across iOS with roughly the same privileges as Siri. This would be a big departure from the current flow, where you specifically have to ask for ChatGPT and then click a button to actually fire off the query. Now there are screenshots of a model picker drop-down menu in the Siri app, but it’s unclear if that resets on some regular cadence or if it’s a permanent change. I’m sure we’ll learn more as developers start digging in, Gruber has more conversations at WWDC, and Gurman does more reporting. — John

Facts on New Features From WWDC

Apple spent roughly 12 minutes yesterday detailing the expansion of its child safety and parental control features. The tools focus on giving parents more control over what their kids can access, who they can talk to, and time spent on devices. Some features include:
- Child Accounts with built-in age-based protections like limiting adult websites and showing age-appropriate media.
- Ask to Browse, which asks for the parent’s approval before their child can visit a new website.
- Communication controls that allow parents to manage who their child can talk to and will ask for confirmation before their child can add a new contact.
Apple also unveiled a new photo editing tool, Spatial Reframing. If you don’t like the angle of your photo, with Spatial Reframing you can alter the photo’s angle, pan the camera, zoom in, or rotate the picture.
There are mixed feelings on the timeline around Spatial Reframing, with some calling it one of Apple’s most exciting AI features, while others are expressing concern about the direction AI-generated image editing is headed.
Apple also upgraded its Cleanup tool, allowing users to erase unwanted objects from photos with better generative-AI quality.
Probably the most discussed feature announced at WWDC is Siri AI, Apple’s long-awaited answer to ChatGPT-style assistants.
Siri AI can answer questions about what’s on your screen, pull information from messages, emails, and photos, and take actions across apps on your behalf. — Jackson

Clip Spotlight: Pete Florence says industrial robots will scale faster than consumer robots

"We think the industrial applications [for robots] are likely to be the ones that really start to ramp even more quickly than consumer or home applications."

"Of course, there'll be like more and more robots in people's homes. But in terms of these things really starting to scale, we do think industrial is more likely to take off."

Headlines

WSJ: Apple Unveiled the New Siri AI. Here Are the Key Takeaways.

Bloomberg: Apple Downplays Concerns That Its Use of Google AI Models Will Undermine Privacy

OpenAI files for IPO

WSJ: Meta Launches ‘Workforce Academy’ to Train Workers to Build Data Centers

CNBC: Perplexity plans IPO in 2028 regardless of what happens to Anthropic or OpenAI, CEO tells CNBC

The Information: Databricks in Talks for Valuation of at Least $165 Billion

FT: Apollo and Blackstone raise $35bn in chip financing deal for Anthropic

WSJ: Nvidia Takes the Top Spot in the 2026 List of Best Companies for the Future

The Information: Anthropic’s Mythos Is Coming Today; Apple Pursues Modest Goals with Siri Revamp

WSJ: U.S. Expands List of Chinese Tech Companies It Says Assist Beijing’s Military

Standard Bots raises $200M Series C at a $1B valuation led by RoboStrategy