Apple's week May 15: no sign of intelligent life

WWDC 2026 is getting closer by the day, and you know what that means: Google I/O. That's right, Google's annual conference held just before WWDC is back to claim some "firsts" ahead of highly rumored Apple announcements.

Here are some stories I'd like to share this week:

digimon is one of the most important things in my life, and i will endeavor to tell you why

I’m going to try to do something that I find challenging, which is to tell you what I like about something and why.

MediumDoc Burford

All This Over… Mixtape?

The manufactured controversy has grown far bigger than the game itself

AftermathNathan Grayson

The Perfect Toyhouse

Aaron Vegh’s Blog | Let’s Indigo

Let’s Indigo

Software Developers Say AI Is Rotting Their Brains

“It’s making me dumber for sure.”

404 MediaEmanuel Maiberg

Owning an Apple Home: implementing smart pet solutions

Apple Home may not address pets directly, but that shouldn’t mean your smart home doesn’t either. Litter boxes, feeders, sensors, and more can make your fluffy loved ones part of your tech life.

AppleInsiderWesley Hilliard

RCS & encryption haven’t fixed the green bubble problem

In Messages on iPhone, you can now use SMS, RCS, end-to-end encrypted RCS, and iMessage. Sure, sending media to Android is better, but everything else is more confusing and frustrating than ever.

AppleInsiderWesley Hilliard

I'm trying the link preview style this week instead of a bulleted list. Let's see how that works out.

The AppleInsider Podcast will now have video in the Podcast feed and on YouTube if that's something you're interested in.

Google's Android Show

I don't feel like I need to spend a lot of time on this, and if you want more, there's plenty in the podcast this week.

Google did its usual thing and revealed some features, peppered AI throughout everything, and gave a wink and a nod to the superiority of the Android platform. Rinse, repeat, etc.

As usual, we saw immediate headlines about how Google beat Apple to the punch, again. How their AI was so much better and doing all these cool things, again.

But when I watched the video and looked back at the past couple of years of announcements, I wondered: is that really true?

I mean, sure, Google is announcing and shipping features. They're even features with the holy grail of investment terms, "AI." But are they winning? (Does it matter? no, but let's pretend it does)

I'm not a financially minded person. I don't own stock, but I do have to report on Apple's financial side. They're doing quite well. And it isn't as if Google isn't doing well either, but it is for different reasons.

Google's financial wealth is from enterprise, services, search, and yes, AI like Gemini. Pixel is a subcategory of a fraction of a piece of earnings. Forget pennies or fractions of pennies, it's the lint you find in your pocket levels of earnings for the company. Android fits in that area too.

However, Android and Google Pixel (and by proxy Samsung's flagship devices) are reported on as if they're the whole market. These devices that get to run these flagship features sure make Apple users jealous, right? Not really.

I'm not trying to make excuses or deflect because I need Apple to win and Google to lose. I don't really care what Android does because it literally doesn't affect me.

But, as someone that writes about these topics, it amuses me to no end to see how the industry as a whole reacts to such silly marketing. If you read the headlines, you might believe Apple's days are numbered. Google just triumphed again because Gemini can add events to your calendar or buy concert tickets sight unseen (no thank you).

Apple just had a record-breaking quarter that made like $111 billion dollars. In March. Not December, where Christmas drives sales, but March.

Yet, I'm supposed to believe Apple is dried up. Out of ideas. Lame. Boring. Unable to innovate.

Google sells enough Pixels to be a popular niche. Samsung sells enough premium devices to puncture the market share in devices that cost over $600. However, when accounting only for premium handsets, they're small fries.

Seriously, the most popular Samsung models are mid- to low-tier sub $400, often $200 handsets not capable of running these fancy Android features.

The timing of Google's developer conference isn't an accident, and this year, I think I could see a little more flop sweat than usual.

Apple is set to be the AI distribution center with powerful hardware and integrated software. Gemini can do some interesting stuff on Android's most premium, exclusive, expensive handsets, but Apple Intelligence is on every iPhone handset sold today.

And they can all run iOS 27 when it releases in the fall. Whatever happens, this is going to be an interesting release cycle.

Writing in a world filled with cynicism

I wrote a story about having whole-home audio with HomePods. I shared how I use them and my preference for not involving other speakers, even if they are AirPlay capable.

The reaction from so-called "audiophiles" was swift. "HomePods sound like garbage." "I could build a system way more dynamic and better sounding for under $700." "How could you make these claims when you know HomePods suck?"

The internet is full of people that want to prove you wrong the minute you breathe, but this was particularly interesting to me. The highly opinionated and unsubstantiated claims were amusing, so I tried to put them to the test.

I asked my editor if we could run a story about building a system that could compare to two HomePods for under $700. I did some research and the story was never greenlit.

The reason being: I couldn't find any economic way to get a system together. We could all agree that maybe, just maybe, without hearing them, that a pair of Polk audio speakers being sold for $300 could sound better than a pair of HomePods.

I was skeptical. I've heard and owned a lot of speakers. But forum posters and others were like "yeah, no, they'll definitely sound better." For the sake of the exercise, I left it at that. Okay, $300 and we've got a set of stereo speakers. Two woofers, two tweeters.

Now something to make them play sound. That's a receiver or an amplifier.

The problem here is that most of the "smart" players that connect to traditional speakers need an amp. Amps are less common these days because most people just buy a receiver (which has an amp and connects to a TV for sound output).

Yeah, I was immediately priced out. Someone reading this might know of some product I could connect to those $300 speakers that costs less than $400, but I wasn't finding it. That, and we're still talking about a set of two speakers that won't support Dolby Atmos, AirPlay, or any smart home features. Forget about Siri.

When I had a 5.1 Sonos home theater (circa 2015 with satellite Play 3s), I compared it to my gen 2 HomePods. Besides pure bass, thanks to the dedicated sub, I preferred the sound produced by the HomePods.

That Sonos system was somewhere north of $2,300. Those HomePods: $600.

Going the dumb speaker route with wires and a receiver, I'm not much better off. Dolby Atmos, 5 channels, and internet features put me back at least $1,800. And while I couldn't test that setup, I'm not sure that it would have beaten the Sonos setup I had, so it would definitely not have won out against the HomePods.

No, don't suggest a soundbar.

But I will point out what my editor told me, which I agree with. I'm happy with HomePods. Others won't be. That's okay.

Anyway, the reason for that header and this long bit here was to mention one comment that bugged me. Someone accused me of being paid to like the HomePods because of something I said.

They were complaining about some kind of bug they experienced with the HomePods mini, so I shared that after owning many of those speakers, that I had never had that bug. I put in my reply that I only responded to ensure readers didn't see the original poster's comment and assume that was the norm. The poster then asked why I have a vested interest in people liking HomePods.

I don't.

I just wanted to share something I was excited about and wanted others to be excited with me. Heck, maybe they might even try a similar setup and have a similarly good time.

But that individual could only assume that I like something because of some incentive that didn't exist. That makes me sad.

Catch me on Indigo

There's a lovely new Bluesky/Mastodon client that I've been using these past few days called Indigo. It has excellent timeline syncing and curating features that make browsing both social networks at once a breeze.

I do wish it worked on Apple Vision Pro though. But hey, it's a great iPad client, so that's a step up from Bluesky's app.

I hope you all have been enjoying what I write during the week. I'd love to hit five posts a week, but my Mondays aren't always as open as I'd like. I'm also trying something new with the newsletter links at the top. If you like the different blogs and websites I'm linking outside of AppleInsider, I'd love to know.

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