If you've seen any of Apple's marketing lately, you'll know the latest iPhone is billed as the first "built for Apple Intelligence." The "for" in that sentence is doing a great deal of work. It couldn't be "with" because Apple's AI features weren't ready when the device came out, and some are still yet to be released. The first were added to devices in iOS version 18.1, which came out in October.

These AI bells and whistles require users to physically opt in, and Job’s Mob has deemed the product in "beta" despite marketing it as the main reason to buy its latest device.

"Hello, Apple Intelligence" is the message greeting visitors to Apple.com. If you go into a store, it's what the sales representatives push most excitedly. But just like the Maps fiasco, Apple's AI isn't ready for the real world.

Complaints and ridicule have been mounting. In December, a BBC notification was rewritten by Apple Intelligence to state falsely that Luigi Mangione, who has been charged in the killing of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson, had turned a gun on himself.

Last week, a summary crowned a darts champion before the match had started. Later the same evening, an alert falsely stated that Rafael Nadal had come out as gay.

A New York Times headline was rewritten to suggest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had been arrested. "Nikki Glaser killed at Golden Globes," read another false summary.

The mistakes have prompted the nonprofit Reporters Without Borders to call for Jobs’ Mob to "act responsibly" and remove the feature.

One fanboy complained that a note to his mother hand been changed to read: "in which he wrote “hike almost killed me!” was shortened to say “attempted suicide, but recovered.” Another moaned that Apple Intelligence said his Amazon package was defying time and space, at once being “eight stops away, delivered, and will be delivered tomorrow.” 

However, Apple is in a bit of a bind and has to keep offering its Apple Intelligence products. Having arrived at the AI thing late, it already looks like it has dropped the ball technologically. After all it made much hay out of Microsoft missing the mobile revolution. It has also had a list of failed products lately – including the self-driving car which could not even get to the show room.

It appears to be hoping that its fanboys will not look beyond its walled garden of delights and see that the rest of the world has much better AI products on offer.