They couldn't deliver because they are not a startup and thus have something to lose in a way that OpenAI/Anthropic don't. If Siri starts telling people to self-destruct themselves it would be a major PR disaster, whereas Apple Intelligence being late is not. Arguably the technology they needed (strong guardrails) didn't really exist at the time and the extra couple of years is what made the difference.

I think you're quite right in a sense, but let's say it had been Samsung making these promises. Do you think the system not working properly or producing weird and unacceptable results would have prevented them releasing it anyway?

Well, the results[1] are[2] actually[3] in. Samsung of course did do that and the results are what you'd expect.

So in a sense Apple 'could' have released what they had, after all Samsung and others have, but almost certainly not at the level of quality Apple expects. In which case arguably not releasing until it is capable of reaching that quality bar is the right call. The wrong call was announcing it in the first place when it wasn't ready.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/samsung/comments/1b4zc1j/new_ai_tex... [2] https://tech.yahoo.com/ai/articles/awful-galaxy-s24-feature-... [3] https://www.androidauthority.com/im-tired-pretending-galaxy-...