According to 9TO5Mac’s report, Apple is adding MCP (Model Context Protocol) support to its ecosystem to enable agentic AI capabilities. The implementation path closely aligns with our speculation in Weekly #077: system-level integration through the familiar App Intents framework, maintaining Apple’s consistent pursuit of a “controlled, secure, and seamless” user experience while cleverly avoiding the complexity of direct MCP configuration for everyday users.
Over the past six months, diminishing returns in LLM improvements have shifted the industry’s focus from technological breakthroughs to value realization. This inflection point provides Apple—which “woke up early but arrived late” to the LLM race—with a perfect window of opportunity.
The hardware market tells a similar story. This year has seen notably fewer consumer products marketed primarily on AI features. After a period of market education, consumers have come to realize they don’t need scattered AI highlights but rather a unified AI experience that’s seamlessly integrated into the system and requires no conscious effort to use. At this critical juncture, Apple’s advantages are becoming apparent: a massive installed base of devices with on-device AI capabilities, a mature developer ecosystem, and developer-friendly AI frameworks. If Apple can quickly complete integration with application-layer protocols like MCP, it stands to reap substantial rewards during the AI commercialization phase.
Yet challenges remain formidable. The deeper AI integration becomes and the more seamless the user experience, the more critical data security and privacy protection become. Given Apple’s need to collaborate with numerous third-party model providers, finding the right balance between an open ecosystem and privacy protection will be a crucial test of its brand promise.
While the AI boom hasn’t subsided, both investors and consumers are returning to pragmatism. Following the trajectory of every technological revolution in history, AI will eventually shed its dazzling aura and quietly merge into every corner of daily life—becoming ordinary yet indispensable.
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containerCornerOffsetAPI limitations) - UIKit custom control adaptation
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The author also provides a companion sample project to help developers visualize various layout changes.
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This isn’t a technical implementation guide, but a practical testing checklist based on real experience—as the author says: “Each crash prevented is a one-star review avoided.”
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