John Gruber Responds to Apple's Rejection in Post-Criticism Interview

John Gruber responded to Apple's refusal to grant him an interview following his criticism of the company. From 2015 to 2024, at least one Apple executive agreed to an interview with Gruber for his podcast "The Talk Show" during WWDC each year. For instance, last year at the California Theatre in San Jose, Gruber spoke with Apple's Senior Vice President of Software Engineering Craig Federighi, Marketing Chief Greg Joswiak, and leading AI researcher John Giannandrea about Apple Intelligence and other topics. However, this tradition abruptly ended last month when Apple denied Gruber an interview for this year.

It is worth noting that several months earlier, Gruber published a blog post criticizing the company, stating that Apple misrepresented its history at WWDC 2024. There, a new version of personalized Siri was announced that was not ready and is now delayed. Gruber expressed concern that this might indicate internal issues within the company. Apple did not appreciate such criticism.

In his latest episode of the Channels podcast, Gruber noted that Apple was "not pleased" with his post and considered it unfair. However, he believes that the company's absence from his show this year is a win for him. "I'm not trying to be modest, but I think their refusal to participate in my show this year is a complete victory for me and a significant loss for them," he said. Gruber believes this highlights his independence and makes Apple look bad, rather than the other way around.

For the WWDC 2025 episode, Gruber finally interviewed Wall Street Journal journalist Joanna Stern and The Verge journalist Nilay Patel, demonstrating his commitment to remaining independent and continuing his work without outside constraints.