they would have won the AI race not by building the best model, but by being the only company that could ship an AI you’d actually trust with root access to your computer. [...] So why didn’t they? Maybe they just didn’t see it.

Apple has never been a early mover, they always intentionally come very late to the game. And Siri has been well behind the curve for more than a decade. Leading the way in a new product domain like this just isn't in their DNA.

I think the author is right that people would have trusted Apple, but people use co-pilot, and people use Gemini. The bar for trust is already pretty low.