Product design question
As a PM at Apple, you are tasked with delivering the new version of iOS 19. What features would you prioritize and why?
- Apple
- Product design
- Hard
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What this question tests
Tests prioritization judgment for a flagship annual OS release: can you name concrete feature bets and justify trade-offs rather than listing every possible idea.
How to approach it
- Clarify the prioritization lens: an annual iOS release must balance headline AI features, core reliability/performance work, and accessibility, since Apple's release cadence covers all three every year.
- Identify a likely top priority: deeper on-device AI integration (building on Apple Intelligence) across core apps like Messages, Photos, and Siri, since this is where Apple's current competitive pressure from Google and OpenAI is most visible.
- Identify a second priority: continued privacy-preserving personalization, since Apple's actual differentiation versus competitors is doing AI features with on-device processing and minimal data sharing.
- Identify a third, less glamorous priority: performance and battery-life improvements and bug fixes from the prior release, since headline features on a buggy base erode trust, a real historical Apple release-cycle lesson.
- Make the trade-off explicit: prioritize fewer, more polished AI features over a longer list of minor features, since Apple's brand depends on shipped features feeling finished, unlike a move-fast competitor.
- Define success as adoption rate of headline AI features and stability metrics (crash rate, battery complaints) post-release, not just feature count.
What a strong answer includes
- Names AI integration as the top bet with a clear competitive rationale (pressure from Google, OpenAI), not just an assumed default priority.
- Identifies privacy-preserving, on-device AI as Apple's actual differentiator, grounding the feature choice in Apple's real strategic positioning rather than generic AI hype.
- Explicitly includes stability and performance work as a priority, showing awareness that Apple's brand risk from a buggy release is real and historically documented.
- Makes an explicit trade-off statement (fewer, more polished features) rather than an unprioritized wish list.
Common mistakes
- Listing many unrelated feature ideas with no prioritization framework or trade-off reasoning.
- Ignoring Apple's specific competitive and brand context (privacy positioning, historical release-quality issues).
- No metric to judge whether the prioritized features actually succeeded post-launch.
Likely follow-up questions
- How would you decide between shipping an AI feature broadly versus limiting it to newer hardware only?
- What would you cut if engineering capacity was reduced by 30 percent mid-cycle?
- How would you measure whether privacy positioning is actually valued by users versus competitors' AI features?
More product design questions
- How would you redesign the Apple App Store?Apple · Product design · Hard
- You are the PM for Apple TV streaming service. What would your roadmap for the next three years look like?Apple · Product design · Hard
- Do you prefer iOS or Android? Based on your preferred mobile OS, design a product of your choice.Google · Product design · Medium
- You are a PM at Apple. How would you design a feature for the iPhone that enhances accessibility for users with disabilities?Apple · Product design · Medium
- How would you design a new Siri?Apple · Product design · Hard
- How would you improve Apple Podcast?Apple · Product design · Easy
More questions from Apple
Learn the skill behind it
Chapters of the AI PM course that teach what this question tests.
- Chapter 4: Discovery and strategy for AI products
- Chapter 7: AI UX and human oversight: design for a system that is wrong sometimes
- Chapter 14: Get the job: the AI PM interview loop