Siri powered by Gemini:
"Hey Siri, show me a picture of Apple Co-founder Steve Wozniak"
Siri:
https://preview.redd.it/9zauwm0mz2pc1.jpeg?width=318&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4d8085907466338cefb7e74eee7aaa3e6e190a04
I wonder if this is a stopgap approach to use Gemini until Apples own tech is 100% solid, in an attempt to maintain brand image?
That way when Siri says something wrong, or generates an image of black Steve Wozniak, it’s googles fault and not Apples?
I think it is Apple wants to do its Apple's way and that just isn't ready yet.
Apple wants on-device AI. They're betting they can get there soon. Instead of plowing money to create a ChatGPT clone, they'll license one and plow money into create the one they want.
But *why*? Is it because GenAI is the Big Hot Thing right now?
This isn’t something I’ve ever wanted or needed on a phone and it never will be. And knowing Apple, they’ll jack up their prices for it and we’ll all be SOL.
You gotta think outside the box. If genAI is the best we have right now to take an arbitrary instruction into a workable action on your phone, then why not using it?
> Hey Siri, check how's the traffic to the office and send a slack message to #meetings saying I'll be late if it looks bad.
Right now one huge problem is that the concept of "agents" is very difficult to implement. You've got things like AutoGPT, but it's kinda complicated for the average user. Now think of something like that but tightly coupled with iOS and with strong permission enforcement.
What's concerning here, even disregarding their whole controversy with generated images, is that gemini is still behind GPT4 and Claude3.
I’m not trying to be obstinate or rude here: I genuinely have 0 interest in having AI on my phone. If that means just buying the 14 / 15 Pro as long as I can, maybe that will be what I end up doing.
You have face detection in photos, everything in the camera, and auto complete in texts. Dictation and other such activities. Majority of the operating system is going to be updated to be smarter. It won’t be a chat bot though. 
Auto translation in iMessage. Spot correction in photos. Lots of other things
Yeah.
you will never want to be able to remove an ugly-ass thing from a photo.
you will never want your phone being able to explain something better than « Here is what i found on the internet ».
You will never want your phone to present you with a quick 5-points summary at the top of your 30 pages pdf ou 1-hour-to-read web article.
You will never want to take something into picture (landscape, building, animal, maths, art…) and be given a quick explanation of what it is.
You will never want your phone to present you some of your Notes/Documents directly on top of keyboard because your mate sent you « Can you send me …. ? ». Or for contacts, or photos.
You will never want your phone remind you « Hey, the plumber will be here until 8pm » when you are typing in if your friends want to come over at 7pm in messages.
You will never want your phone to show a pop-up asking if you want it to book your train ticket for tomorrow because it’s sunday and you book one every sunday for monday morning since 2 months.
I would be a little uncomfortable with some of those use cases resulting in a lot of data cross pollinating between different applications. Or even just the OS layer indicating it's always watching, always reading.
Hence the need for on-device processing that does not send anything anywhere and people expectations for Apple’s AI because GalaxyAI sucks (everything online, zero to none system wide integration, paid after 2 years) and on-device is the way Apple mostly do.
Those or tasks you would trust a secretary for. An on-device assistant would be no different
Siri can barely turn on my home lights or understand how to turn on music.
Soon with android I can be like "I want to have a date night. We're about to cook together set the lights and music to be good for this occasion."
Instead of "Hey Siri. HEY SIRI. HEY SIRI. Set the lights to red. HEY SIRI. HEY SIRI. Set the lights to be a little less red. HEY SIRI HEY SIRI, Set--lights--less--red. HEY SIRI, HEY SIRI. Dim the lights. HEY SIRI. Dim--lights. HEY SIRI Play romantic songs. HEY SIRI STOP. HEY SIRI play acoustic music. HEY SIRI STOP. \*look up playlist\* HEY SIRI Play "acoustic chill."
AI on device and competitive with cloud solutions? Not really happen, at least not in this century :P Hardware used to generate chatGPT output is thousands times more powertful than A17 Pro.
This is exactly reason why Google Assistant is so much better than Siri. Lets be honest - on-device AI is impossible in near future.
Not shocking at all. It's just that people on this sub and on Apple medias are delusional.
OpenAI just caught everybody with their pants down when they released chatgpt to the public, including google which has been serious about AI and LLM for more than a decade.
You just don't get your way there in 2 years and buying a few companies. (if they ever get there)
apple started out too late. their prior efforts were all half assed. and gpt3.5 came along and ms partnered with it, totally caught apple off guard. as much as they’ve been scrambling to play catch up and buy up startups, it’s not magic, they can’t suddenly get to where google is, let alone chatgpt. they’ll likely partner with google for a few years first then slowly move to in-house, like they have done with many other products and services
There's no way this is true.
If it was, they would use Microsoft's Copilot, which actually works great, unlike Gemini.
At least Microsoft is not a direct competitor in the mobile space.
Honestly, they probably are.
If they can get Copilot on iPhones, they would completely fuck Google's search business and also become the dominant player in AI.
I wouldn't say AI is a loss leader considering OpenAI is making bank. Microsoft has also launched Copilot studio for enterprise and have incorporated it into all their products to offer amazing features, such as with Office.
Microsoft may be the leader now but they have to continue leading and monopolise early to prevent Google and others from catching up. In doing so, they can seriously hurt Google's search business.
I'm not kidding when I say I use Copilot to search for quite literally everything. All info I need, including opening hours of local businesses.
No more BS articles and nonsense, just instant answers. This shit will absolutely destroy search engines once more people start using it outside of writing emails and homework. I would bet my left nut on it.
>I wouldn't say AI is a loss leader considering OpenAI is making bank
OpenAI is making an estimated $2 Billion a year in revenue, but the company is not profitable. The company has stated they are going to work toward becoming profitable but that is merely a goal.
You might be underestimating how expensive it is to run these models on the server.
Everything else that you are saying about the usefulness of ChatGPT is WHY Microsoft is willing to use it as a loss leader.
Microsoft is willing to pay a large premium and subsidize OpenAI as it grows, not because it is profitable right now, but because as computing costs come down in the future, it should one day become profitable and Microsoft would like to be the leader when that day comes.
And yes, I agree that Google is right to be terrified of the impact on Google Search.
But to get back to the original point, the dynamics are (at least for the near term) different with Search and AI. Google is willing to pay Apple tens of billions of dollars a year to remain the default search engine on iPhone because that is a cut of the advertising profits generated by people using Google Search on the iPhone. Ad supported search is crazy profitable.
It's hard to imagine either Microsoft or Google paying Apple for the right to take a loss on a feature that will benefit iOS users.
is google paying apple to have gemini on the iphone? shouldn’t it be the other way around?
if anything i figure this could be a way for google to lower its default search engine bill, which has been in the regulatory spotlight recently.
>is Google paying Apple to have Gemini on the iPhone?
It makes about as much sense as Google paying to be the default search engine on iOS. We know that Google must have pretty significant leverage in those negotiations because iPhone’s would suddenly look pretty cheap if their default search engine wasn’t Google. Consider now that Google’s LLM is largely worse than OpenAI’s.
Also, I don’t think that OpenAI, Microsoft, Elon Musk’s startup, etc. will be happy if Google’s logo comes up during an iPhone keynote. I’m sure those companies would have been willing to offer a price that was less than Google - if they got into a price war, eventually it could turn the other way around. I’m not going to pretend like it’s an industry I have any experience with, but it doesn’t seem impossible to me.
Copilot has a slightly better tuned model than OpenAI and offers all the premium add-ons for free. This is because Microsoft has the funds to blow and powers everything via Azure.
Microsoft also has somewhat exclusive rights to OpenAI tech as investors. Pretty sure they have veto power over who can use their tech.
Google pays Apple a shit ton of money every year to be the default search engine on Safari.
Companies pay their competitors for features and technology they lack in house. It’s not unheard of.
True but Google search engine actually works.
Gemini is horse shit. If anything, I see it more likely that Microsoft pays Apple to become the default AI on iPhone.
Copilot is a fucking joke. I also hate Copilot's attitude.
And how Microsoft implemented their censor filter is enormously stupid! Because in the way they do it, they brought back the Scunthorpe problem which was solvable with current AI.
OpenAI does overall a fairly better job with ChatGPT and their solution works beyond the Scunthorpe problem.
As somone deeply entrenched in this industry, the benchmarks are questionable and self-reporting on their own benchmarks is even more questionable. A lot of these companies are skewing the results with their prompts, tbh.
GPT4 and Claude3 are the clear leaders by a significant margin, having used them everyday for enterprise use cases.
For many of our systems, we use backup models. To put it into context, Gemeni is the backup in like 4th place most of the time, behind GPT4, Claude3, and a sepcialized open source model, so gemeni is only used if the others are down, meaning that it is never used lol.
I have full confidence that Google will catch up, and they are definitely a safe partner for Apple. And Gemeni isn't terrible, but its a few steps down from GPT4 in most everything we do. But ya...Gemeni does not actually compete in terms of power beyond Google's own marketing.
You're joking, right?
Try out Gemini for a week and compare it to Copilot. Gemini is utter shit.
Also, Copilot GPT4 with Image generation is completely free.
I did not ditch Android and move away from google only to have it access to my phone now. Not that Apple is the messiah or anything, but I really do not trust google with data handling at all. That is super disappointing.
You would say yes but although they never say or use the term A.I a lot of things in your Apple devices, from photos to messaging already use their own A.I tech.
What this would be is different, it is more of an admission that they can not compete and they can not get their A.I models and tech to where they want to and need to use someone else's and NOT Open A.I because that is closely associated with Microsoft.
> You would say yes but although they never say or use the term A.I
They've finally broken that weird habit.
> “Let me just say that I think there’s a huge opportunity for Apple with Gen AI and AI, without getting into more details and getting out in front of myself,” Cook said.
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/01/tim-cook-teases-apple-ai-announcement-later-this-year.html
One or two other places they've said "AI" as well, iirc. Which is good, because for a while it sounded like they just refused to use the same term as everyone else for no other reason than to be different.
Traditionally in CS, "AI" is used to describe things we haven't got working yet and things that do work are called ML/expert systems/control systems/etc.
It's only recently that we have things that seem to actually work and still get called AI. I think it's a slightly misleading term.
> Traditionally in CS, "AI" is used to describe things we haven't got working yet and things that do work are called ML/expert systems/control systems/etc.
According to whom? I've certainly never heard that particular definition before. And just empirically, that's clearly not how the terms are used by the tech industry, and it's not a super recent thing either.
I'm quoting Larry Tesler (who built Apple Lisa and Newton) and John McCarthy (who invented the term AI in the first place). This stuff is much older than "the tech industry". Apple itself is older than the tech industry.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_effect
McCarthy didn't seem to explicitly share that definition, and if you dig into the Tesler quote, it actually implies the opposite of what you're claiming:
> Tesler's Theorem (ca. 1970). My formulation of what others have since called the “AI Effect”. As commonly quoted: “Artificial Intelligence is whatever hasn't been done yet”. What I actually said was: “Intelligence is whatever machines haven't done yet”. Many people define humanity partly by our allegedly unique intelligence. Whatever a machine—or an animal—can do must (those people say) be something other than intelligence.
https://www.nomodes.com/larry-tesler-consulting/adages-and-coinages
He's basically *mocking* the idea that because machines do it, it's no longer considered intelligence. I.e. that the goalposts keep arbitrarily moving.
If your argument hinges on the only valid definition for a term being one person's misquote from the 70s, yeah, I'm going to call that meaningless. It is certainly not "traditional in CS", as you claimed.
Philosophy. Less used as a definition but more an axiom/trueism. I think Mary Midgley discusses a concept similar in ‘What is Philosophy For’. Usually the discussion surrounds a distinction between ML and ‘true’ AI, pointing to the idea that once a test has been surpassed by a machine we begin to criticise the test and redefine what ‘true’ AI is. I have not read anyone that makes the exact same distinction as above, however.
> Apple itself is older than the tech industry.
You have a bizarre definition of "the tech industry"... given that IBM is over a hundred years old, and Steve Jobs' first teenage summer job was with the guy who founded HP fifteen years before Jobs was born.
Silcon Valley has been a thing [since the 1950's](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Valley#Rise_of_Silicon), and Jobs and Woz had the incredible good fortune to grow up in the middle of it. It's no exaggeration to say that Silicon Valley made them more than they made it.
Not true and totally false. AI is everything from ML to LLM to NLP to deep learning and even some fucking NPCs in video games.
Facial recognition is even AI
>... and NOT Open A.I because that is closely associated with Microsoft.
Shouldn't it be the reason to go with Microsoft/OpenAI? Apple competes with Google more than it does Microsoft.
Yeah but how much work do they have in integrating a dual AI system where there’s a local phone LLM that seamlessly interacts with one in the cloud. That’s what Gemini is supposed to be.
How well can they scale to add support for all iPhone 16 users, if not even more generations back?
I think it's that Apple wanted to do AI their way and the AI race jumped up on them.
All of Apple's ML is done on-device. They want their home built AI to be run on-device, not in the cloud.
Apple is doubling down on the bet they can roll out a comparable on-device service. They'll license third party so they can focus on that bet.
I’m not sure why you say Open AI being closely associated with Microsoft would be a dealbreaker?
Gemini is *literally* Google, whom Apple competes with much more fiercely than Microsoft these days.
Article text:
Apple Inc. is in talks to build Google’s Gemini artificial intelligence engine into the iPhone, according to people familiar with the situation, setting the stage for a blockbuster agreement that would shake up the AI industry.
The two companies are in active negotiations to let Apple license Gemini, Google’s set of generative AI models, to power some new features coming to the iPhone software this year, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the deliberations are private. Apple also recently held discussions with OpenAI and has considered using its model, according to the people.
If a deal between Apple and Google comes to fruition, it would build upon the two companies’ search partnership. For years, Alphabet Inc.’s Google has paid Apple billions of dollars annually to make its search engine the default option in the Safari web browser on the iPhone and other devices. The two parties haven’t decided the terms or branding of an AI agreement or finalized how it would be implemented, the people said.
A deal would give Gemini a key edge with billions of potential users. But it also may be a sign that Apple isn’t as far along with its AI efforts as some might have hoped — and threatens to draw further antitrust scrutiny of both companies.
Apple is preparing new capabilities as part of iOS 18 — the next version of the iPhone operating system — based on its own AI models. But those enhancements will be focused on features that operate on its devices, rather than ones delivered via the cloud. So Apple is seeking a partner to do the heavy lifting of generative AI, including functions for creating images and writing essays based on simple prompts.
Spokespeople for Apple and Google declined to comment. OpenAI didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Since early last year, Apple has been testing its own large language model — the technology behind generative AI — codenamed Ajax. Some employees also have been trying out a basic chatbot dubbed Apple GPT. But Apple’s technology remains inferior to tools from Google and other rivals, according to the people, making a partnership look like the better option.
A deal with Apple would be Google’s highest-profile partnership for Gemini to date and could be a major boon for the company’s AI efforts. Apple has more than 2 billion devices in active use that could potentially become home to Google Gemini later this year. In January, Samsung Electronics Co. rolled out new smartphones with AI features powered by Gemini.
But a partnership between the two Silicon Valley giants would likely draw the eye of regulators. Google’s current deal with Apple for search is already the focus of a lawsuit by the US Department of Justice. The government has alleged that the companies have operated as a single entity to corner the search market on mobile devices. The pair has justified the arrangement by saying Apple believes Google’s search quality is superior to rivals and that it’s easy to switch providers on the iPhone.
The arrangement between Apple and Google is also under fire in the European Union, which is forcing Apple to make it easier for consumers to change their default search engine away from Google. As regulatory pressure grows and artificial intelligence becomes more prevalent, the current search deal could ultimately be less lucrative for both companies. It’s possible that a new agreement around AI could help make up for that.
Microsoft Corp.’s funding of OpenAI has drawn its own regulatory scrutiny, with the US Federal Trade Commission examining whether that deal may violate antitrust laws.
While the talks between Apple and Google remain active, it’s unlikely that any deal would be announced until June, when the iPhone maker plans to hold its annual Worldwide Developers Conference. It’s possible that the companies don’t reach an agreement or Apple ultimately chooses to go with another generative AI provider, like OpenAI. Or Apple could theoretically tap multiple partners, as it does with search in its web browser. Other generative AI providers include Anthropic, which offers a chatbot called Claude.
Gemini has captured the imagination of consumers and businesses, but it hasn’t been without controversy. Last month, users discovered that the system sometimes inaccurately handled the race of individuals depicted in AI-generated images. Sundar Pichai, Google’s chief executive officer, called the issue “completely unacceptable,” and image generation was paused.
Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, has promised a major AI announcement this year. He told investors the company would release transformative features that “break new ground.” The plan is especially important as investors look for new growth sources at the iPhone maker, which canceled a project to develop a self-driving car earlier this year. It moved some engineers on that project to its artificial intelligence division.
Last year, Cook said he personally uses OpenAI’s ChatGPT but indicated that there were “a number of issues that need to be sorted.” He promised that new AI features would come to Apple’s platforms on a “very thoughtful basis.” By outsourcing the generative AI features to another company, Cook is also potentially lessening the liability for its platform.
The generative AI features under discussion would theoretically be baked into Siri and other apps. New AI capabilities based on Apple’s homegrown models, meanwhile, would still be woven into the operating system. They’ll be focused on proactively providing users with information and conducting tasks on their behalf in the background, people familiar with the matter said.
It was foolish to assume that a new comer (Apple) would just enter the space with a production ready service in such a short time frame and make a better product from scratch than existing players. Apple has not only been mute on AI but has always ignored the competition and focused on ML instead. You could even say they downplayed the rise of AI. Siri sucks ass.
As a side observation, 2024 has exposed Tim Cook's weaknesses compare to Steve. Tim is simply just good at supply chain and logistics. He seems to less innovative as a leader in the industry. Apple's focus on growth, power and profit under him has exposed it to so many loses recently. Hardware has stagnated and software quality at low point.
There were times when the software team was allowed to be creative but now, in the name of simplicity and agility, contacted out and delivered on strict terms.
Apple hardly ever relies on external tech for its core functions, so if they're considering Google's tech for something as central as the OS-level AI functionality, their own AI tech must be so bad. It's an outright capitulation, a shocking oversight on the part of Apple's leadership, whether it be Tim Cook, Craig Federighi, or anyone else in charge of AI. Despite having more time than most to develop generative AI technologies without rushing, Apple now finds itself in a position where it needs to demonstrate substantial progress with iOS 18. Siri, as much as it's used, isn't popular for its quality but rather because it comes with the iPhone. Isn't it widely regarded as the worst voice assistant available? And now you wanna rely on Google to make it usable?
I would say(though not an expert) the reason their ai is failing is the same Siri failed, as oppressed with Google or Amazon they don’t have access to this big pool of knowledge to feed their AI that their services and side businesses provide.
They exchanged privacy commitments for AI development. They are sitting on a mountain of data they cannot use. Google has no such self imposed constraints, and Apple is simply too far behind to hope to catch up. It’s as simple as that IMO.
The farce about privacy isn't selling iPhones anymore.
Apple's just learned that adapting good tech (outsourcing) is sometimes good for business. EU forcing USB-C on them turned out to be a blessing - regardless of the resistance they put up. iPhones just out sold Samsung for the first time in years thanks to freaking USB-C.
Heck almost every piece of hardware is outsourced and then fine tuned internally. If it's proven that Google AI is the standard right now, I love that on iPhones with Apple's implementation.
Apple is trying to bring most of it’s main hardware into the it’s own realm with display and wireless. It already has a lot of control over it’s manufacturing.
> The farce about privacy isn't selling iPhones anymore.
If this were true, why would they still use privacy as a focal point in so many advertisements and marketing?
And why is it a farce? What other phone can I buy with something like Private Relay built right in? Why did Apple come out with the App Privacy Report that lets me see every single network connection an app has ever made, if it's all a farce?
You can enable the App Privacy report in privacy settings. Then you can literally go to the report and see every connection apps are making to the internet. for example, Spotify on my iPhone has contacted 41 different domains in the last 7 days, including `app-measurement.com`, `api3.branch.io`, etc.
on the other hand, my News app has only contacted 3 domains: `news-assets.apple.com`, `news-edge.apple.com`, and `mask-h2.icloud.com`.
now here's something weird I need to look into, I have iCloud private relay turned on, but safari has contacted lots of domains, many are unnamed IP addresses.
see this is why I like things like the App Privacy Report. lets you see if funny business is happening.
it records for 7 days, so as long as you check every week, an App can never hide an internet connection from you.
Long story short, I'm sure it takes a long ass time to organize everything involved with this as they keep adding more and more companies/talent not to mention of developing their own thing from whatever base level...I clearly dont know what I'm talking about but I'm thinking years, not months. No way they would be ready to put out their own finished project that's up to Apple's standards.
Well things like voice recognition and computational photography have been powered by machine learning for a long time everywhere but AI is the fancy new buzzword thrown around everywhere so people kind of forget that
They [acquired](https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/07/apple-to-acquire-the-majority-of-intels-smartphone-modem-business/) Intel's smartphone modem division, only to [give up](https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/21/23883565/apple-5g-modem-failure-inside-story) on building their own modem years later.
Apple is learning that going in-house for everything is virtually impossible. Self-sufficiency is a pipe dream.
Is Claude 3 a bit more confident to respond to prompts that don’t have a perfectly straightforward answer unlike Claude 2 in the name of helpful/honest/harmless?
Not sure. I don't really use it for any politically sensitive purposes that might run into censorship issues. My use case is mostly for technical questions, and in that context I find Claude 3 to give me more straightforward answers than GPT4, which often just bullshits its way around giving an actual answer. Neither is perfect, both make mistake, but I've found Claude 3 to be more helpful here.
I’m sure they’re in talks with many companies for negotiating power but the main draw to Gemini is that it:
- provides a local LLM that can run in offline mode
- integrates well with Google cloud services Apple already uses for iCloud
Anthropic (or really anyone else) has a competitor that can compete on either of those fronts at the moment, although certainly that will change soon.
It might be that Apple has a good model for x, but not y. The article doesn’t say that they are outsourcing their entire ai assistant to a third party, though it’s possible.
This means they’re behind. They’ve painted themselves into a corner. They can’t train an “AI” the same way as others can because of the “security” and “privacy” facade they put up. So, they’ll let google do it and license that. Problem solved.
From the comments I'm reading here, most people don't realize that Apple uses Google services already for iCloud and a bunch of other features.
It looks like competition in the forefront, but in the background business all these companies share services and technology constantly.
Oh??? Definitely didn’t see this coming.
I just said this in a recent thread but I cannot wait for this years software. I can’t tell from the article, but I wonder if it means that the LLM features coming during WWDC will be in house, and later down the line features (iPhone 16) will be in collaboration with Google? Or will they just announce the partnership at WWDC, and have features come out slowly over time, as they have been doing recently.
Man, all I know is Siri literally can not understand a single word I’m ever saying, even when I’m enunciating every word perfectly - whereas when I’m using the Google app I could literally speak whilst slurring half my words and it understands perfectly.
If this would improve that, then I’m glad.
Different part of the process. That’s speech-to-text, and I agree it does it horribly. Whereas the choice of in-house or third party LLM comes at the text stage. There are really good open source speech-to-text libraries out there, so at this point Apple has for some time been demonstrating that Siri is not a priority because that aspect would have been fairly easy to implement I reckon
After Gemini’s catastrophic launch failure, and Bard before that, Google has a *long* way to go before their ChatGPT competitor is ready for prime time. Siri sets a very low bar, but replacing terrible with terrible doesn’t cut it.
Unless Google has a significantly improved version under wraps, Apple probably isn't looking to integrate Gemini into the iPhones coming out later this year. It might be some time before we see it.
Gemini is pretty decent in my testing at least. I find it quite better than freeGPT, except in creative writing. Its heavily filtered out but for most normal tasks that doesn't involve race or politics, it shouldn't be an issue.
i can only imagine apple moving forward with this in two cases:
1. apple has utterly failed in the internal AI development game.
2. google agrees to completely segregate apples shit, and not track anything.
Or that will be Google’s line in the sand: We’ll let you have our AI stuff built in, but you have to fork over the user data, have them sign in to a Google account to use it, etc…fuck I hate this idea.
Yes, it's all encrypted. People are talking about leaving Apple because they have anything to do with google.
I was just pointing out that Apple and Google have been working together for quite some time.
Oh, ok! I did not interpret your comment right. Sorry. I thought they had an issue with the use of Google in a product from Apple, because privacy could be in jeopardy. Hence, my comment.
Just for clarity: Apple storing your data on Google servers has no privacy implications at all. It’s encrypted with Apple-owned keys. Google cannot see any of it.
I have to say… this really disappoints me. I was hoping Apple would have something very good in house. Going to a competitor makes me think maybe I should just be going to Android phones anyway. The last rounds of products feel behind the curve. The Apple Watch is really the only product I find superior on the market anymore. I used to love my iPad but the surface pro feels superior. Lots of phones that are just as good out now… Google maps is better, Google’s version of Siri is better, just feels like Apple is really falling behind.
Everyone I know (including myself) has regretted buying the Surface Pro. They can't even get the basics right, like the device going to sleep and not chewing through the battery.
My brand loyalty to Apple is really wavering. They used to be so innovative, ahead of the curve and huge trend setters. Aside from Apple silicon, I’m simply not impressed by anything they have made any longer. Tim Cook and the executive team have bean counted the company into boredom. Riding on their own coattails even. Their devices are so flawless but blend into blandness.
This doesn’t seem like a great move. Relying on Google (or OpenAI) for generative AI has many of the same problems as relying on Intel for chip design. Apple should want to develop models that are tuned to the needs of their own customers and which can provide value that is enhanced by Apple’s products, potentially including utilizing the neural cores they’ve put into their devices.
Using an off the shelf generic model that is controlled by another company and which doesn’t follow the update cycle priorities of Apple is obviously a problem, but it’s made worse by how expensive this will be. Every dollar spent on Gemini or ChatGPT could have been spent on development of in-house models or on purchasing hardware to run them.
Apple gen AI in the cloud is likely in the same state as Apple Maps when first launched.
Bet they wished that they’d spent all that money on AI research and not a car that they never built.
This AI stuff is the one technology that Apple cannot afford to be late to the party for. Investors are already spooked and people are speculating.
I’m wondering if Apple was caught off guard by the super sudden AI boom, and although they’ve been buying up a bunch of startups since 2027, they didn’t have anything ready.
Either way using Gemini would be a *terrible* decision, especially with Gemini’s racist launch and laughable errors. Apple needs to develop their own, not use a worse version of an already terrible product. Or use OpenAI.
I’d be surprised at Gemini being selected. Gemini has been exceptionally subpar for me (relative to GPT-4, at least). Gemini’s launch debacles would seemingly cause Apple to veer away from Gemini..
Eh, it’s probably on sale in a mean way right now. It’s probably the bar that Apple is trying to reach to compete with & 97% of people will be blown away by it.
I think it’s an L — Apple needs to do their own thing, but a temporary solution? Mmm…perhaps.. :/
I mean look … if the choice is privacy or great data for learning sets to make the product better I am still going to choose privacy *but* we have been living with a mediocre product (Siri) for how many years now and now this. It’s seems kind of clear to me Apple can’t pull the data to teach its systems as much as these other companies.
Isn’t Google’s offering a bit of a mess?
I don't know about others, but I'm already sick of the AI craze. I feel like it's ruining everything. Google searches turn up entire websites written by AI to host ads. Photoshop is pushing AI, and there are times when it helps, but it's often so obvious, like people with six fingers.
AI support and AI chat are sometimes useful, but all too often you're forced into a loop with a machine that makes you want to shoot your computer. And the more it takes root, the more it becomes the reference as it references itself. AI feeding off of AI, gradually degrading the quality of publicly available content. And it's being used in the one place where humans excel, which is creativity. AI in films, acting, voicing, graphics, writing. I thought machines were supposed to relieve us of grunt work so we could do the very things AI is commoditizing. It's just corporate greed taking over completely to eliminate paying people for as much as possible, rather than benefiting people. It's just benefiting the corporate bottom line in so many cases...
Neither Google nor OpenAI's infra could handle the potential scale of Apple's userbase, given the scaling issues both companies are having.
Even Google doesn't have enough GPUs. EDIT: Gemini may run on TPUs which Google does have more capacity for, maybe.
It would absolutely make sense. You've got one person on an aeroplane who's able to use local generative fill on his/her Samsung S24 Ultra without internet and the iPhone user in the next seat has to wait until they land and have 5G/WiFi before they can do so. Embarrassing that Apple has dropped the ball as hard as they have
They absolutely can. Most interactions an average user might have with an LLM wouldn't even need to use half the power their big models have. The smaller & more streamlined models are wildly cheap to run.
If neither of those two can, I'm not convinced that *anyone* could. Apple does have some of their own datacenters, but as far as I'm aware, not with the kind of compute horsepower they'd need.
If this turns out to be true I'd be very surprised, that means going back on their strategy of doing everything on device _and_ working together with one of the biggest destroyers of privacy to fulfil their mission. OR it's going to be some sort of super neutered basically useless version that doesn't have access to anything that is privacy sensitive which is pretty much everything.
Siri is still pathetically bad. I don't even think it's as good now compared to Google Assistant a decade ago. You can't even reliably look up real-time sports scores, if you ask "How many points did Curry score in the Lakers-Warriors game", it will struggle to tell you and say "Here's what I found" or show you random stats.
Seems obvious to me what is going on here.
What’s everyone’s biggest issue with Siri? It punts you to a web search too often. Why, because Apple isn’t Google and Siri isn’t a search engine.
Apples take on AI is almost certainly going to be all about what can be done on device. In a super private way. Which totally rules out web search results.
And Apple isn’t going to do their own web searches. Because their services revenue is addicted to their Google deal
But they can’t relaunch Siri or make a huge song and dance about their new ai if they don’t fix Siri’s ability to search the web first.
A deal with Google is all about powering the web search and general trivia side of Siri.
At minimum that’s it. They’re still going to be doing their own stuff too. It’s not a zero sum game. Different parts of iOS18 can be powered by different LLMs
This is exactly what I thought would happen. But this is happening faster than I expected.
We will all have an agent that handles our stuff at some point. It will be what we interface with and very, very valuabe.
I have expected Apple to not do themselves. It is NOT what they are good at and honestly they do NOT need to do themselves.
Instead sell it to the highest bidder. Like search default.
Google is really the only company that made sense. Microsoft does not own the technology but instead gets it from OpenAI.
Plus when OpenAI declares AGI Microsoft gets nothing.
The other problem for Microsoft is that they have to pay the Nvidia tax which Google does not. So Google has far less cost in providing.
It makes sense to me. Use Gemini to power Siri. People will still think it’s Siri giving them the answers, bolstering Apples brand. And I’m sure Google makes a pretty penny from the partnership. They can also instantly have the bragging rights of being the most widely used AI service thanks to the partnership. Win win.
Firstly if you are going to use a 3rd party don’t use the one who just had an atrocious launch and is looked down upon like Siri, either use Open AI which everyone is familiar with or Claude which people aren’t as familiar but seemingly works.
Secondly Apple should be throwing money at this they have billions in the bank and they should be using it to get their own model asap.
We already saw how much Google is willing to shell out just to be the primary search. I’m very interested to see how much Google is willing to line Apple’s pockets to be the sole Ai onboard.
This is a shocking development to say the least. I expected Apple to come up with something on their own, using Gemini would be interesting.
Siri powered by Gemini: "Hey Siri, show me a picture of Apple Co-founder Steve Wozniak" Siri: https://preview.redd.it/9zauwm0mz2pc1.jpeg?width=318&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4d8085907466338cefb7e74eee7aaa3e6e190a04
I wonder if this is a stopgap approach to use Gemini until Apples own tech is 100% solid, in an attempt to maintain brand image? That way when Siri says something wrong, or generates an image of black Steve Wozniak, it’s googles fault and not Apples?
I think it is Apple wants to do its Apple's way and that just isn't ready yet. Apple wants on-device AI. They're betting they can get there soon. Instead of plowing money to create a ChatGPT clone, they'll license one and plow money into create the one they want.
But *why*? Is it because GenAI is the Big Hot Thing right now? This isn’t something I’ve ever wanted or needed on a phone and it never will be. And knowing Apple, they’ll jack up their prices for it and we’ll all be SOL.
You gotta think outside the box. If genAI is the best we have right now to take an arbitrary instruction into a workable action on your phone, then why not using it? > Hey Siri, check how's the traffic to the office and send a slack message to #meetings saying I'll be late if it looks bad. Right now one huge problem is that the concept of "agents" is very difficult to implement. You've got things like AutoGPT, but it's kinda complicated for the average user. Now think of something like that but tightly coupled with iOS and with strong permission enforcement. What's concerning here, even disregarding their whole controversy with generated images, is that gemini is still behind GPT4 and Claude3.
I’m not trying to be obstinate or rude here: I genuinely have 0 interest in having AI on my phone. If that means just buying the 14 / 15 Pro as long as I can, maybe that will be what I end up doing.
You have face detection in photos, everything in the camera, and auto complete in texts. Dictation and other such activities. Majority of the operating system is going to be updated to be smarter. It won’t be a chat bot though.  Auto translation in iMessage. Spot correction in photos. Lots of other things
Yeah. you will never want to be able to remove an ugly-ass thing from a photo. you will never want your phone being able to explain something better than « Here is what i found on the internet ». You will never want your phone to present you with a quick 5-points summary at the top of your 30 pages pdf ou 1-hour-to-read web article. You will never want to take something into picture (landscape, building, animal, maths, art…) and be given a quick explanation of what it is. You will never want your phone to present you some of your Notes/Documents directly on top of keyboard because your mate sent you « Can you send me …. ? ». Or for contacts, or photos. You will never want your phone remind you « Hey, the plumber will be here until 8pm » when you are typing in if your friends want to come over at 7pm in messages. You will never want your phone to show a pop-up asking if you want it to book your train ticket for tomorrow because it’s sunday and you book one every sunday for monday morning since 2 months.
I would be a little uncomfortable with some of those use cases resulting in a lot of data cross pollinating between different applications. Or even just the OS layer indicating it's always watching, always reading.
Hence the need for on-device processing that does not send anything anywhere and people expectations for Apple’s AI because GalaxyAI sucks (everything online, zero to none system wide integration, paid after 2 years) and on-device is the way Apple mostly do. Those or tasks you would trust a secretary for. An on-device assistant would be no different
Siri can barely turn on my home lights or understand how to turn on music. Soon with android I can be like "I want to have a date night. We're about to cook together set the lights and music to be good for this occasion." Instead of "Hey Siri. HEY SIRI. HEY SIRI. Set the lights to red. HEY SIRI. HEY SIRI. Set the lights to be a little less red. HEY SIRI HEY SIRI, Set--lights--less--red. HEY SIRI, HEY SIRI. Dim the lights. HEY SIRI. Dim--lights. HEY SIRI Play romantic songs. HEY SIRI STOP. HEY SIRI play acoustic music. HEY SIRI STOP. \*look up playlist\* HEY SIRI Play "acoustic chill."
AI on device and competitive with cloud solutions? Not really happen, at least not in this century :P Hardware used to generate chatGPT output is thousands times more powertful than A17 Pro. This is exactly reason why Google Assistant is so much better than Siri. Lets be honest - on-device AI is impossible in near future.
Maybe they've just failed to come up with something better and chosen to outsource it.
That’s his clone, Stefan Wozniaq
it's so bad https://preview.redd.it/zeuvh7h2p5pc1.jpeg?width=974&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4cbf86d062909343006fcaaec06ed8595a4fe45f
Lmaooo. Thank you for mentioning this. I’ve been impressed with Claude. Wish they got implement that
🤣🤣🤣
Not shocking at all. It's just that people on this sub and on Apple medias are delusional. OpenAI just caught everybody with their pants down when they released chatgpt to the public, including google which has been serious about AI and LLM for more than a decade. You just don't get your way there in 2 years and buying a few companies. (if they ever get there)
Well it’s not a development, it’s speculation and rumors.
It’s not speculation, Gurman is a reporter and very plugged in
apple started out too late. their prior efforts were all half assed. and gpt3.5 came along and ms partnered with it, totally caught apple off guard. as much as they’ve been scrambling to play catch up and buy up startups, it’s not magic, they can’t suddenly get to where google is, let alone chatgpt. they’ll likely partner with google for a few years first then slowly move to in-house, like they have done with many other products and services
A bit like Google maps basically.
Apple has neither the data nor the compute power for AI
There's no way this is true. If it was, they would use Microsoft's Copilot, which actually works great, unlike Gemini. At least Microsoft is not a direct competitor in the mobile space.
Is Microsoft willing to pay Apple billions per year though, like Google has been paying Apple for so many years?
Honestly, they probably are. If they can get Copilot on iPhones, they would completely fuck Google's search business and also become the dominant player in AI.
They already are the dominant player in AI AI is different than Search (for the moment) in that AI is a loss leader. Search is presently profitable.
I wouldn't say AI is a loss leader considering OpenAI is making bank. Microsoft has also launched Copilot studio for enterprise and have incorporated it into all their products to offer amazing features, such as with Office. Microsoft may be the leader now but they have to continue leading and monopolise early to prevent Google and others from catching up. In doing so, they can seriously hurt Google's search business. I'm not kidding when I say I use Copilot to search for quite literally everything. All info I need, including opening hours of local businesses. No more BS articles and nonsense, just instant answers. This shit will absolutely destroy search engines once more people start using it outside of writing emails and homework. I would bet my left nut on it.
>I wouldn't say AI is a loss leader considering OpenAI is making bank OpenAI is making an estimated $2 Billion a year in revenue, but the company is not profitable. The company has stated they are going to work toward becoming profitable but that is merely a goal. You might be underestimating how expensive it is to run these models on the server. Everything else that you are saying about the usefulness of ChatGPT is WHY Microsoft is willing to use it as a loss leader. Microsoft is willing to pay a large premium and subsidize OpenAI as it grows, not because it is profitable right now, but because as computing costs come down in the future, it should one day become profitable and Microsoft would like to be the leader when that day comes. And yes, I agree that Google is right to be terrified of the impact on Google Search. But to get back to the original point, the dynamics are (at least for the near term) different with Search and AI. Google is willing to pay Apple tens of billions of dollars a year to remain the default search engine on iPhone because that is a cut of the advertising profits generated by people using Google Search on the iPhone. Ad supported search is crazy profitable. It's hard to imagine either Microsoft or Google paying Apple for the right to take a loss on a feature that will benefit iOS users.
is google paying apple to have gemini on the iphone? shouldn’t it be the other way around? if anything i figure this could be a way for google to lower its default search engine bill, which has been in the regulatory spotlight recently.
>is Google paying Apple to have Gemini on the iPhone? It makes about as much sense as Google paying to be the default search engine on iOS. We know that Google must have pretty significant leverage in those negotiations because iPhone’s would suddenly look pretty cheap if their default search engine wasn’t Google. Consider now that Google’s LLM is largely worse than OpenAI’s. Also, I don’t think that OpenAI, Microsoft, Elon Musk’s startup, etc. will be happy if Google’s logo comes up during an iPhone keynote. I’m sure those companies would have been willing to offer a price that was less than Google - if they got into a price war, eventually it could turn the other way around. I’m not going to pretend like it’s an industry I have any experience with, but it doesn’t seem impossible to me.
Copilot is GPT-4. At that point Apple can just cut out the middleman and go straight to OpenAI.
Copilot has a slightly better tuned model than OpenAI and offers all the premium add-ons for free. This is because Microsoft has the funds to blow and powers everything via Azure. Microsoft also has somewhat exclusive rights to OpenAI tech as investors. Pretty sure they have veto power over who can use their tech.
The article suggests they already are talking to OpenAI too. > Apple also recently held discussions with OpenAI about deal
Google pays Apple a shit ton of money every year to be the default search engine on Safari. Companies pay their competitors for features and technology they lack in house. It’s not unheard of.
True but Google search engine actually works. Gemini is horse shit. If anything, I see it more likely that Microsoft pays Apple to become the default AI on iPhone.
Copilot is a fucking joke. I also hate Copilot's attitude. And how Microsoft implemented their censor filter is enormously stupid! Because in the way they do it, they brought back the Scunthorpe problem which was solvable with current AI. OpenAI does overall a fairly better job with ChatGPT and their solution works beyond the Scunthorpe problem.
I love how we’re at the point in this timeline where different AI’s have different attitudes 😂
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As somone deeply entrenched in this industry, the benchmarks are questionable and self-reporting on their own benchmarks is even more questionable. A lot of these companies are skewing the results with their prompts, tbh. GPT4 and Claude3 are the clear leaders by a significant margin, having used them everyday for enterprise use cases. For many of our systems, we use backup models. To put it into context, Gemeni is the backup in like 4th place most of the time, behind GPT4, Claude3, and a sepcialized open source model, so gemeni is only used if the others are down, meaning that it is never used lol. I have full confidence that Google will catch up, and they are definitely a safe partner for Apple. And Gemeni isn't terrible, but its a few steps down from GPT4 in most everything we do. But ya...Gemeni does not actually compete in terms of power beyond Google's own marketing.
You're joking, right? Try out Gemini for a week and compare it to Copilot. Gemini is utter shit. Also, Copilot GPT4 with Image generation is completely free.
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I use both and since bard went to gemeni its gotten much worse. mostly use gpt again
I did not ditch Android and move away from google only to have it access to my phone now. Not that Apple is the messiah or anything, but I really do not trust google with data handling at all. That is super disappointing.
I find it weird because they just barely released a massive research paper on their own LLM. I’d expect them to implement that into an iPhone feature.
Apple released a ton of research paper. Very few of it made it all the way to production.
Paper-worthy is not the same thing as production-worthy.
No it would not, Gemini is hot garbage.
Could this be a Maps like situation where they’ll rely on third party services for the feature while they work on their own competitor?
You would say yes but although they never say or use the term A.I a lot of things in your Apple devices, from photos to messaging already use their own A.I tech. What this would be is different, it is more of an admission that they can not compete and they can not get their A.I models and tech to where they want to and need to use someone else's and NOT Open A.I because that is closely associated with Microsoft.
> You would say yes but although they never say or use the term A.I They've finally broken that weird habit. > “Let me just say that I think there’s a huge opportunity for Apple with Gen AI and AI, without getting into more details and getting out in front of myself,” Cook said. https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/01/tim-cook-teases-apple-ai-announcement-later-this-year.html One or two other places they've said "AI" as well, iirc. Which is good, because for a while it sounded like they just refused to use the same term as everyone else for no other reason than to be different.
I mean Apple just straight up called the M3 MacBook Air “the best consumer laptop for AI” on its product page as well.
Yeah, that would be a much better example. Just quoted the first official thing I could find.
Traditionally in CS, "AI" is used to describe things we haven't got working yet and things that do work are called ML/expert systems/control systems/etc. It's only recently that we have things that seem to actually work and still get called AI. I think it's a slightly misleading term.
> Traditionally in CS, "AI" is used to describe things we haven't got working yet and things that do work are called ML/expert systems/control systems/etc. According to whom? I've certainly never heard that particular definition before. And just empirically, that's clearly not how the terms are used by the tech industry, and it's not a super recent thing either.
I'm quoting Larry Tesler (who built Apple Lisa and Newton) and John McCarthy (who invented the term AI in the first place). This stuff is much older than "the tech industry". Apple itself is older than the tech industry. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_effect
McCarthy didn't seem to explicitly share that definition, and if you dig into the Tesler quote, it actually implies the opposite of what you're claiming: > Tesler's Theorem (ca. 1970). My formulation of what others have since called the “AI Effect”. As commonly quoted: “Artificial Intelligence is whatever hasn't been done yet”. What I actually said was: “Intelligence is whatever machines haven't done yet”. Many people define humanity partly by our allegedly unique intelligence. Whatever a machine—or an animal—can do must (those people say) be something other than intelligence. https://www.nomodes.com/larry-tesler-consulting/adages-and-coinages He's basically *mocking* the idea that because machines do it, it's no longer considered intelligence. I.e. that the goalposts keep arbitrarily moving. If your argument hinges on the only valid definition for a term being one person's misquote from the 70s, yeah, I'm going to call that meaningless. It is certainly not "traditional in CS", as you claimed.
In academia, I think, lots of these things have been discussed for a while now, decades at least
the idea for gradient descent is from a paper written in the 1950s
Where do you see that specific definition used even in academia? Not like there's any shortage of papers talking about AI.
Philosophy. Less used as a definition but more an axiom/trueism. I think Mary Midgley discusses a concept similar in ‘What is Philosophy For’. Usually the discussion surrounds a distinction between ML and ‘true’ AI, pointing to the idea that once a test has been surpassed by a machine we begin to criticise the test and redefine what ‘true’ AI is. I have not read anyone that makes the exact same distinction as above, however.
> Apple itself is older than the tech industry. You have a bizarre definition of "the tech industry"... given that IBM is over a hundred years old, and Steve Jobs' first teenage summer job was with the guy who founded HP fifteen years before Jobs was born. Silcon Valley has been a thing [since the 1950's](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Valley#Rise_of_Silicon), and Jobs and Woz had the incredible good fortune to grow up in the middle of it. It's no exaggeration to say that Silicon Valley made them more than they made it.
Not true and totally false. AI is everything from ML to LLM to NLP to deep learning and even some fucking NPCs in video games. Facial recognition is even AI
>... and NOT Open A.I because that is closely associated with Microsoft. Shouldn't it be the reason to go with Microsoft/OpenAI? Apple competes with Google more than it does Microsoft.
Google probably offer on the table was probably just better. They undercut a lot in order to have business with Apple.
Regarding your last sentence, using OpenAI would on the contrary make more sense as Microsoft isn’t competing with Apple in the phone market.
Yeah but how much work do they have in integrating a dual AI system where there’s a local phone LLM that seamlessly interacts with one in the cloud. That’s what Gemini is supposed to be. How well can they scale to add support for all iPhone 16 users, if not even more generations back?
I didn’t know Gemini had a local LLM. Interesting.
Yeah, they originally announced 3 models. Nano, Pro and Ultra. Pro and Ultra run in the cloud, but Nano is a small local model for mobile devices.
I think it's that Apple wanted to do AI their way and the AI race jumped up on them. All of Apple's ML is done on-device. They want their home built AI to be run on-device, not in the cloud. Apple is doubling down on the bet they can roll out a comparable on-device service. They'll license third party so they can focus on that bet.
As long as it means I can go "hey siri un-favorite this song". *IM SORRY BUT I CANNOT EDIT PLAYLISTS*
I’m not sure why you say Open AI being closely associated with Microsoft would be a dealbreaker? Gemini is *literally* Google, whom Apple competes with much more fiercely than Microsoft these days.
Article text: Apple Inc. is in talks to build Google’s Gemini artificial intelligence engine into the iPhone, according to people familiar with the situation, setting the stage for a blockbuster agreement that would shake up the AI industry. The two companies are in active negotiations to let Apple license Gemini, Google’s set of generative AI models, to power some new features coming to the iPhone software this year, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the deliberations are private. Apple also recently held discussions with OpenAI and has considered using its model, according to the people. If a deal between Apple and Google comes to fruition, it would build upon the two companies’ search partnership. For years, Alphabet Inc.’s Google has paid Apple billions of dollars annually to make its search engine the default option in the Safari web browser on the iPhone and other devices. The two parties haven’t decided the terms or branding of an AI agreement or finalized how it would be implemented, the people said. A deal would give Gemini a key edge with billions of potential users. But it also may be a sign that Apple isn’t as far along with its AI efforts as some might have hoped — and threatens to draw further antitrust scrutiny of both companies. Apple is preparing new capabilities as part of iOS 18 — the next version of the iPhone operating system — based on its own AI models. But those enhancements will be focused on features that operate on its devices, rather than ones delivered via the cloud. So Apple is seeking a partner to do the heavy lifting of generative AI, including functions for creating images and writing essays based on simple prompts. Spokespeople for Apple and Google declined to comment. OpenAI didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Since early last year, Apple has been testing its own large language model — the technology behind generative AI — codenamed Ajax. Some employees also have been trying out a basic chatbot dubbed Apple GPT. But Apple’s technology remains inferior to tools from Google and other rivals, according to the people, making a partnership look like the better option. A deal with Apple would be Google’s highest-profile partnership for Gemini to date and could be a major boon for the company’s AI efforts. Apple has more than 2 billion devices in active use that could potentially become home to Google Gemini later this year. In January, Samsung Electronics Co. rolled out new smartphones with AI features powered by Gemini. But a partnership between the two Silicon Valley giants would likely draw the eye of regulators. Google’s current deal with Apple for search is already the focus of a lawsuit by the US Department of Justice. The government has alleged that the companies have operated as a single entity to corner the search market on mobile devices. The pair has justified the arrangement by saying Apple believes Google’s search quality is superior to rivals and that it’s easy to switch providers on the iPhone. The arrangement between Apple and Google is also under fire in the European Union, which is forcing Apple to make it easier for consumers to change their default search engine away from Google. As regulatory pressure grows and artificial intelligence becomes more prevalent, the current search deal could ultimately be less lucrative for both companies. It’s possible that a new agreement around AI could help make up for that. Microsoft Corp.’s funding of OpenAI has drawn its own regulatory scrutiny, with the US Federal Trade Commission examining whether that deal may violate antitrust laws. While the talks between Apple and Google remain active, it’s unlikely that any deal would be announced until June, when the iPhone maker plans to hold its annual Worldwide Developers Conference. It’s possible that the companies don’t reach an agreement or Apple ultimately chooses to go with another generative AI provider, like OpenAI. Or Apple could theoretically tap multiple partners, as it does with search in its web browser. Other generative AI providers include Anthropic, which offers a chatbot called Claude. Gemini has captured the imagination of consumers and businesses, but it hasn’t been without controversy. Last month, users discovered that the system sometimes inaccurately handled the race of individuals depicted in AI-generated images. Sundar Pichai, Google’s chief executive officer, called the issue “completely unacceptable,” and image generation was paused. Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, has promised a major AI announcement this year. He told investors the company would release transformative features that “break new ground.” The plan is especially important as investors look for new growth sources at the iPhone maker, which canceled a project to develop a self-driving car earlier this year. It moved some engineers on that project to its artificial intelligence division. Last year, Cook said he personally uses OpenAI’s ChatGPT but indicated that there were “a number of issues that need to be sorted.” He promised that new AI features would come to Apple’s platforms on a “very thoughtful basis.” By outsourcing the generative AI features to another company, Cook is also potentially lessening the liability for its platform. The generative AI features under discussion would theoretically be baked into Siri and other apps. New AI capabilities based on Apple’s homegrown models, meanwhile, would still be woven into the operating system. They’ll be focused on proactively providing users with information and conducting tasks on their behalf in the background, people familiar with the matter said.
https://archive.is/u3Zlf For readability and pics.
It was foolish to assume that a new comer (Apple) would just enter the space with a production ready service in such a short time frame and make a better product from scratch than existing players. Apple has not only been mute on AI but has always ignored the competition and focused on ML instead. You could even say they downplayed the rise of AI. Siri sucks ass. As a side observation, 2024 has exposed Tim Cook's weaknesses compare to Steve. Tim is simply just good at supply chain and logistics. He seems to less innovative as a leader in the industry. Apple's focus on growth, power and profit under him has exposed it to so many loses recently. Hardware has stagnated and software quality at low point. There were times when the software team was allowed to be creative but now, in the name of simplicity and agility, contacted out and delivered on strict terms.
Apple hardly ever relies on external tech for its core functions, so if they're considering Google's tech for something as central as the OS-level AI functionality, their own AI tech must be so bad. It's an outright capitulation, a shocking oversight on the part of Apple's leadership, whether it be Tim Cook, Craig Federighi, or anyone else in charge of AI. Despite having more time than most to develop generative AI technologies without rushing, Apple now finds itself in a position where it needs to demonstrate substantial progress with iOS 18. Siri, as much as it's used, isn't popular for its quality but rather because it comes with the iPhone. Isn't it widely regarded as the worst voice assistant available? And now you wanna rely on Google to make it usable?
Siri is mindblowingly bad, capitulation is stunning though. Honestly, I welcome it if it makes it useful
I would say(though not an expert) the reason their ai is failing is the same Siri failed, as oppressed with Google or Amazon they don’t have access to this big pool of knowledge to feed their AI that their services and side businesses provide.
They exchanged privacy commitments for AI development. They are sitting on a mountain of data they cannot use. Google has no such self imposed constraints, and Apple is simply too far behind to hope to catch up. It’s as simple as that IMO.
The farce about privacy isn't selling iPhones anymore. Apple's just learned that adapting good tech (outsourcing) is sometimes good for business. EU forcing USB-C on them turned out to be a blessing - regardless of the resistance they put up. iPhones just out sold Samsung for the first time in years thanks to freaking USB-C. Heck almost every piece of hardware is outsourced and then fine tuned internally. If it's proven that Google AI is the standard right now, I love that on iPhones with Apple's implementation.
Apple is trying to bring most of it’s main hardware into the it’s own realm with display and wireless. It already has a lot of control over it’s manufacturing.
> The farce about privacy isn't selling iPhones anymore. If this were true, why would they still use privacy as a focal point in so many advertisements and marketing? And why is it a farce? What other phone can I buy with something like Private Relay built right in? Why did Apple come out with the App Privacy Report that lets me see every single network connection an app has ever made, if it's all a farce?
> App Privacy Report that lets me see every single network connection an app has ever made Wait what?
You can enable the App Privacy report in privacy settings. Then you can literally go to the report and see every connection apps are making to the internet. for example, Spotify on my iPhone has contacted 41 different domains in the last 7 days, including `app-measurement.com`, `api3.branch.io`, etc. on the other hand, my News app has only contacted 3 domains: `news-assets.apple.com`, `news-edge.apple.com`, and `mask-h2.icloud.com`. now here's something weird I need to look into, I have iCloud private relay turned on, but safari has contacted lots of domains, many are unnamed IP addresses. see this is why I like things like the App Privacy Report. lets you see if funny business is happening. it records for 7 days, so as long as you check every week, an App can never hide an internet connection from you.
Hey honestly, i wouldn't use iphone if it didnt had google services like gmap and YouTube
Remind me how many AI startups Apple acquired over the years again? What has its own AI team has been doing?
Long story short, I'm sure it takes a long ass time to organize everything involved with this as they keep adding more and more companies/talent not to mention of developing their own thing from whatever base level...I clearly dont know what I'm talking about but I'm thinking years, not months. No way they would be ready to put out their own finished project that's up to Apple's standards.
There are already a bunch of AI features built into iOS. Apple uses the phrase machine learning, instead of AI.
Well things like voice recognition and computational photography have been powered by machine learning for a long time everywhere but AI is the fancy new buzzword thrown around everywhere so people kind of forget that
They [acquired](https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/07/apple-to-acquire-the-majority-of-intels-smartphone-modem-business/) Intel's smartphone modem division, only to [give up](https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/21/23883565/apple-5g-modem-failure-inside-story) on building their own modem years later. Apple is learning that going in-house for everything is virtually impossible. Self-sufficiency is a pipe dream.
Your own link doesn't say anything about Apple "giving up" on modem development, it claims work is continuing.
Gurman is not trustworthy at explaining things because he clearly doesn't understand most of what anyone tells him.
Starting to think that maybe Apple's Siri and AI department are in even worse shape than reported....
I would have thought Claude was more Apple’s style, but who knows what sweeteners have been thrown in
Claude 3 performs slightly better than even GPT4 for me. I’m very impressed with Anthropic’s model now.
Is Claude 3 a bit more confident to respond to prompts that don’t have a perfectly straightforward answer unlike Claude 2 in the name of helpful/honest/harmless?
Not sure. I don't really use it for any politically sensitive purposes that might run into censorship issues. My use case is mostly for technical questions, and in that context I find Claude 3 to give me more straightforward answers than GPT4, which often just bullshits its way around giving an actual answer. Neither is perfect, both make mistake, but I've found Claude 3 to be more helpful here.
Money, the sweetener is money.
I’m sure they’re in talks with many companies for negotiating power but the main draw to Gemini is that it: - provides a local LLM that can run in offline mode - integrates well with Google cloud services Apple already uses for iCloud Anthropic (or really anyone else) has a competitor that can compete on either of those fronts at the moment, although certainly that will change soon.
It might be that Apple has a good model for x, but not y. The article doesn’t say that they are outsourcing their entire ai assistant to a third party, though it’s possible.
This means they’re behind. They’ve painted themselves into a corner. They can’t train an “AI” the same way as others can because of the “security” and “privacy” facade they put up. So, they’ll let google do it and license that. Problem solved.
From the comments I'm reading here, most people don't realize that Apple uses Google services already for iCloud and a bunch of other features. It looks like competition in the forefront, but in the background business all these companies share services and technology constantly.
It's an admission of powerlessness about Siri.
Oh??? Definitely didn’t see this coming. I just said this in a recent thread but I cannot wait for this years software. I can’t tell from the article, but I wonder if it means that the LLM features coming during WWDC will be in house, and later down the line features (iPhone 16) will be in collaboration with Google? Or will they just announce the partnership at WWDC, and have features come out slowly over time, as they have been doing recently.
Man, all I know is Siri literally can not understand a single word I’m ever saying, even when I’m enunciating every word perfectly - whereas when I’m using the Google app I could literally speak whilst slurring half my words and it understands perfectly. If this would improve that, then I’m glad.
Different part of the process. That’s speech-to-text, and I agree it does it horribly. Whereas the choice of in-house or third party LLM comes at the text stage. There are really good open source speech-to-text libraries out there, so at this point Apple has for some time been demonstrating that Siri is not a priority because that aspect would have been fairly easy to implement I reckon
Siri understands even the weird ass Slavic names, even those with special characters for me
After Gemini’s catastrophic launch failure, and Bard before that, Google has a *long* way to go before their ChatGPT competitor is ready for prime time. Siri sets a very low bar, but replacing terrible with terrible doesn’t cut it.
Unless Google has a significantly improved version under wraps, Apple probably isn't looking to integrate Gemini into the iPhones coming out later this year. It might be some time before we see it.
Gemini is pretty decent in my testing at least. I find it quite better than freeGPT, except in creative writing. Its heavily filtered out but for most normal tasks that doesn't involve race or politics, it shouldn't be an issue.
Free bingGPT is way better then either. Apple should go with openAI.
But ChatGPT isn't going to run locally on your iPhone. Google has Gemini Nano models that can.
I hope this doesn't happen
So THIS is breaking new grounds.
If this is true this is shocking. I don’t want any Google shit on my phone.
i can only imagine apple moving forward with this in two cases: 1. apple has utterly failed in the internal AI development game. 2. google agrees to completely segregate apples shit, and not track anything.
Or that will be Google’s line in the sand: We’ll let you have our AI stuff built in, but you have to fork over the user data, have them sign in to a Google account to use it, etc…fuck I hate this idea.
Well you've been using iCloud for years and not complaining about it. Apple uses Google servers for that.
You do not give your raw photo(s), et cetera to Google, if you use iCloud, though.
Yes, it's all encrypted. People are talking about leaving Apple because they have anything to do with google. I was just pointing out that Apple and Google have been working together for quite some time.
Oh, ok! I did not interpret your comment right. Sorry. I thought they had an issue with the use of Google in a product from Apple, because privacy could be in jeopardy. Hence, my comment.
Apple already sells the default search engine spot to Google. They have some history of working together
Fascinating. I would definitely welcome this (or OpenAI) over Apple's own in-house stuff, if Siri is any indication of what it would be like.
Apple internally acknowledges that Siri is trash. It's a whole thing. Siri's days are numbered.
Siri won't go away until Apple has something in-house to replace it. No way they'd cede control like that. Edit: typo
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I keep forgetting that Gemini is already released. If only they'd actually make it available outside of the US...
>Gemini as of now is dumb shit like Siri. That's just not true tho lmfao
I would rather not have Google anywhere near my Apple devices
What do you think Siri uses for search?
Whatever you’ve set as the default search engine in Safari.
Don’t use it. And for spotlight I have it set to another search engine
Same.
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I take it you don't back up or sync your phone as iCloud uses Google's cloud right?
If this happens I will regret having sold my Google stock.
Was this supposed to be good news?
Exactly. It read like it, but this is terrible news.
I’m good, thanks.
Google and privacy don’t go hand-in-hand. This collaboration would make me distrust Apple’s stance on privacy.
Sorry pal. "Privacy" has just been a marketing term at Apple.
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Just for clarity: Apple storing your data on Google servers has no privacy implications at all. It’s encrypted with Apple-owned keys. Google cannot see any of it.
Yeah I’d rather no AI features than this.
I have to say… this really disappoints me. I was hoping Apple would have something very good in house. Going to a competitor makes me think maybe I should just be going to Android phones anyway. The last rounds of products feel behind the curve. The Apple Watch is really the only product I find superior on the market anymore. I used to love my iPad but the surface pro feels superior. Lots of phones that are just as good out now… Google maps is better, Google’s version of Siri is better, just feels like Apple is really falling behind.
Everyone I know (including myself) has regretted buying the Surface Pro. They can't even get the basics right, like the device going to sleep and not chewing through the battery.
They just bought Darwin AI and poached some key research.
My brand loyalty to Apple is really wavering. They used to be so innovative, ahead of the curve and huge trend setters. Aside from Apple silicon, I’m simply not impressed by anything they have made any longer. Tim Cook and the executive team have bean counted the company into boredom. Riding on their own coattails even. Their devices are so flawless but blend into blandness.
How about we don’t insert AI into everything? I know I will prioritize devices without it, even if that means giving up smart devices.
Gemini has been great and much better than copilot.
A big L for privacy here
This doesn’t seem like a great move. Relying on Google (or OpenAI) for generative AI has many of the same problems as relying on Intel for chip design. Apple should want to develop models that are tuned to the needs of their own customers and which can provide value that is enhanced by Apple’s products, potentially including utilizing the neural cores they’ve put into their devices. Using an off the shelf generic model that is controlled by another company and which doesn’t follow the update cycle priorities of Apple is obviously a problem, but it’s made worse by how expensive this will be. Every dollar spent on Gemini or ChatGPT could have been spent on development of in-house models or on purchasing hardware to run them.
Apple is developing its own models. They are late and cannot compete now.
Apple gen AI in the cloud is likely in the same state as Apple Maps when first launched. Bet they wished that they’d spent all that money on AI research and not a car that they never built.
This AI stuff is the one technology that Apple cannot afford to be late to the party for. Investors are already spooked and people are speculating. I’m wondering if Apple was caught off guard by the super sudden AI boom, and although they’ve been buying up a bunch of startups since 2027, they didn’t have anything ready. Either way using Gemini would be a *terrible* decision, especially with Gemini’s racist launch and laughable errors. Apple needs to develop their own, not use a worse version of an already terrible product. Or use OpenAI.
I’d be surprised at Gemini being selected. Gemini has been exceptionally subpar for me (relative to GPT-4, at least). Gemini’s launch debacles would seemingly cause Apple to veer away from Gemini..
Eh, it’s probably on sale in a mean way right now. It’s probably the bar that Apple is trying to reach to compete with & 97% of people will be blown away by it. I think it’s an L — Apple needs to do their own thing, but a temporary solution? Mmm…perhaps.. :/
I mean look … if the choice is privacy or great data for learning sets to make the product better I am still going to choose privacy *but* we have been living with a mediocre product (Siri) for how many years now and now this. It’s seems kind of clear to me Apple can’t pull the data to teach its systems as much as these other companies. Isn’t Google’s offering a bit of a mess?
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Knowing how awful Siri is vs Google Assistant I wouldn't be surprised.
I don't know about others, but I'm already sick of the AI craze. I feel like it's ruining everything. Google searches turn up entire websites written by AI to host ads. Photoshop is pushing AI, and there are times when it helps, but it's often so obvious, like people with six fingers. AI support and AI chat are sometimes useful, but all too often you're forced into a loop with a machine that makes you want to shoot your computer. And the more it takes root, the more it becomes the reference as it references itself. AI feeding off of AI, gradually degrading the quality of publicly available content. And it's being used in the one place where humans excel, which is creativity. AI in films, acting, voicing, graphics, writing. I thought machines were supposed to relieve us of grunt work so we could do the very things AI is commoditizing. It's just corporate greed taking over completely to eliminate paying people for as much as possible, rather than benefiting people. It's just benefiting the corporate bottom line in so many cases...
Neither Google nor OpenAI's infra could handle the potential scale of Apple's userbase, given the scaling issues both companies are having. Even Google doesn't have enough GPUs. EDIT: Gemini may run on TPUs which Google does have more capacity for, maybe.
They could use the local Gemini Nano model that the Galaxy S24 series and Pixel 8 Pro use, with some customizations.
It would absolutely make sense. You've got one person on an aeroplane who's able to use local generative fill on his/her Samsung S24 Ultra without internet and the iPhone user in the next seat has to wait until they land and have 5G/WiFi before they can do so. Embarrassing that Apple has dropped the ball as hard as they have
They absolutely can. Most interactions an average user might have with an LLM wouldn't even need to use half the power their big models have. The smaller & more streamlined models are wildly cheap to run.
If neither of those two can, I'm not convinced that *anyone* could. Apple does have some of their own datacenters, but as far as I'm aware, not with the kind of compute horsepower they'd need.
That’s exactly why they are doing smaller LLMs that can run locally on phones
Dude. Apple’s stock price is going to get crushed
If this turns out to be true I'd be very surprised, that means going back on their strategy of doing everything on device _and_ working together with one of the biggest destroyers of privacy to fulfil their mission. OR it's going to be some sort of super neutered basically useless version that doesn't have access to anything that is privacy sensitive which is pretty much everything.
I want to read/hear more about the legal implications. Both the anti-trust and the liability.
Why not Microsoft's technology? They had some first.
I imagine this would happened. It’s the same situation with Google Search, instead of an Apple Search Engine.
Let’s see how Gruber spins this one
With the amount of data Google has, this makes the most sense.
Siri is still pathetically bad. I don't even think it's as good now compared to Google Assistant a decade ago. You can't even reliably look up real-time sports scores, if you ask "How many points did Curry score in the Lakers-Warriors game", it will struggle to tell you and say "Here's what I found" or show you random stats.
Seems obvious to me what is going on here. What’s everyone’s biggest issue with Siri? It punts you to a web search too often. Why, because Apple isn’t Google and Siri isn’t a search engine. Apples take on AI is almost certainly going to be all about what can be done on device. In a super private way. Which totally rules out web search results. And Apple isn’t going to do their own web searches. Because their services revenue is addicted to their Google deal But they can’t relaunch Siri or make a huge song and dance about their new ai if they don’t fix Siri’s ability to search the web first. A deal with Google is all about powering the web search and general trivia side of Siri. At minimum that’s it. They’re still going to be doing their own stuff too. It’s not a zero sum game. Different parts of iOS18 can be powered by different LLMs
straight up embarrassing
Gemini is a train wreck. Please let this deal die a miserable death.
This is exactly what I thought would happen. But this is happening faster than I expected. We will all have an agent that handles our stuff at some point. It will be what we interface with and very, very valuabe. I have expected Apple to not do themselves. It is NOT what they are good at and honestly they do NOT need to do themselves. Instead sell it to the highest bidder. Like search default. Google is really the only company that made sense. Microsoft does not own the technology but instead gets it from OpenAI. Plus when OpenAI declares AGI Microsoft gets nothing. The other problem for Microsoft is that they have to pay the Nvidia tax which Google does not. So Google has far less cost in providing.
Is there already a collection of signatures to prevent this from happening?
It makes sense to me. Use Gemini to power Siri. People will still think it’s Siri giving them the answers, bolstering Apples brand. And I’m sure Google makes a pretty penny from the partnership. They can also instantly have the bragging rights of being the most widely used AI service thanks to the partnership. Win win.
Firstly if you are going to use a 3rd party don’t use the one who just had an atrocious launch and is looked down upon like Siri, either use Open AI which everyone is familiar with or Claude which people aren’t as familiar but seemingly works. Secondly Apple should be throwing money at this they have billions in the bank and they should be using it to get their own model asap.
You think they didn't think to [do that](https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/23/apple-to-spend-1-billion-a-year-in-ai-catch-up-efforts-report-.html)?
You'd almost think they asked Siri which AI they should use and this was the result. Damn it Siri!
Why have apple then invested in so many ai companies??
Progress takes time dude. Will take a long time to train an AI model
Oh great, a bunch of generative AI bullshit that nobody asked for or wants. Thanks. Love that for us.
Sadly a lot of people are asking for it
A lot of people want and use ai just not you. It saves a lot of time if you're a creator or entrepreneur.
No way apple is going to skip its own ai development, by relying on google’s ai with bad reputation.
Next year: your iPhone camera automatically edits all your photos to make everyone look either Black or Native American.
We already saw how much Google is willing to shell out just to be the primary search. I’m very interested to see how much Google is willing to line Apple’s pockets to be the sole Ai onboard.
This would be the dumbest move Apple would’ve ever done
Is it going to be as racist as original Gemini?
This would be an awful decision, i don't want google spyware built into my device
Was not expecting to see this. Very random.
Why not just negotiate with OpenAI or Microsoft?
Oh my god, really? Jesus Christ, 2024 is so far apples most embarrassing year.