We’ve had a couple of days to digest all of the AI announcements that Google made at I/O this past Tuesday, as well as plenty of Android News. As we look ahead to other developer conferences happening in the next month or so, we can’t help but think about what this means for Apple on June 10.
As most of you know, Apple will be holding its WWDC event on June 10 in Cupertino. Unlike Google, Apple is still mostly sticking to a virtual event for WWDC, though there are people being invited for the keynote on that Monday. We expect to see Apple announce a boatload of AI products at this event.
Typically, Apple announces new versions of each of its software products. So this year, that means iOS 18, iPad OS 18, watchOS 11, tvOS 18, and visionOS 2. This year, however, we are expecting a good amount of AI to be infused into these products. Apple is no stranger to AI, but it is pretty far behind what the competition has right now.
So what makes us think that Apple is going to debut new AI features this year, of all years? Well, there’s been a good amount of rumors bout Apple working with both OpenAI and Google, which are the two leaders in AI Chatbots right now. In fact, it was reported in the past week that Apple is close to finalizing a deal with OpenAI to bring ChatGPT into iOS 18.
Google showcased countless AI features at I/O, can Apple keep up?
With Google reportedly partnering with Apple on a number of AI things for iOS 18, and likely some other OS platforms too, we can probably expect a good amount of these features to come to iOS 18. It also gives Apple plenty to compete with when it comes to WWDC. Not to mention, OpenAI debuted GPT-4o the day before Google I/O.
We’ve already seen Google work with many Android manufacturers to bring AI features to other Android phones, like the Galaxy S24 series. We could see this happen with iOS 18, too, unless Apple prefers to work with OpenAI. While Microsoft does have an investment in OpenAI and has included its AI in some products like Bing and CoPilot, Apple doesn’t really compete with Microsoft on phones, but they do with Google.
On the counterpoint, Apple is also developing its own batch of AI products and even released its OpenELM large language model last month. So, even if Apple does work with OpenAI and/or Google, they won’t be solely relying on either of them. As Mark Gurman has stated before, Apple’s strategy for AI right now is to create an on-device LLM (Large Language Model) and a cloud-powered LLM in-house while relying on OpenAI or Google for the chatbot. Gurman also noted that “Apple isn’t building its own chatbot but knows the market wants it, so it’s going elsewhere for it.” Basically, it is the same playbook as Apple did with search, where Google is paying billions per year to be the default search engine on iPhone.
This is the Apple AI strategy:
A) On-device LLM (in house)
B) Cloud-powered LLM (in house)
C) Chatbot (OpenAI for sure, Google maybe).Apple isn’t building its own chatbot but knows the market wants it so it’s going elsewhere for it. It’s the same playbook as search. https://t.co/XQrv57jylY
— Mark Gurman (@markgurman) May 12, 2024
Apple doesn’t have a great history with AI
Some of you might not be aware of this, but Apple was the first to release a personal assistant on their phones. Siri launched on the iPhone back in 2011, while Google Now launched in 2012. Google Now wasn’t really much of a personal assistant, but it was the same way Siri was. It wasn’t really that great with voice. But Google Assistant, which launched in 2016, was.
This was the first time, that Apple was really first with something. Typically, Apple takes a backseat to new products and waits to see how it can make that technology better. But since Siri launched 13 years ago, it has pretty much stayed the same. And today, Siri really sucks compared to Google Assistant/Gemini, Amazon Alexa and even Microsoft’s Cortana.
Many of us who use Apple’s products are hoping that this new investment in AI is going to help improve Siri. Currently, I can only really reliably use Siri to do timers. It is pretty sad when Google Assistant can do almost everything else. Right now, Siri is the laughingstock of technology, which is a shame when Samsung’s Bixby still exists.
With Apple reportedly working on its own LLM, we could see some major improvements to Siri, which would be incredible.
Apple is making loads of pre-WWDC announcements
Another hint that Apple could be making some pretty major AI announcements at WWDC is that the company is announcing a lot of things ahead of the event. For instance, Apple announced new iPads in May. Apple has never had a May event before, typically if hardware is ready in May, they will hold it for WWDC in June. But not this year. Additionally, Apple has announced over 14 iOS 18 features already, and WWDC is still about three weeks away.
This really makes it seem like Apple is clearing out as much as it can, so it can spend more time in that keynote talking about AI. Hopefully, they can make it more exciting than Google did at I/O, where some people in the audience were seen yawning during all the AI talk.
Either way, WWDC is bound to be pretty exciting and we can’t wait to see what Apple has to unveil.
