As far as the smartphone industry is concerned, “AI” has been one of the biggest go-to buzzwords in recent years, having imbued itself in just about every nook and cranny of the consumer electronics landscape. Everything from smartphones, computers, wearables, and even cars nowadays come with some additional AI software features, which are designed to improve user experiences in otherwise “standard” smart electronics.
Which is why it’s kind of a mystery as to why Apple hasn’t tapped into this growing market yet – the Cupertino giant was one of the very first companies to introduce a smart assistant with Siri (although Siri has since been surpassed by rival assistants), and its resources for R&D are undoubtedly vast. Additionally, the launch of the Vision Pro is a sure indicator that Apple isn’t afraid to tap into current tech trends.
With that in mind, it looks like things might change soon, at least according to some new reports online. More specifically, the folks over at Bloomberg report that Apple and Google have been in talks regarding the potential for Apple to integrate the latter’s Gemini AI model in upcoming iPhones and iOS software versions – it’s even speculated that we could see this as early as iOS 18. Google has slowly been bringing its Gemini AI to Android phones by way of an app, which so far has had a rather lacklustre debut. As stated in the Bloomberg report:
“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.”
In addition to this, Bloomberg’s sources also indicate that Apple is currently at work on developing its very own AI models; one thing to note is that these are designed to run features that will be capable of working locally on-device, instead of through the cloud (like what Google is currently doing). Gemini will still come into play here, particularly for generative AI functions such as writing and composing documents, and rendering images based on user prompts.
At the moment, Gemini isn’t exclusively used on Google’s Pixel smartphones – Samsung’s entire lineup of Galaxy S24 series devices are also capable of running Gemini software, so much so that Google has recently come under fire for purposely excluding the base model Pixel 8 from running Gemini Nano (which the company blames on ‘hardware limitations’).
With all that being said, it’s also rumored that Google isn’t the only company that Apple has consulted with regarding on-device AI on iPhone and iOS – it’s reported that Apple has also been discussing things with the folks over at OpenAI regarding possible plans for AI. In any case, such big announcements from Apple are most likely to be unveiled during the company’s WWDC event, which is still a few months away.
