A report earlier this week said that Apple is in talks with Google about using Gemini generative AI models on the iPhone. Google isn’t the only company Apple is looking to for genAI features for the upcoming version of iOS.
When I heard about it, my first reaction as a long-time iPhone user was caution. I’m a fan of Circle to Search and want it on iPhone. But I’m not necessarily a fan of the idea of Gemini handling the cloud aspect of the AI features that Apple is building into iOS 18.
I had time to think about it and warmed to it. Google might be the best partner Apple can get for its first version of genAI on the iPhone. And Gemini could be a great addition to the iPhone as a native AI model. Another new report happened to mention talks between Apple and Google, indicating that the talks might be more serious than I thought.
After Bloomberg, The New York Times tells the same story. Apple is in talks with Google about using Gemini on the iPhone. The talks are still preliminary, according to insiders. The exact scope of work was not detailed.
But the fact that these conversations are leaking indicates that Apple has a problem that needs to be addressed. The company obviously can’t run genAI on its own, so it needs a partner for generative AI on the iPhone.
This signals a problem or two with Apple’s own AI efforts. Apple’s GPTs may not be ready to compete with ChatGPT (GPT-4) and Gemini right now. Another issue is the cloud infrastructure that needs to support reliable cloud-based generative AI features. Or it could be a combination of the two.
The iPhone will feature generative AI features on the device, which could be a key advantage over some competitors. iOS 18’s AI query processing on the iPhone fits perfectly with Apple’s core principles for its products. This is, of course, privacy and security. On-device AI is also what I want as a smartphone user looking forward to more advanced personal AI features on my devices.
However, the iPhone will not be able to natively process all the generative AI features available to users. This is where cloud-based computing is needed. Even if Apple somehow had time to prepare its server infrastructure for the enormous AI processing needs of the hundreds of millions of iPhones running iOS 18, the question of its own AI models arises.
The so-called Apple GPTs must be as good as the current standards, ChatGPT and Gemini. In this regard, I will remind you that ChatGPT and Gemini are far from perfect.
Time says two people familiar with Apple’s chatbot development say the company is behind OpenAI and Google.
It’s early years and Apple has time to “fix” both problems. It can reach the quality of ChatGPT and Gemini, and even surpass it. And it can set up a massive server infrastructure for AI processing. At the same time, it will develop a more powerful A-series chip that can handle more AI requests on the iPhone.
But for now, Apple’s best path may be Google’s Gemini. Time points out that Apple has more than two billion devices in active use. Most of them are likely to get generative AI features with iOS 18.
I think Google would probably have the computing capacity to serve those clients. To help Apple make the genAI feature fast in iOS 18, Apple will want everything to “just work”, and that’s why the Gemini deal could be so important.
I’m not sure the ChatGPT route would work as well. That is, I’m not sure that OpenAI could match Google’s infrastructure. OpenAI has Microsoft to lean on, of course. But as a long-time user of ChatGPT, I ran into problems from time to time. Even ChatGPT Plus was occasionally slower than expected. And that’s not ideal for using AI on a phone.
There’s a lot of guesswork in all of this, yes. But Apple and Google’s partnership on AI makes as much sense as the two giants’ partnership for online search and navigation on the iPhone. If it’s the best option for the iPhone, I’m all for it.
Apple has since replaced Google Maps with Apple Maps, but Google Search remains the default search engine in iOS. Google pays about $18 billion a year for the honor. That’s how important the iPhone is to Google. Gemini would make iOS and the iPhone even more critical for Google, at least as long as Apple uses it for genAI’s cloud-based features.
Apple will unveil iOS 18 at WWDC sometime in June. It will likely announce some of the genAI features coming to the iPhone this year. At least the ones that won’t be exclusive to the iPhone 16 series. The deal with Google, OpenAI or whoever should probably be finalized by then.
I’ll also point out the obvious here. Even if a deal isn’t reached, Gemini is already available on iPhone. You just need to install the Google app and run Gemini. Gemini is also available on Pixel 8 phones and other Android devices. Gemini is integrated into Google Assistant if you choose to enable it. You can also chat with him through the Messages app on some phones, as shown above.