Apple Partners With Google on Siri Upgrade, Declares Gemini 'Most Capable Foundation' (theverge.com) 26
Apple has struck a multi-year partnership with Google to power a more capable version of Siri using Gemini AI models, ending months of speculation about which company would help the iPhone maker catch up in the generative AI race. In a statement, Apple said it had determined after "careful evaluation" that "Google's technology provides the most capable foundation for Apple Foundation Models."
The deal comes after Apple delayed its planned Siri AI upgrade last March, acknowledging that the project was taking "longer than we thought." Bloomberg had reported in August that Apple was in early talks with Google about using a custom Gemini model. Apple also explored potential partnerships with OpenAI, Anthropic and Perplexity, and CEO Tim Cook has said the company plans to integrate with more AI companies over time. The upgraded Siri is expected to perform actions on users' behalf and understand personal context.
The deal comes after Apple delayed its planned Siri AI upgrade last March, acknowledging that the project was taking "longer than we thought." Bloomberg had reported in August that Apple was in early talks with Google about using a custom Gemini model. Apple also explored potential partnerships with OpenAI, Anthropic and Perplexity, and CEO Tim Cook has said the company plans to integrate with more AI companies over time. The upgraded Siri is expected to perform actions on users' behalf and understand personal context.
Least it isn't grok (Score:5, Insightful)
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I doubt Google will sell their TPU's. On the other hand, I doubt Google will break contractual confidentiality either. It's good enough for HIPAA and FedRAMP High ... it's good enough for Apple. Apple users will agree in the end, cause Apple users.
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Rumors are that Meta at least was in talks to buy TPUs.
That said, from what I know Apple is generally happy to host their infrastructure on other providers, so not sure that would have even come up.
Re: Least it isn't grok (Score:1)
Not a good look (Score:2)
I don't know if Apple, a company that (supposedly) prides itself on protecting users' privacy, partnering with one of the world's biggest Privacy Rapists is the flex they think it is.
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Re: Not a good look (Score:3)
Which when you actually read Apples privacy policy isnt much different than Googles.
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The issue at hand is if you think Apple was honoring your privacy and will now erode it, where do you go?
Handheld/Tablet wise, Google is the only other viable player in the market. So on that front, they only need to be marginally more respected than google, even if they cede some quality/respect, they just have to retain enough reputation to be nominally distinct from Google.
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The issue at hand is if you think Apple was honoring your privacy and will now erode it, where do you go?
To a reality check
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Could you try NOT comparing things to rape? Please?
Here ya go [slashdot.org] you easily triggered Meta[stasize]/Alphabet employee.
All your smartphone AI are belong to us -Google (Score:2, Interesting)
I mean, Apple didn't have their own on par, and as others have said, at least it's not Nazi-Grok.
If the data is getting used by google though - someone's gonna be firing off an anti-trust lawsuit against Google over it - they'd have nearly all of the smartphone AI going their way in a lot of markets.
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This is when Microsoft, of all people, play the anti-monopolist card - lobbying the European Union to allow the choice of Copilot on all Android/iOS devices!
Am I the only person that likes the old Siri? (Score:3)
2025 Siri is dumb as hell, and only does about six things, but four of those things are really useful and work reliably enough to not have to worry about using them. I'm not sure I want anything "smarter".
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So much focus on LLMs has been making them not suck for multi-turn and large-context situations, that requests like these are highly reliable.
Of course, it also depends on the quality of model being used. There's going to be concern over the price-to-generate tokens, and Gemini Flash does exist, and does in fact suck, as do most highly distilled models capable of an umptillion tokens/s of output.
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I'm with you, but with some caveats:
- If I set a timer, Siri will keep listening and it is insane how many things it will interpret as 'cancel that timer'
- I asked it to start an indoor pool workout today on my watch. It transcribed it properly, and started an 'Other' workout. This is worse than just saying, "I don't understand"
- It is deeply obnoxious when I ask for a detailed weather report for Siri to just say, "it's partly cloudy today," or something equally terse. There is an incantation that does even
Pluggable (Score:2)
Actually had this conversation recently.
ios has pluggable keyboards. Why not have pluggable AI?
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I actually think this is the ONLY way for Apple to come out ahead in this AI era. Don't spend money on data centres and huge training budgets, let some other sucker do that work for you, and let people pick whichever one they want. Look how badly Microsoft is doing. Hemorrhaging cash on a service that everyone knows is vastly inferior to nearly everything else out there.
Apple had a lot of hubris coming into this, but I think it may have accidentally saved them.
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No one needs AI on their phone (Score:2)
Lawsuits are coming (Score:2)
Gemini doesn't know facts (Score:2)
I'm not very forgiving of lack of basic knowledge. When I asked Gemini to contrast different general vs a specialty detergent, it revealed that it thinks* laundry detergent is based on SLS. I of course forgive my peers for not having the basic knowledge of every field, but for an LLM it means none if its knowledge can be trusted. If it had the concept of confidence built into its training or operation this wouldn't be a problem. But LLMs blather on with total confidence.
*Don't pretend I'm talking about cons