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Apple picks Gemini to power Siri

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Re: Apple picks Gemini to power Siri

#331

Post by VirusNewbie »

CharlesW wrote: post #140
Fiveplus wrote: post #42

The writing was on the wall the moment Apple stopped trying to buy their way into the server-side training game like what three years ago? Apple has the best edge inference silicon in the world (neural engine), but they have effectively zero presence in a training datacenter. They simply do not have the TPU pods or the H100 clusters to train a frontier model like Gemini 2.5 or 3.0 from scratch without burning 10 year…

> I'm oversimplifying but this effectively turns the iPhone into a dumb terminal for Google's brain, wrapped in Apple's privacy theater. Setting aside the obligatory HN dig at the end, LLMs are now commodities and the least important component of the intelligence system Apple is building. The hidden-in-plain-sight thing Apple is doing is exposing all app data as context and all app capabilities as skills . (See App I…

          LLMs are now commodities and the least important component of the intelligence system Apple is building
If that was even remotely true, Apple, Meta, and Amazon would have SoTA foundational models.

Re: Apple picks Gemini to power Siri

#332

Post by theshrike79 »

bigyabai wrote: post #176
CharlesW wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm oversimplifying but this effectively turns the iPhone into a dumb terminal for Google's brain, wrapped in Apple's privacy theater. Setting aside the obligatory HN dig at the end, LLMs are now commodities and the least important component of the intelligence system Apple is building. The hidden-in-plain-sight thing Apple is doing is exposing all app data as context and all app capabilities as skills . (See App I…

That's not an "obligatory HN dig" though, you're in-media-res watching X escape removal from the App Store and Play Store. Concepts like privacy, legality and high-quality software are all theater. We have no altruists defending these principles for us at Apple or Google. Apple won't switch Google out as a provider for the same reason Google is your default search provider. They don't give a shit about how many adver…

There are second-order effects of Google or Apple removing Twitter from their stores.

Guess who's the bestie of Twitter's owner? Any clues? Could that be a vindictive old man with unlimited power and no checks and balances to temper his tantrums?

Of course they both WANT Twitter the fuck out of the store, but there are very very powerful people addicted to the app and what they can do with it.

Re: Apple picks Gemini to power Siri

#333

Post by KerrAvon »

benoau wrote: post #121
qnpnpmqppnp wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What antitrust rule do you think would be breached? I admit I don't see the issue here. Companies are free to select their service providers, and free to dominate a market (as long as they don't abuse such dominant position).

Gatekeeping - nobody else can be the default voice assistant or power Siri, so where does this leave eg OpenAI? The reason this is important is their DOJ antitrust case, about to start trial, has made this kind of conduct a cornerstone of their allegations that Apple is a monopoly. It also lends credence to the DOJ's allegation that Apple is insulated from competition - the result of failing to produce their own winn…

IANAL, but I don't believe either of these things is a recognized concept in US antitrust law.

Re: Apple picks Gemini to power Siri

#334

Post by [deleted] »

krupan wrote: post #268
raisedbyninjas wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gemini only replaced Google assistant on Android a few weeks ago. I gave up on Google assistant a few years ago, but I'd guess it wasn't a worthwhile upgrade from Siri.

Still using Google assistant after trying Gemini on my pixel about 6 months ago. It was not an assistant replacement, it couldn't even perform basic operations on my phone, it would just say something like, "I'm sorry, I'm just an LLM and I can't send text messages." Has that changed?

[deleted]

Re: Apple picks Gemini to power Siri

#335

Post by 4fterd4rk »

segmondy wrote: post #153
Fiveplus wrote: post #42

The writing was on the wall the moment Apple stopped trying to buy their way into the server-side training game like what three years ago? Apple has the best edge inference silicon in the world (neural engine), but they have effectively zero presence in a training datacenter. They simply do not have the TPU pods or the H100 clusters to train a frontier model like Gemini 2.5 or 3.0 from scratch without burning 10 year…

10 years worth of cash? So all these Chinese labs that came out and did it for less than $1 billion must have 3 heads per developer, right?

A lot of HN commentators are high on their own supply with regard to the AI bubble... when you realize that this stuff isn't actually that expensive the whole thing begins to quickly unravel.

Re: Apple picks Gemini to power Siri

#336

Post by O5vYtytb »

Sevii wrote: post #243
Fiveplus wrote: post #42

The writing was on the wall the moment Apple stopped trying to buy their way into the server-side training game like what three years ago? Apple has the best edge inference silicon in the world (neural engine), but they have effectively zero presence in a training datacenter. They simply do not have the TPU pods or the H100 clusters to train a frontier model like Gemini 2.5 or 3.0 from scratch without burning 10 year…

Apple's goal is likely to run all inference locally. But models aren't good enough yet and there isn't enough RAM in an iPhone. They just need Gemini to buy time until those problems are resolved.

Well DRAM prices aren't going down soon so I see this as quite the push away from local inference.

Re: Apple picks Gemini to power Siri

#337

Post by slwvx »

ipaddr wrote: post #278
IgorPartola wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the key. The real issue is that you don’t need superhuman intelligence in a phone AI assistant. You don’t need it most of the time in fact. Current SOTA models do a decent job of approximating college grad level human intelligence let’s say 85% of the time which is helpful and cool but clearly could be better. But the pace at which the models are getting smart is accelerating AND they are getting more energy…

"pace at which the models are getting smart is accelerating". The pace is decelerating.

My impression is that solar (and maybe wind?) energy have benefited from learning-by-doing [1][2] that has resulted in lower costs and/or improved performance each year. It seems reasonable to me that a similar process will apply to AI (at least in the long run). The rate of learning could be seen as a "pace" of improvement. I'm curious, do you have a reference for the deceleration of pace that you refer to?

[1] https://emp.lbl.gov/news/new-study-refocuses-learning-curve

[2] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/solar-pv-prices-vs-cumula...

Re: Apple picks Gemini to power Siri

#338

Post by w10-1 »

cpeterso wrote: post #215
runjake wrote: post #200

Apple has seemingly confirmed that the Gemini models will run under their Private Cloud Compute and so presumably Google would not have access to Siri data. https://daringfireball.net/linked/2026/01/12/apple-google-fo...

Neither Apple's nor Google's announcement says Siri will use Gemini models. Both announcements say, word for word, "Google’s technology provides the most capable foundation for Apple Foundation Models". I don't know what that means, but Apple and Google's marketing teams must have crafted that awkward wording carefully to satisfy some contractual nuance.

> "Google’s technology provides the most capable foundation for Apple Foundation Models"

Beyond Siri, Apple Foundation Models are available as API; will Google's technologies thus also be available as API? Will Apple reduce its own investment in building out the Foundation models?

Re: Apple picks Gemini to power Siri

#339

Post by codepoet80 »

baxtr wrote: post #289
cush wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Gemini is objectively a good model (whether it's #1 or #5 in ranking aside) so Apple can confidently deliver a good (enough) product Definitely. At at this point, Apple just needs to get anything out the door. It was nearly two years ago they sold a phone with features that still haven't shipped and the promise that Apple Intelligence would come in two months.

What are the top 3 features you’re missing right now?

ANY ability to answer simple questions without telling me to open Safari and read a webpage for myself...?
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