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Apple picks Gemini to power Siri

cnbc.com

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Re: Apple picks Gemini to power Siri

#571

Post by willtemperley »

jedimastert wrote: post #567
willtemperley wrote: post #540

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's strategically devastating because no small number of users choose Apple because they do not trust Google and now they have no choice but to have Google AI on-board their machines. I respect Google's engineering, and I'm aware that fundamental technologies such as Protocol Buffers and FlatBuffers are unavoidably integrated into the software fabric, but this is is avoidable. I'm surprised Google aren't paying Appl…

> no small number of users choose Apple because they do not trust Google Unfortunately, it probably actually is a small number comparatively. Or at least I would need to see some sort of real data to say anything different. I feel like people who distrust Google probably wouldn't trust Apple enough to give them their data either? Why would you distrust one but not the other?

Google lost multiple antitrust lawsuits in 2025.

Re: Apple picks Gemini to power Siri

#572

Post by al_borland »

bmitc wrote: post #507
alexkundera wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple is always behind on industry trends, but when they adopt them eventually, they become mainstream and cool. This is what will happen with the folding phones this year, if rumors are true.

> but when they adopt them eventually, they become mainstream and cool When was this part last true?

“Cool” is subjective, so you can use that to dismiss any example, but you know exactly what is being referenced.

Re: Apple picks Gemini to power Siri

#573

Post by al_borland »

d4rkp4ttern wrote: post #376

Forget Siri, I have a much lower bar — I’ll be happy if they just improve iOS typing corrections/completions, which often don’t make any sense given the rest of the sentence.

I’ve been debating turning auto-correct off completely. However, the first iPhone had it, so I’m guessing I want some level of it. I just don’t understand on v1 was better than what we have 18 years later.

Re: Apple picks Gemini to power Siri

#574

Post by trelane »

stickmunch wrote: post #566
bmitc wrote: post #507

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but when they adopt them eventually, they become mainstream and cool When was this part last true?

Tablets; Soldering SSD's and ram to the motherboard. Microsoft had tablets for a decade before the iPad came out. You rarely ever saw them in the wild. In fact, you still rarely see a Surface tablet. At least, I don't.

Indeed, "iPad" is almost a generic term for "tablet," especially for kids.

Re: Apple picks Gemini to power Siri

#575

Post by specialist »

slwvx wrote: post #337
ipaddr wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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] http…

u/ipaddr is probably referring to

  1) the dearth of new (novel) training data. Hence the mad scramble to hoover up, buy, steal, any potentially plausible new sources.

  2) diminishing returns of embiggening compute clusters for training LLMs and size of their foundation models.
(As you know) You're referring to Wright's Law aka experience learning curve.

So there's a tension.

Some concerns that we're nearing the ceiling for training.

While the cost of applications using foundation models (implementing inference engines) is decreasing.

Someone smarter than me will have to provide the slopes of the (misc) learning curves.

Re: Apple picks Gemini to power Siri

#577

Post by al_borland »

eli wrote: post #46
johnthuss wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Google Maps situation is a great example of why this will be hard. When Apple switched to their own maps it was a huge failure resulting in a rare public apology from the company. In order to switch you have to be able to do absolutely everything that the previous solution offered without loss of quality. Given Google's competence in AI development that will be a high bar to meet.

Well, yeah, Apple's Maps.app wasn't good enough when it launched (it's solid now though). That feels like a separate thing from white labeling and lock-in. Obviously they would have to switch to something of similar or better quality or users will be upset. But it's a whole lot easier to switch from Gemini to Claude or Gemini to a hypothetical good proprietary LLM if it's white label instead of "iOS with Gemini"

I prefer Apple Maps for turn-by-turn navigation and public transit. However, I still keep Google Maps around for business data and points of interest. This is where Apple Maps is still lacking significantly. The fact that Apple still prompts me to download Yelp to view images of a business is insane to me.

Re: Apple picks Gemini to power Siri

#578

Post by internet2000 »

delis-thumbs-7e wrote: post #493
moltopoco wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They did still overpromise and that should not be the way Apples does things (although it was hardly the first time; the AirPower mat was announced in 2017).

To be fair, all tech companies do this. Sell first, implement later, hype hype hype. Of course we’d like to think Apple was better, but well.. it isn’t.

Apple is better though. Hence the only examples being Apple Intelligence and AirPower

Re: Apple picks Gemini to power Siri

#579

Post by lvl155 »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #58

If nothing else, this was likely driven by Google being the most stable of the AI labs. Gemini is objectively a good model (whether it's #1 or #5 in ranking aside) so Apple can confidently deliver a good (enough) product. Also for Apple, they know their provider has ridiculously deep pockets, a good understanding and infrastructure in place for large enterprises, and a fairly diversified revenue stream. Going with An…

It has nothing to do with how good Gemini is relative to others. Apple is picking Gemini because they don’t want AI to be the selling point for Android phones. Apple execs do not care about innovations. They only care about keeping their monopoly intact.

Re: Apple picks Gemini to power Siri

#580

Post by al_borland »

rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote: post #497
Angostura wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see why - iOS originally shipped with Google Maps as standard, for example. Macs shipped with Internet Explorer as standard before Safari existed

Apple ultimately developed their own map application specifically because Google was unwilling to remove the Google logo from the Google Maps app, no matter the price. It'll absolutely be interesting to see if "Google" or "Gemini" appear anywhere in the new Siri UI.

As someone who hasn’t used Google Search in several years, I will be upset and less inclined to use the AI if it’s kicking me out to Google search result pages to show results. This is what I fear. Some of this already happens with Siri and Apple Intelligence today. I’m sure Google would love to see even more of it, to serve up ads and take advantage of their new revenue streams in agentic shopping.
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