AI in iPhones? Artificial Intelligence Is the Tie That Binds Frenemies Apple and Google

tech.hindustantimes.com:

There are many reasons Apple Inc.'s stock hasn't been so hot lately, but a big one is that investors feel the company lacks a compelling “story” on artificial intelligence. By that they mean Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook doesn't seem as if he had much of a plan.

Google, to its credit, does have an AI story. Unfortunately, it's a tragicomedy. Caught on the hop by upstart OpenAI, its Gemini model is best known not for its intelligence but for its depiction of George Washington as a black man, the Pope as an Asian woman and other assorted embarrassments.  

This is all to say: the BFFs — that's best frenemies forever — need each other's support right now. They have long been rivals as mobile platforms, but news about talks of a tie-up between the two, which would bring Google's Gemini AI to Apple's iPhone, is a deal that can solve short-term headaches for both companies.

The “Geminiphone” — a nickname I hope sticks purely because I know Apple will absolutely hate it — will give Apple devices a taste of the cutting-edge AI customers will soon expect as standard and that developers are already demanding. Apple would have preferred, no doubt, to have built such capability itself, but without the huge server farms on hand to train models, it has been left behind (for now).

Google provides enhanced AI capabilities, albeit in a still highly experimental form, today. Details of the partnership haven't been filled out, and it doesn't yet seem to have been fully agreed upon. But it has similarities with Apple and Google's deal on search, in which Google pays handsomely to be the default search engine on iOS devices. As in that arrangement, Google gets that one thing it's always hungry for: scale. It might at first seem curious that Google isn't planning to keep its AI to itself, making it exclusive to Android phones, but that runs counter to its long-established North Star of simply having as many users as possible.

By bringing Gemini to iPhone, it will not only get millions more