Will Google Gemini Power AI on iPhone?
Google and Apple have been fighting for dominance in the smartphone market for more than a decade now. But seems like this rivalry might turn to friendship for once as reports suggest that the longtime rivals may collaborate on the future of AI on the iPhone.
The Future of AI on iPhone
Although previous reports suggested that Apple was working on its own AI, it seems like Apple isn’t quite ready to integrate these features in the next iOS update.
Recently, rumors have suggested that Apple is trying to license Google Gemini to power the AI features in Siri, later in 2024. According to the same people, Apple also conducted meetings with OpenAI to integrate ChatGPT into Siri.
The integration of Gemini in iOS 18 can bring several features to the iPhone. Some of these include essay writing and image creation based on prompts. However, it’s unlikely that this would be announced before the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in June.
We believe this rumor to have some truth to it as Google reportedly pays $18 billion per year to be the default search engine for Apple.
However, it should be noted that Gemini will likely require an active internet connection as it’s an off-device AI service. Currently, most major AI services use servers to process the data. These services include ChatGPT, Bing, and Gemini.
So, to ensure that these off-device AI services work as smoothly as possible, it’s important to have a fast and stable internet. We had the best experience using Xfinity internet over the others as ChatGPT’s voice assistant worked flawlessly on it.
The use of Gemini means that a lot of user data will be sent off to Google’s servers. This poses a significant privacy risk for Apple which touts itself as being privacy-centric.
To combat this, Apple has been trying to create an AI model that runs natively on the iPhone. Because of this, the new iPhone 16 models this year a reportedly getting a better chip with a neural engine dedicated to AI.
The Current State of AI on iPhone
Although Apple is tight-lipped about its AI plans for the future, we can already see a few examples of AI features in the iPhone today.
Personal Voice
Apple doesn’t have a chatbot like ChatGPT or Bing AI. However, it already uses AI in the Personal Voice feature that was introduced with iOS 17 in 2023.
The feature uses machine learning on the device to replicate the voice of someone to make it easy for them to communicate with loved ones if they are at risk of losing their voice. To use the feature, first, you have to train the model using your voice.
The iPhone asks you to read out 150 phrases, which are then analyzed using AI to generate a synthetic version. To use it, you can use the type-to-speak feature to turn text into speech in FaceTime and other apps.
Live Text
This feature was first introduced with iOS 15 in 2021. It’s a tool that uses computer vision to recognize hand-written and typed text in photos, similar to Google Lens. The text from images can also be copied by long pressing on it.
The feature is extremely useful in daily activities. For example, if you have a handwritten note, you can simply copy it and paste it into the notes app to save it as a digital backup.
People & Pets and Visual Lookup
With iOS 17, Apple added a new feature to the Photos app that allows you to tag and add people as well as pets to the People & Pets album.
If you have multiple images of the same animal in photos, you will be able to see the pet listed in the album. You can also add a name for the pet and review additional photos. The pet recognition feature is extremely accurate and it’s able to tell apart animals that have similar colors or features.
Apple also improved the Visual Lookup feature, allowing users to look up food items, which shows recipes for the dishes and options to look up information about a subject when you remove it from the background.
Wrapping Up
AI is all the rage currently and it only makes sense that most tech companies are embracing AI and using it in creative ways. With so much potential, Apple teaming up with Google to power AI on the next iPhone can be a major loss for OpenAI.
But, all of this can be temporary till Apple gets its LLM-based technology up to speed.