[HN Gopher] Apple reveals new AI architecture built around Googl...
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Apple reveals new AI architecture built around Google Gemini models
Author : unclefuzzy
Score : 486 points
Date : 2026-06-08 19:14 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.macrumors.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.macrumors.com)
| bensyverson wrote:
| I would love to learn more about what's actually powering Apple
| Intelligence now. Are they using flagship Gemini models behind
| their own prompts? Fine-tuning? Pre-training their own models
| based on Gemini?
|
| Is there a meaningful distinction between the Gemini-powered
| models and Apple Foundation Models? Does that distinction vary
| for on-device vs hosted models? Are some models running on
| Apple's Private Cloud Compute and others running on Google iron?
|
| _Edit: they elaborated significantly in a "keynote tech-talk":
| [0]_
|
| According to Apple, there are five models:
|
| _On-Device_
|
| - AFM Core: Dense architecture; the standard next-gen on-device
| model
|
| - AFM Core Advanced: Sparse architecture, natively multimodal;
| enables features like image understanding and expressive voices
|
| _Private Cloud Compute_
|
| - AFM Cloud: Workhorse server model optimized for latency and
| cost
|
| - AFM Cloud Image: Image generation and editing
|
| - AFM Cloud Pro: Most capable model, Gemini frontier-level
| quality, for complex reasoning and agentic tasks; runs on NVIDIA
| GPUs in Google's cloud under Apple's PCC privacy guarantees
|
| Everything _excluding_ Cloud Pro are custom models running on
| Apple Silicon, "refined" using Google Gemini. About Cloud Pro,
| they say "this is our most capable model with quality similar to
| Gemini frontier models." So I might read between the lines and
| say this is a wrapped Gemini. [0]:
| https://9to5mac.com/2026/06/08/craig-federighi-details-apples-
| collaboration-with-google-for-siri-ai-in-ios-27/
| pishpash wrote:
| Gemini (at least public free version) hallucinates way too
| much. If it's like that, it can go very badly for Apple.
| ComputerGuru wrote:
| I used Gemini exclusively via the API but downloaded the app
| last week for something. Even on max settings, it is
| ridiculously nerfed!
| hypfer wrote:
| Unfortunately, even the API variant got RLHF'd pretty hard
| into being that dumb end-user assistant personality :(
|
| But beside that, I feel like the app variant got worse the
| day they've had that wwdc-style release thing recently.
|
| Previously it was a sparring partner that could actually
| keep up. But now it just doesn't.
|
| Truly a shame. And nothing that could be fixed by local
| models any time soon, given that you need the size for the
| (cross-)domain knowledge.
| t0mas88 wrote:
| The public version of Gemini is ridiculous. At least half
| their search "answers" are just wrong. If you then start a
| follow up chat the answers change but usually still half
| wrong.
|
| Search would be better without the added AI hallucinations
| above it. If I want an AI answer I'll go and ask Claude, the
| quality difference is huge.
| dyauspitr wrote:
| It has to be really because think of how fast it has to
| come up with an answer (ie time for a regular google query)
| and the immense scale of billions of people querying it
| many times a day, all for free.
| pishpash wrote:
| Just like search itself, caching does wonders. What do
| 90% of the people ask anyway but mundane, totally
| predictable questions?
| tonfa wrote:
| > The public version of Gemini is ridiculous. At least half
| their search "answers" are just wrong.
|
| That's not Gemini, that's AI Mode (in Search), they're
| different products built by fairly different part of Google
| (actually one is built by Deepmind).
|
| (I don't think it's much comparable to
| https://gemini.google.com/app at least in the past you'd
| get very different results)
| trollbridge wrote:
| And it's extremely poor marketing by Google to do this -
| the general perception people have is that Google AI is
| dumb due to this.
| Melatonic wrote:
| Local is probably similar to Gemma e4b you can get right now on
| Google Edge Gallery (the ios and Android app). Guessing that
| the more powerful version that will only work on the 12gb ram
| devices will be something unreleased that is similar but a bit
| larger
|
| Google also awhile back announced being able to run full Gemini
| by leasing / renting hardware in your own datacenters so
| companies can train or access data without needing to send
| things to their datacenters. Nvidia based. Guessing Private
| Compute might just be Apple leasing a ton of those?
| wmf wrote:
| Apple Private Cloud Compute is running on M2/M3 Ultra. I'm
| not sure if Gemini Flash can fit in that amount of RAM.
| NegativeLatency wrote:
| A larger context window would be nice, the apple model on
| devices now is almost too small to do cool stuff with
| kube-system wrote:
| > what's actually powering Apple Intelligence now.
|
| It's a 3B Apple Foundation model.
|
| https://machinelearning.apple.com/research/introducing-apple...
|
| If you've got a mac, you can use this to play around with it:
|
| https://apfel.franzai.com/
| djsjajah wrote:
| I think what they mean by "now" is the stuff announced today.
| bensyverson wrote:
| It's more complicated than that (see my edit above).
| pokstad wrote:
| That's really neat. I wonder if that model that shipped
| recently with Chrome is also accessible similarly?
| nsagent wrote:
| Am I reading this correctly? Their chosen cloud providers run
| the PCC stack on their hardware, so the compute provider is
| responsible for ensuring the privacy guarantees? I assume that
| would add to the potential security surface area.
| bensyverson wrote:
| Yes, that seems to be the case, and is an evolution/deviation
| of the original PCC model, which relied on Apple Silicon
| exclusively.
| ErneX wrote:
| https://security.apple.com/blog/expanding-pcc/
| wmf wrote:
| Intel and Nvidia are responsible for enforcing their privacy
| features. The cloud operator (Google in this case) has no
| access to any data.
| cubefox wrote:
| > Everything excluding Cloud Pro are custom models running on
| Apple Silicon, "refined" using Google Gemini
|
| What could "refined" mean here?
| microflash wrote:
| Not launching in EU feels like a smell. It does look interesting
| enough for me to try it out before disabling Apple Intelligence
| again.
| kmeisthax wrote:
| The smell is that Apple doesn't want to give the same level of
| access to third-party AI assistants that Siri will get.
|
| For what it's worth, Apple claimed they proposed an "equivalent
| access" framework with some kind of "trusted agent framework"
| approach, but that it was shot down by the EU. I suspect it was
| way more inconvenient for third-party developers than Apple
| lets on.
| Schiendelman wrote:
| This has been the case for quite a while. Like Reminders -
| You can't replace the phrase "Siri, remind me to ___" with a
| third party app. I'm surprised the EU lets them ship
| Reminders there.
| e28eta wrote:
| That's changing this year. They specifically demoed "send a
| message" and it went through their sample app, but there's
| a schema for Reminders.
|
| "Make your reminder app's actions available to Apple
| Intelligence and Siri by adopting schemas for common
| reminder actions."
|
| https://developer.apple.com/documentation/appintents/app-
| sch...
|
| https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2026/240
| Schiendelman wrote:
| Oh wow. That's a big deal. Thank you for the heads up!
| peterspath wrote:
| It's the DMA regulation that forces Apple to give the same
| access as they have to other AI chat apps.
|
| Once it leaves the device Apple does not know what those other
| ai chat apps will do with the gathered data.
|
| > Siri AI is private by design and deeply integrated across
| Apple's platforms using on-device processing and Private Cloud
| Compute, which extends the privacy and security of iPhone into
| the cloud. However, under EU regulators' extreme interpretation
| of the DMA, Apple would have to give any virtual assistant
| direct access to users' private data -- and the ability to
| directly control other installed applications -- as soon as
| Siri AI is made available in the EU, without the essential
| protections necessary to keep users and their data safe.
|
| https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/06/due-to-dma-siri-ai-de...
| pjmlp wrote:
| Because outsourcing to Google is so much trustworthy...
| another_kel wrote:
| I believe Google provides the weights, compute is apple
| owned
| pjmlp wrote:
| > Apple to use Google servers with Nvidia hardware for
| the new Siri
|
| https://www.macworld.com/article/3156959/apple-to-use-
| google...
|
| People have to stop thinking Apple is somehow different.
| kube-system wrote:
| From your link:
|
| > Apple's going to try to run as much of the new Siri as
| possible on-device
|
| Anthropic and OpenAI don't have edge models.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Try is a magic word.
| kube-system wrote:
| It's not magic to those paying attention. The current
| model runs on device. And gemma e4b is already
| demonstrably capable on iPhone hardware, which is likely
| to be similar to what this is.
| kalleboo wrote:
| The new model only runs on device on iPhone 17 Pro or M3
| Macs or newer. Anyone else is getting server compute.
| coldtea wrote:
| From the link "Nvidia has its own "confidential
| computing" feature that encrypts data as it's being
| processed, which will be used with other privacy and
| security measures to protect user data"
| speedgoose wrote:
| Do you know if it end to end encrypted or the keys are
| managed by Google?
| wmf wrote:
| I think the keys are directly from Nvidia and Intel.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Yes, and how does the data get there?
| wmf wrote:
| Over TLS?
| pjmlp wrote:
| To Google servers....
| wmf wrote:
| No, it's TLS to a "sealed" confidential VM that Google
| has no access to.
| sterlind wrote:
| so to translate:
|
| - Apple has powerful capabilities in iOS to enable Siri AI.
|
| - EU's DMA requires them to allow users to install third-
| party AI backends.
|
| - Apple doesn't think parties other than themselves should be
| trusted with those iOS permissions.
|
| I guess it'd be like if Apple allowed a first-party screen
| reader for iOS, so they refused to allow third-party screen
| readers.
| Schiendelman wrote:
| I don't think they're "trusting Google" with anything. It's
| a Google model run by Apple, just like you download a model
| from Hugging Face to run when you want to.
| sterlind wrote:
| updated my post to reflect this, thanks.
| Schiendelman wrote:
| You bet! Also I appreciate your edit, a lot of people
| don't understand how much benefit they can bring to this
| community by doing that!
| usrnm wrote:
| > It's a Google model run by Apple
|
| Run by Apple where? Do they really have enough hardware
| to run it in-house?
| trollbridge wrote:
| Yes, and if they don't, they can lease datacentre
| capacity like anyone else can. SpaceX seems to have
| plenty for rent.
| LearnYouALisp wrote:
| Where? In SPAAACE.gif
| ezfe wrote:
| Reportedly it's running in Google Cloud, but Apple
| already uses Google Cloud for iCloud
| wmf wrote:
| Apparently it's now a Google model run by Apple on GPUs
| rented from Google.
| bla3 wrote:
| I don't think they trust Gemini as they run that on-device
| or on-site, on Apple's own servers.
|
| See also https://security.apple.com/blog/private-cloud-
| compute/
| ErneX wrote:
| Newer one:
|
| https://security.apple.com/blog/expanding-pcc/
| ClawsOnPaws wrote:
| As a screen reader user, Apple does have a first party
| screen reader, VoiceOver, and does indeed not let you run a
| third party one. In fact, it does not work well even on the
| more open MacOS. So essentially it's VoiceOver or nothing.
| Luckily, especially on iOS, VoiceOver mostly works well.
| sterlind wrote:
| I'm glad it works decently on iOS, at least. my mom has
| little central vision, and she struggles on iOS just
| using high contrast plus scaling plus magnifier. I think
| she has just enough vision to not absolutely _need_
| VoiceOver but it still makes using her phone a
| frustrating and tiring experience.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| Try https://support.apple.com/en-ca/guide/assistive-
| access-iphon... ?
| taneq wrote:
| > Apple doesn't think parties other than themselves should
| be trusted with those iOS permissions.
|
| I think we have ample evidence that regardless of whether
| Apple in particular is to be trusted, tech companies by
| default are certainly not.
|
| Opening up access to users' private data requires not just
| any given app to be trustworthy, but all of them.
| Gigachad wrote:
| In this case I think it is true that 3rd parties can not
| be trusted with this capability, but Apple brought this
| on themselves by creating a ton of other capabilities
| like AirDrop, Airpods integrations, and apple watch
| capabilities which would have been safe for 3rd parties
| to use but keeping them locked down so you'd get a better
| experience with Apple accessories.
| t0mas88 wrote:
| Sounds like Apple PR bullshit.
|
| Unless Apple proves otherwise I'm more inclined to believe
| they're either 1. Using this to try and shape the DMA in
| their own interest (definitely not their users' interest) or
| 2. Doing something with the data that would not be allowed in
| the EU (also not in their users' interest at all) or both.
| aprilthird2021 wrote:
| > Once it leaves the device Apple does not know what those
| other ai chat apps will do with the gathered data.
|
| It's the user's data. Not Apple's. And it should be the
| user's right to send it to whoever for whatever results, imo
| koolala wrote:
| Meta would probably start a massive ad campain to pay
| people money to install Meta iPhone AI.
| FridgeSeal wrote:
| They wouldn't even need to do that. It's pretty easy to
| come up with any number of pernicious approaches they'd
| use:
|
| - "instagram is better with MetaAi: yes/ask-me-later".
|
| - updated ToS which bundles a "we'll use our own ai, and
| do whatever we waaaaant"
|
| Lying, gaslighting and underhanded "growth hacking"
| tricks are their bread-and-butter, and you can be sure
| that whatever they'd have you install would blindly slurp
| up as much as they possibly can with zero regard for user
| privacy.
| benoau wrote:
| Meta already did that, right under Apple's nose for three
| years!
|
| https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/29/facebook-project-atlas/
| Rohansi wrote:
| And that's exactly how it works for apps you download from
| the App Store. Apple even makes app publishers declare data
| collection and privacy practices on the App Store before
| you install apps.
|
| It's clearly just Apple not wanting to further open up
| their platform to competition.
| benoau wrote:
| Not only that but it's an honour system they aren't
| checking any of the privacy policies or labels for
| accuracy, just last year a whole bunch of high-profile
| apps like Candy Crush Saga and Clash of Clans got caught
| claiming suitability for all ages while their privacy
| policies banned under 13s so they could advertise and
| collect data indiscriminately.
| Rohansi wrote:
| They _should_ be checking things like that. It 's
| something that you'd expect to be covered by Apple's 30%
| cut.
| e28eta wrote:
| I think there's a case that Apple's commitment to privacy
| here will increase participation by 3rd party developers.
|
| For example, if I'm maintaining a secure chat app, I think
| I'd be more likely to adopt the APIs to share the chat
| messages with the system AI due to Apple's promises that
| the data will either be processed On Device, or in their
| Private Compute Cloud.
|
| If I instead believe that sharing the chat messages with
| the system AI would cause those messages to be sent to
| unknown-to-me other entities, I think I'd be less likely to
| participate in the new API.
|
| This user might be okay with their data going to this other
| provider, but what about the people they're messaging? I
| have a responsibility and a commitment to _all_ of my users
| to protect their data.
|
| I might not be able to control what any specific user does
| with the data, but proactively writing the code that sends
| the chat messages to this other system is something that I
| have control over.
| Rohansi wrote:
| > This user might be okay with their data going to this
| other provider, but what about the people they're
| messaging? I have a responsibility and a commitment to
| _all_ of my users to protect their data.
|
| That's nice of you but your users are going to just copy-
| paste data to and from ChatGPT anyway.
| ok_dad wrote:
| That's not your data, why do you think you have the right
| to prevent the user from doing what they want? Other
| users shared that chat data with each other, you have no
| right to that data, so as an app developer I'd say you
| should not care about the API.
| troupo wrote:
| Translation:
|
| Since it's the _user_ 's device, not Apple's, EU correctly
| "interprets" this as _the user_ has the right to do whatever
| they please, including installing third-party chat apps.
|
| Apple are just bulshitters when it comes to actual users, and
| not their corporate definition of a user.
|
| BTW, did you know that in Japan, and in Japan only, you can
| change the Siri shortcut button to start other voice
| assistants?
| https://mjtsai.com/blog/2025/11/18/ios-26-2-third-party-
| voic...
|
| Or that they wouldn't let you set default maps app outside of
| the EU: https://mjtsai.com/blog/2025/03/14/dma-compliance-
| default-ma...
| bigfudge wrote:
| This is such a shallow take. There are obvious privacy and
| security tradeoffs here. The EU competition framework is
| good in many ways, but this is actually something I don't
| think we have the regulatory frameworks in place to handle
| yet , or social norms and understanding about why giving
| any Tom dick and Harry root on all your data is a bad idea.
|
| It's paternalistic, but I agree with Apple that free for
| all access to this kind of data is not a great idea.
| Ironically, before this could work we'd actually need much
| more EU style data regulation, and more consistently
| enforced.
| Maxion wrote:
| I dunno, I trust the EU regulators more than I'd trust
| any US based company.
| bigfudge wrote:
| I do too, but in this case the choice isn't between apple
| and the EU. It's between apple and the <random rapacious
| vc backed ai startup looking to hoover your data> your
| non-technical friends foolishly trust, without much
| understanding of the implications for them or society as
| a whole.
|
| Ultimately I think it's important for the EU to regulate
| companies like apple to ensure competition. But in this
| instance, it doesn't seem like we have all the other
| pieces in place that would be necessary for a sensible
| rollout of that.
| yunwal wrote:
| what's the missing piece exactly? In every other
| situation where a company wants to launch an iphone app
| to hoover your data, Apple gives a clear message telling
| you what types of data you're giving access to. Why is
| this situation different?
| bigfudge wrote:
| For me, it's real regulations about what data can
| reasonably be hoovered, what it's used for, for how long.
| And a culture where the majority don't blindly click yes
| to all messages like that because the only alternative is
| not to use the shiny new thing they have been sold. I
| don't think it could ever appear in the US, which is why
| it's a good thing apple won't be forced to open up there.
| But if the EU does insist, they should be careful what
| they wish for and plan for the negative consequences of a
| free for all.
| troupo wrote:
| There's nothing shallow about my take.
|
| Apple uses "privacy and security" as a cudgel to prevent
| anyone from breaking into the vendor lock in. To the
| point that EU actually had to explicitly tell Apple what
| to do [1], as Apple delayed features, made them extremely
| hard or convoluted for third-parties to use, and pulled
| every trick out of the malicious compliance manual.
|
| This whole virtual assistants thing will drag on for
| another several years.
|
| Edit: I mean they show their models accessing and
| changing a password on the user's bank site at the same
| time as accessing and changing passwords on another
| random site. Which is one prompt away from exfiltrating
| user data. So spare me the "Apple knows best about
| privacy and security so they should keep any access to
| their platforms locked down"
|
| [1] https://digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu/developer-
| portal/in...
| bigfudge wrote:
| It's shallow because it doesn't acknowledge that there is
| a real tradeoff. I share a lot of your cynicism about US
| tech companies, but I think you need to be realistic
| about the state of the market and how the incentives
| align.
|
| Apples incentives are not, currently, as strongly
| misaligned with their user interests as many other tech
| firms (meta, google, random startups, etc). Going slowly
| might not be a bad idea for most people here.
|
| That said, I hadn't seen the demo you mention. If they do
| do that (bank passwords etc) they are stupider than I
| thought they would be.
| OrangeDelonge wrote:
| Apple's incentives will grow misaligned as their revenue
| from ads grows. (and that revenue is skyrocketing)
| dwaite wrote:
| > Or that they wouldn't let you set default maps app
| outside of the EU
|
| They were mandated to create a scheme in isolation on a
| deadline, without having input either from navigation apps
| or from consumers, and without any requirement that web
| browsers or other operating systems would need to support
| the same scheme.
|
| As another comment pointed out - it doesn't work. Websites
| and apps still integrate with a navigation product
| directly, rather than use this scheme. And why wouldn't
| they? Even if it was launched worldwide on iOS, it still is
| just a defined subset of any particular navigation product
| functionality. It also is just yet another navigation
| option to integrate into your platform, since the feature
| still wouldn't be available on desktops/Android.
|
| Until everyone is sitting at the table wanting to work
| towards interoperability, the feature simply can't work. So
| why perpetuate a broken chooser into other markets?
| troupo wrote:
| > They were mandated to create a scheme in isolation on a
| deadline
|
| Self-imposed isolation and deadline.
|
| > without having input either from navigation apps or
| from consumers
|
| Because Apple never asked either navigation app
| developers or consumers since "Apple knows best" and
| spent several years fighting DMA instead of implementing
| these features.
|
| > Websites and apps still integrate with a navigation
| product directly, rather than use this scheme.
|
| Because there was no scheme to begin with, and when Apple
| finally relented and made it, it only made it available
| in the EU.
|
| > Until everyone is sitting at the table wanting to work
| towards interoperability, the feature simply can't work.
|
| Yes, Apple doesn't want to sit at the table to work
| towards interoperability.
|
| Apple Maps was made default on iOS in 2012. They
| literally only implemented the "scheme" last year, _13
| years later_.
|
| DMA entered force in 2022. Apple had known about it
| coming for at least two years before that.
|
| And even without DMA that would be a proper thing to do
| to begin with which they had to be forced to do by
| government action.
| tom1337 wrote:
| > It's the DMA regulation that forces Apple to give the same
| access as they have to other AI chat apps.
|
| But why can Tesla ship Grok to their cars in the EU without
| any problems? Why aren't they required to let me choose
| between Grok, OpenAI etc or even a custom endpoint?
| dchest wrote:
| The are not a "gatekeeper" under DMA (not enough users).
| Same as macOS.
| j_maffe wrote:
| Because Tesla hasn't been classified as a gate-keeper in
| the DMA.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > But why can Tesla ship Grok to their cars in the EU
| without any problems?
|
| Simply because they are too small in user count. EU DMA,
| DSA etc. only apply at certain thresholds. Twitter for
| example falls under the scope, but Tesla is a distinct
| entity from Twitter and even if they were merged together,
| they would still be distinct services in the eye of the
| law.
| rahkiin wrote:
| Tesla is not marked as a gatekeeper by the EU and thus the
| law does not apply.
| well_ackshually wrote:
| > Once it leaves the device Apple does not know what those
| other ai chat apps will do with the gathered data.
|
| Yeah, that's the whole fucking point.
| progbits wrote:
| > EU regulators' extreme interpretation of the DMA
|
| It's not extreme interpretation, it's the intent.
|
| Just say it would break your vendor lock-in.
| quentindanjou wrote:
| I don't want my apps that have AI implemented to be able to
| read my messages because Europe mandates feature parity.
| And that's just the tip of the iceberg. For Apple it means
| building all the APIs that probably already exist but this
| time to be requested by apps, which would be a huge attack
| surface, even Apple's own apps suffers from security
| breaches (like Message before the switch to closed
| container execution). AI breaks the separation of concerns,
| which can lead to disastrous consequences.
|
| EU has great intentions, and of course, feature parity
| should be offered so that competition can exist, but I
| don't find it crazy that it is more complicated on a
| product like that. As tech people things are very obvious
| to us but we need to remember that we are talking about a
| product used by everyone.
| layer8 wrote:
| It's not clear how it is significantly different from
| allowing apps access to your contacts, calendar, photos,
| and so on. And Apple doesn't say that they merely need
| more time to properly implement it, the claim that they
| are unable to implement it without compromising privacy
| and security. And the latter I don't really see, with the
| proper set of permissions presented in the way users are
| already used to.
|
| As an Apple user I feel more patronized than empowered
| here.
| dwaite wrote:
| > It's not clear how it is significantly different from
| allowing apps access to your contacts, calendar, photos,
| and so on
|
| Those are allowed via contextual consent prompts, several
| of which are for specific contacts, specific photos you
| wish to share, and so on.
|
| Examples of the level of access an AI agent has include:
|
| 1. To read all indexed personal data from every app
| installed on the device
|
| 2. To perform actions in every supporting app on the
| device on the user's behalf
|
| 3. To read the current displayed apps for additional
| context as well as sensor data like current location
|
| If you were regulated such that you had to allow any
| organization this level of access, and if you were hand-
| tied in how much you could convey the seriousness of
| accepting that consent prompt to an ordinary end user,
| and felt that it would be you, not any legal authority,
| who would ultimately suffer the reputational and legal
| consequences for the results - what would your yes/no
| decision be on shipping the feature in that jurisdiction?
| layer8 wrote:
| How is this substantially different from Safari
| extensions that can effectively see and act upon
| everything you do in the browser?
|
| One can imagine contextual prompts for all of the
| examples that you give, like which data sources and which
| apps the AI provider is given access to -- similar to how
| you can choose for a Safari extension which websites it
| has access to -- and for how long.
|
| That all seams reasonably implementable. You could even
| use multiple AI providers in parallel with different
| subsets of data and apps, which would allow you to
| compartementalize access by different providers in a way
| that isn't possible with Apple's AI.
|
| Such integration interfaces are necessary in the long run
| if we don't want to lock in our whole life to a singular
| combination of hardware, OS, and AI provider.
| darkwater wrote:
| > I don't want my apps that have AI implemented to be
| able to read my messages because Europe mandates feature
| parity.
|
| The AI provider would still be YOUR choice. You could
| stick with Apple's if you don't trust the other ones.
| aucisson_masque wrote:
| > don't want my apps that have AI implemented to be able
| to read my messages because Europe mandates feature parit
|
| App permissions.
|
| Beside you don't have to install any third party app, I
| only have Google assistant installed on my Android.
|
| I heard the same kind of talk when the eu forced apple to
| switch to USB C...
|
| There is a real, strong, monopolistic issue with some
| American companies that their government refuse to deal
| with because it's so corrupt. It would be fine if it
| didn't impact us in Europe, but it does.
| bloppe wrote:
| The law does not require Apple to grant all permissions
| to all apps for all users. It just requires Apple to ask
| users if the user wants to grant elevated permissions to
| specific apps that they download. The user can always say
| "no", which should obviously be the default.
|
| The situation is that Apple won't even allow users to
| grant elevated permissions to any 3rd party app, even if
| the user wants to.
| msh wrote:
| But then third party apps can force users to accept this
| before they work (here I am especially thinking of school
| and work apps that people might be forced to use).
| bloppe wrote:
| Apple loves to play dumb about this stuff. The EU imposes a
| pretty straightforward regulation regarding equality of
| access. Apple seems to come up with all sorts of "solutions"
| to this "problem", and each one never amounts to true
| equality of access. They could easily just allow users to
| decide "Do you want to give this app unfettered access to all
| your device data, including other apps' data?". Let users
| decide. 99% of Apple users in the EU will probably click
| "no". I'm sure they'll make the user warnings scary enough to
| ward off anybody who doesn't know what's going on.
|
| There are 2 potential outcomes: either the sky really does
| fall, and there's a meaningful uptick in bad things happening
| to iPhone users, in which Apple can easily point the finger
| at the EC and say "they made us do this". Apple looks like
| the good guys who put up a good fight for their users, but
| ultimately their hands were tied, and they'll probably get
| the revisions to EU law they're so desperately fighting for.
|
| The other possibility is that the sky does not fall, and
| Apple looks both silly and malicious at the same time for
| ever having suggested that it would, which was clearly in bad
| faith.
|
| Clearly, Apple cannot afford scenario #2, so I think they
| will probably never give their users the actual freedom that
| the MDA requires them to. They will just exit Europe entirely
| before allowing that to happen.
| FridgeSeal wrote:
| > Do you want to give this app unfettered access to all
| your device data, including other apps' data?
|
| Which Facebook and instagram will present as "tee hee
| updated terms of service" in the first 15 seconds, and
| people will tick it, because they're not interested in
| reading T&C's, just want to message their friend about
| dinner, and aren't suddenly expected be deceived like that.
| ruszki wrote:
| Did they really circumvent this exact restriction which
| was imposed on them on OS level by Apple?
| bloppe wrote:
| Obviously there should be a system dialog to grant system
| permissions. I'm not aware of any kind of system with a
| capability-based permissions system (e.g. Android, MacOS,
| browsers, etc.) where apps are allowed to show their own
| dialog to request permissions. You always have to do
| something in the system settings to grant permissions.
|
| That's how it should be done. And that would be the
| responsible way to comply with the DMA.
| Zagitta wrote:
| Ah yes something a trillion dollar tech company
| definitely is too inept to solve!
| transcriptase wrote:
| Why bother when some round-rimmed glasses wearing suit in
| Brussels named Klaus will immediately begin working on
| the next set of demands?
| ethbr1 wrote:
| Yes, heaven forbid governments impose any constraints on
| Microsoft, Apple, Google, or Facebook, because they've
| been handling things so well on their own.
| koolala wrote:
| Sounds more thoughtful than the political theater that
| happened around banning / controlling Tiktok.
| girvo wrote:
| > There are 2 potential outcomes: either the sky really
| does fall, and there's a meaningful uptick in bad things
| happening to iPhone users, in which Apple can easily point
| the finger at the EC and say "they made us do this". Apple
| looks like the good guys who put up a good fight for their
| users, but ultimately their hands were tied, and they'll
| probably get the revisions to EU law they're so desperately
| fighting for.
|
| I don't think that _is_ what will happen. People, and the
| media, will blame Apple: it is them after all giving that
| data over because they hold it. No that doesn 't make
| logical sense, but that has never mattered before why would
| it matter now.
|
| Once Apple loses that trust re. data privacy, its gone
| forever. I get why they're being particular about it.
| bloppe wrote:
| People will absolutely _not_ blame Apple if the exact
| thing they warned would happen, and said would be really
| bad, actually turns out to happen and be really bad.
|
| Apple has very well-funded PR. They will make sure that
| the EC is blamed.
|
| Then, they get to be the heroes once the law is changed
| to allow them to come to everyone's rescue by banishing
| all third-party app access forever. They would ultimately
| be the saviours.
| internet2000 wrote:
| Yes they will. People are blaming Apple already for not
| being separate enough from Google.
| ummonk wrote:
| Yeah and we've already seen this with Facebook getting
| blamed for Cambridge Analytica.
| woah wrote:
| > There are 2 potential outcomes: either the sky really
| does fall, and there's a meaningful uptick in bad things
| happening to iPhone users, in which Apple can easily point
| the finger at the EC and say "they made us do this". Apple
| looks like the good guys who put up a good fight for their
| users, but ultimately their hands were tied, and they'll
| probably get the revisions to EU law they're so desperately
| fighting for.
|
| I'd prefer they focus on safeguarding my data instead of
| playing a ridiculous game of brinksmanship with regulators
| to make a point.
| bloppe wrote:
| I agree. Safeguarding data and user freedom are 100%
| compatible, no brinkmanship required.
| jkubicek wrote:
| > There are 2 potential outcomes: either the sky really
| does fall, and there's a meaningful uptick in bad things
| happening to iPhone users, in which Apple can easily point
| the finger at the EC and say "they made us do this". Apple
| looks like the good guys who put up a good fight for their
| users, but ultimately their hands were tied, and they'll
| probably get the revisions to EU law they're so desperately
| fighting for. > > The other possibility is that the sky
| does not fall, and Apple looks both silly and malicious at
| the same time for ever having suggested that it would,
| which was clearly in bad faith.
|
| I think the most likely outcome is between these two
| extremes. My personal data ends up sold to shady companies
| who use it to target ever more invasive advertising at me
| in places I wouldn't expect/. Like a boiling frog, I won't
| really notice the difference and my life will gradually
| become a little shittier.
| ainch wrote:
| They say it's because the EU's DMA would require them to open
| up device data to third-party assistants, and they'd no longer
| be able to guarantee user privacy.
|
| https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/06/due-to-dma-siri-ai-de...
| microtonal wrote:
| I don't see what the issue is. The user could then select
| Apple (or Mistral) for strong privacy or another provider for
| customers that don't care.
|
| I primarily want Apple to provide extension points so that I
| can select my own provider, just as I can choose where to
| host my mail or install another app as my instant messenger.
|
| Sure, I could install another provider's app, but it wouldn't
| have the same integrations, similar to how an instant
| messaging app would be less useful if notifications were
| limited to iMessage.
| speedgoose wrote:
| Sure.
| Maxion wrote:
| I'd love to select Mistral over Google Gemini.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _I 'd love to select Mistral over Google Gemini_
|
| Apple doesn't want to configure its private cloud to run
| every model. This seems fine.
| Zagitta wrote:
| This is moving goal posts, DMA is not requiring Apple to
| run anything on their cloud but merely provide third
| parties with same device API access.
| lacker wrote:
| It is a smell. But it's the EU that smells bad, when it comes
| to tech regulation. It's the smell of cookie popup warnings.
| bigfudge wrote:
| Nothing in the law requires the pop up. It definitely doesn't
| require the obnoxious bullshit that most companies put up
| (aka the dark pattern to get you to agree to every
| unreasonable part of their terms just to read the page).
|
| The alternative would be to just stop invasive tracking and
| add the cookie when it's actually needed.
| yreg wrote:
| Yet somehow all the government/EU-institution pages I visit
| also choose to track and throw the popup.
| bigfudge wrote:
| Yes, there's a lot of cargo culting in web development.
|
| Many US based companies also do this for US visitors,
| which is absolutely not required by the GDPR and related
| regulations, because they don't apply there.
|
| The law states:
|
| > Receive users' consent before you use any cookies
| except strictly necessary cookies.
|
| Strictly necessary:
|
| > These cookies are essential for you to browse the
| website and use its features, such as accessing secure
| areas of the site. Cookies that allow web shops to hold
| your items in your cart while you are shopping online are
| an example of strictly necessary cookies. These cookies
| will generally be first-party session cookies.
|
| https://gdpr.eu/cookies/
|
| You don't need consent for MOST reasonable uses of
| cookies. If compliance theatre wasn't such an industry
| the web would be a lot tidier and we could stop blaming
| the EU for implementing important privacy and data
| controls.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| You're just acknowledging that intent!=effect, which is a
| primary criticism of these laws.
| dwaite wrote:
| The cookie popup also more often than not doesn't satisfy
| GDPR, since the option to remove consent disappears with
| the popup. These dark patterns emerged because the GDPR was
| used selectively as a club rather than properly enforced.
| That led to what another comment refers to as "compliance
| theatre" rather than actual corporate compliance.
| zuzululu wrote:
| Nothing obligates companies to face steep EU regulation and
| fines and launch there from the get go.
|
| If anything it should concern fellow Europeans that consumers
| are paying more for less and later.
| dejawu wrote:
| It's strange to me that Apple would choose to disadvantage
| themselves by selecting Google as their provider as opposed to,
| say, Anthropic or even OpenAI. Doesn't this mean they'll struggle
| more to differentiate themselves from the assistant on Android
| phones? Thinking more cynically, couldn't Google, if they wanted,
| feed Apple an inferior version of Gemini, ensuring they stay
| ahead?
|
| As the consumer, this just sucks because it means no matter which
| phone platform you choose, you're getting the same thing
| underneath, and there's no way to avoid it (besides not using an
| assistant entirely, which I recognize a lot of people do, myself
| included).
| wnevets wrote:
| > It's strange to me that Apple would choose to disadvantage
| themselves by selecting Google as their provider as opposed to,
| say, Anthropic or even OpenAI. Doesn't this mean they'll
| struggle more to differentiate themselves from the assistant on
| Android phones? Thinking more cynically, couldn't Google, if
| they wanted, feed Apple an inferior version of Gemini, ensuring
| they stay ahead?
|
| Is it really all that difference from Apple defaulting to
| Google's search engine?
| dylan604 wrote:
| Depends on which way the money is flowing. Google pays Apple
| for default search engine. Is Google paying Apple for using
| Gemini? That feels like a much heavier investment if they are
| dwaite wrote:
| > Is it really all that difference from Apple defaulting to
| Google's search engine?
|
| Not really, because the business model isn't there (at least
| not in this iteration.
|
| 1. The models are Apple models, co-developed with Google.
| They are not white-label Gemini.
|
| 2. There's not currently a Google failover or UX
|
| 3. Because of that, there's no user monetization to share.
|
| Apple does have a ChatGPT integration, with failover UX, and
| with a suspected revenue share deal. However, one could see
| this deal in a precarious situation, since at the time it
| started it was expected Apple would not focus much at all on
| a model capable with world knowledge.
| Danox wrote:
| Yes, Google can do that just like Intel, Samsung, Nvidia or
| Qualcomm yes Google can drag their feet, we know in the end
| it will all lead to tears and then they will separate.
| slopinthebag wrote:
| The differentiation is the integration, not the model itself
| which is mostly fungible. And afaik Apple is running these
| models on their own compute, so I don't think google can pull a
| bait and switch.
| jayd16 wrote:
| Google will probably eventually pay Apple to be the assistant,
| a la search.
| Schiendelman wrote:
| Eventually? I bet they already are.
| hedora wrote:
| This is the most likely explanation. Apple manufacturers
| some of the best inference silicon on earth. Apache
| licensed models are already 1000x smarter than siri and
| strongly outperform anthropic, openai and google in the
| 8-128GiB of RAM range. The article says Apple can run this
| stuff on customers' hardware, so that's the range of model
| sizes that actually matter.
| free652 wrote:
| > Apache licensed models are already 1000x smarter than
| siri and strongly outperform anthropic, openai and google
| in the 8-128GiB of RAM range
|
| _smart_ is a weird term, gemma4 is an amazing omni model
| better than qwen3.6 for non coding tasks (as for all
| Gemini models). For Apple Intelligence gemma4 makes a lot
| more sense.
| coldtea wrote:
| Not if the privacy situation is what Apple says in the
| Keynote. Only if they can tap that data.
| silentsea90 wrote:
| Maybe. Search ads likely make Google more money than they pay
| apple. For AI, Google currently loses money. If they
| eventually make money via ads, then sure. Else, apple will
| have to pay them
| hedora wrote:
| Apple has started adding ads to iOS (e.g. maps), just like
| Microsoft.
|
| I guarantee you Google will start letting people pay to
| influence the output of the Gemini models once they figure
| out how to do it.
| advisedwang wrote:
| Google pays to be the default search because they make more
| from selling ads on those searches than they are paying for
| the search.
|
| I don't see the same thing here. Google isn't making any
| money from being the assistant in Apple, so why would they
| pay to be it?
| tantalor wrote:
| For Google, search quality is a moat. And it's becoming
| apparent that AI quality is a moat as well.
| erikerikson wrote:
| Yet? Maybe they are but embedding adds or paid signal
| amplification/probability tweaking has already been floated
| on the market and may already be a product.
| speed_spread wrote:
| It doesn't matter if it's classic search or LLM. They can
| monetize tracking information as easily as they can sell
| ads. They'll have fast cheap custom-built assistant models
| that run on device by default, keeping things profitable.
| In time they'll likely double-dip again by injecting
| product placement in results.
| jnwatson wrote:
| Google can't track information in private inference.
| That's kinda the point.
| wmf wrote:
| Search has ads but Siri doesn't. And when Apple puts ads in
| Siri they won't be Google ads. I don't think Google benefits
| from this deal enough to be worth paying.
| chinathrow wrote:
| Maybe they're looking for stability and trust Google to be
| around longer than Antrophic or OpenAI when the storm starts.
| rileymat2 wrote:
| I may be jaded, but I do not trust Google for product
| offering stability. Obviously, Apple is a way bigger fish.
| vrosas wrote:
| It's not a popular opinion on HN but Google is actually
| super stable from a B2B perspective. Even app engine (2008)
| is still kicking.
| deepfriedbits wrote:
| Bingo. They see this as the future commodity it will be.
| Customers will choose AI providers much way they choose a
| car: taste, price, a few other factors.
|
| And to your point, Google has a massive balance sheet,
| produces their own AI chips, and is not going anywhere
| anytime soon.
| kube-system wrote:
| People are not even going to choose their AI providers in
| the future, it's going to be a part of some other product.
| deepfriedbits wrote:
| I could totally see that
| nalekberov wrote:
| I'll just put this link here: https://killedbygoogle.com/
| chinathrow wrote:
| I am familiar what Google has killed before, but a contract
| with Apple is not something they'll throw out of the window
| for no reasons.
| cpeterso wrote:
| And Apple already has a $20B search partnership with Google
| they can build on.
| create_accounts wrote:
| fair and square, indeed
| Danox wrote:
| Google was the right choice stability and it only cost Apple
| $1 billion per year that's pretty much of a no-brainer, and
| with Apple's history, they probably will use Gemini for as
| long as they need it and then use their own model in time.
| piskov wrote:
| Maybe openai wasn't up to the level of customization and
| privacy they needed
|
| Also openai and Jonny Ive (love from) are cooking some device
| -- may be personal
| bensyverson wrote:
| I see it differently... Apple has chosen to treat the model as
| a commodity. By making Gemini an implementation detail, they
| leave the door open to swap it out for Anthropic or OpenAI
| without end-users even knowing or caring. So I think they're
| creating leverage in any future negotiation.
| t0mas88 wrote:
| And at the same time they claim it can't be rolled out in
| Europe because the DMA would force them to allow selection of
| other AI providers? Which would not even be true if this was
| an Apple product built on the models of Google, just like the
| DMA does not force them to pick a different datacenter of
| office cleaning provider.
| troupo wrote:
| > they claim it can't be rolled out in Europe because the
| DMA would force them to allow selection of other AI
| providers
|
| They don't claim that. All they said is "later in the EU as
| we look into privacy and security" after spending two hours
| saying how private and secure everything is.
|
| DMA would force them to allow usage from other apps than
| their own and other assitants than Siri, especially for on-
| device models.
|
| _Edit_ I stand somewhat corrected but it 's regular Apple
| bullshit: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48451012
| tansanrao wrote:
| Looks like the problem with DMA has more to do with giving
| full access to other providers outside of the on-device +
| private cloud compute architecture. The way I interpret the
| newsroom post [1], Apple doesn't want to give third-party
| providers full access to user data when the third-party
| providers cannot run on private cloud compute for privacy
| reasons, but the EU wants them to offer the choice anyway.
|
| [1]: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/06/due-to-dma-
| siri-ai-de...
| matthewfcarlson wrote:
| There's a post here:
| https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/06/due-to-dma-siri-ai-
| de...
|
| Take it with a grain of salt but I don't think it's other
| AI providers that Apple is upset about. The DMA would
| require users to be able install any openclaw like thing
| onto their device with access to everything that Siri can
| access today. There are all sorts of arguments to be made
| here but I can understand why Apple feels this way and
| wants to offer a good experience here.
| Gigachad wrote:
| Undoubtedly Meta would install themselves as an "AI
| agent" and then just scrape your whole device for data
| they can use.
| troupo wrote:
| What good experience? Siri has sucked for over 10 years,
| completely degrading in the last few, with no way to
| change it to a more capable assistant.
|
| Apple doesn't care about "offering a good experience".
| Apple cares about vendor lock in. It pisses off even me,
| a long-time (18 years and counting) Apple user.
| camillomiller wrote:
| It's a bit like when Steve Jobs turned down acquiring Dropbox
| telling them they're just a feature, not a product
| kennywinker wrote:
| And then they created icloud and now it makes them like
| $110 billion a year while dropbox makes like $2.5b. I think
| history has proven them right.
|
| (Ok so $110b is all services revenue not just icloud, but
| icloud's a solid chunk of that)
| MASNeo wrote:
| That's exactly what a model should be: Implementation detail.
| xnx wrote:
| > I see it differently... Apple has chosen to treat the model
| as a commodity
|
| It didn't work out well for Yahoo.com. It turned out that
| Google Search was the value and yahoo.com just skin around
| it. It might be the same for Apple. Gemini is the valuable
| part, what particular device you use it on matters less.
| y1n0 wrote:
| We're clearly in a different situation at the moment.
| Google is far from the only useful back end language model
| provider.
| kennywinker wrote:
| Google search _was_ leaps and bounds better than any other
| search engine when it came along and dominated. Yahoo
| couldn't build their own, and nobody else they could buy
| from compared.
|
| As i understand it, no LLM is miles ahead of the others
| right now, especially when it comes to simple agentic
| stuff. Hell, Qwen3.6-35B-A3 quantized to 3bits running on
| an 8 year old consumer GPU handles most agentic stuff fine,
| if a bit slow.
|
| Differences in LLMs boil down to mostly the harness and the
| compute to run the models. Even for high complexity tasks
| like coding, the differences between openai, anthropic,
| google, and the bigger qwen models aren't that dramatic.
| Danox wrote:
| In time Apple will swap it out for a in house model like many
| other things they're swapped out in the last 25 years, Apple
| appears to be a company that doesn't waste money and seem to
| execute long range projects if necessary I don't think the
| Google models will be there for long. I think they will be
| swapped out when the M series GPUs get to the performance
| level they want.
| potatoman22 wrote:
| I'd wager that for 99.9% of "Apple Intelligence" tasks,
| Google's models perform just as well as other frontier labs.
| Google also has done more work on getting LLMs running on edge
| devices compared to anthropic and openAI.
|
| The source also says > The new architecture centers on Apple
| Foundation Models co-developed with Google, which Apple says
| are adapted to run both on-device and on servers through its
| existing Private Cloud Compute infrastructure
|
| Which could mean Google and Apple have trained some custom
| models, probably the on-device ones, specifically tailored
| towards Apple's hardware.
| oulipo2 wrote:
| That's not the point of OP. The point of OP is that Google is
| a direct competitor of Apple for phones / OS, so them giving
| the "key of the house" to Google is risky
| justinhj wrote:
| They already have a very codependent relationship because
| of their revenue share over putting Google search up front
| in iPhones so I doubt either party would put that at risk.
| dd8601fn wrote:
| What indicates they've given google anything other than a
| truckload of cash? There's zero data sharing in the
| arrangement and the stuff is running on apple devices and
| in Apples Private Compute.
|
| Not even Apple has access to it, by design.
| NorwegianDude wrote:
| No reasonable person relies on Apple's statements as
| facts. That said by Apple's laywers, and is especially
| true here. Apple can access the data if they want, and so
| can Google and Nvidia.
| russelldjimmy wrote:
| And why would a reasonable person rely on your statement
| alone as fact?
| kergonath wrote:
| Apple and Google have been dealing with each other for
| quite a long time. My guess is that they want to replicate
| the relationship they have with Safari, where Apple
| provides the users and Google provides the search engine
| (and money).
|
| Last year the announced they were working with OpenAI. It
| looks like this went nowhere, so it's not really surprising
| to see them try someone else.
| preg_match wrote:
| Yes, but you get less risk in other areas. Google is a long
| standing publicly traded company. Apple knows that they
| know their stuff, and that they're gonna stick around.
| Anthropic and openAI are new kids on the block when it
| comes to software as a whole, and that's a risk.
| hgoel wrote:
| They're also kind of in the same bucket regarding
| regulators, which might be something they're keeping an eye
| on regarding AI integrations.
| dwaite wrote:
| A large portion of Apple's screens come from Samsung. Once
| a company is large enough, growing your business through
| supporting a competitor of another group at the company
| could be seen as a win-win.
| Danox wrote:
| The other half comes from LG....
| chaostheory wrote:
| The agent harness matters just as much as the AI model. Using
| Hermes or OpenClaw feels like night vs day when using OpenAI's
| apps even when using the same exact model.
|
| You can even see difference in agent harnesses using the same
| model in the same company if you compare Gemini CLI with
| AntiGrav. They are different experiences.
|
| I'm pretty sure Apple's agent harness will be drastically
| different from Google's even with the same model
| changoplatanero wrote:
| At the time Apple made this decision there wasn't as strong of
| a difference in model quality between Google, anthropic, and
| OpenAI as there is now. Also Apple definitely burnt some
| bridges with OpenAI on the agreement they made together a year
| earlier.
| xnx wrote:
| > wasn't as strong of a difference in model quality between
| Google, anthropic, and OpenAI as there is now
|
| What's the difference now? I would guess 9/10 people here
| would have a very hard time telling the models apart in a
| blind taste test.
| kshacker wrote:
| Especially if you are not asking siri to code stuff. If
| your use case is still "personal context" with
| "conversation", even if there is a 9/10 difference, the
| users may see their abilities going from 3/10 presently to
| 6/10 or 7/10, and still a massive upgrade for most of them.
| I think therapy and scientific research may remain in the
| domain of frontier chat interfaces for another year.
| Terretta wrote:
| > _What 's the difference now?_
|
| Well, which ones are on my Mac locally?
|
| Which ones are in my iPhone locally?
| mholm wrote:
| OpenAI and Anthropic don't make small models. Google happens to
| already have a billion devices that would benefit from small
| models, so they made one. Google basically gets 1 billion per
| year for free*.
| dist-epoch wrote:
| Google has very good small models which can run locally on a
| phone - Gemma4.
|
| OpenAI/Anthropic have nothing in this segment.
| xnx wrote:
| Did Apple indicate they are using local models?
| dist-epoch wrote:
| > Apple Intelligence is designed to protect your privacy at
| every step. It's integrated into the core of your iPhone,
| iPad, and Mac through on-device processing.
|
| https://www.apple.com/apple-intelligence/
| macintux wrote:
| That was their original design with Apple Intelligence: do
| as much locally as possible, only invoke the cloud in a
| very controlled way when necessary.
| benob wrote:
| It may be a clever move. By using the same models as android
| (contractually?), they can compete on the user experience which
| they typically handle better than android phone providers.
| thesurlydev wrote:
| TPUs
| xnx wrote:
| What part of using Gemini do you think is a disadvantage?
|
| Also important to remember how immature OpenAI and Anthropic
| are as companies. It would be a huge technical, legal, and
| reputational risk to commit to using them.
| Centigonal wrote:
| I'm speculating, but it's likely that Google is the only
| provider who is willing to adhere to the inference compute
| requirements that Apple sets out for their foundation models.
| They are, after all, the only provider that will let you host
| their FMs in your data center.
| J_Shelby_J wrote:
| Anthropic and OpenAI are stuck on slower and more expensive
| nvidia hardware. It doesn't scale like googles TPUs.
| ok123456 wrote:
| Google's TPU and Groq's LPU are the only real, commercially
| viable ways to provide all the compute required for the
| inference people want.
|
| Just having an ungodly amount of capex by blanketing the
| Midwest with datacenters full of GPUs is a disaster in slow
| motion.
| elorant wrote:
| Anthropic or OpenAI have no foothold into the mobile market.
| Google has integrated a shitton of AI functionality into their
| latest Pixel phones. That's what would scare me if I was Apple
| and worried that if AI prevails this could steal some market
| share from me. The other two are irrelevant in this context.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| Google was likely the only lab grown up enough that could
| handle Apple's volume and requests.
|
| Apple was not going to hand over the keys to AI to just anyone.
|
| Apple is a Fortune 5 company with a brand value alone worth
| more than any of these AI labs besides Google.
|
| There's too much at stake for them to not play it safe. There's
| almost nothing to gain taking a risk
| twothreeone wrote:
| Didn't they famously have a search deal with Google (that they
| were also ultimately fined for - in the EU at least)? So
| there's definitely precedent with Google as a "partner".
| netdur wrote:
| Anthropic would never provide weight to anyone for local
| hosting
| khalic wrote:
| Gemini is better than either at multi modal, google also has
| their tensor processor stuff with ridiculously high T/s output
| they need for acceptable UX
| mcmcmc wrote:
| A functioning FTC would not allow this. Insane that there will
| be no competition for integrated smartphone AI because the
| existing duopoly at the OS level has agreed to team up.
| trollbridge wrote:
| Or... because the existing duopoly of frontier/SOTA models
| (Anthropic and OpenAI) agreed to team up and not licence
| their weights.
| nomel wrote:
| > It's strange to me that Apple would choose to disadvantage
| themselves
|
| How exactly are they disadvantaging themselves? Perhaps expand
| on that opinion a bit, and the data/assumptions you're making
| in forming it.
|
| My naive assumption is that they're going to do what everyone
| is doing: make tooling that lets you swap in any model.
|
| I don't think it's fair to assume incompetence, on their part.
| I think it's much safer to assume they're doing what's best for
| them, and it's very clear to them what's best (money, support,
| etc).
| dwaite wrote:
| > My naive assumption is that they're going to do what
| everyone is doing: make tooling that lets you swap in any
| model.
|
| They are a ways away from that for Siri, as they can't
| guarantee third party tooling meets their security and
| privacy requirements. Meeting those security and privacy
| requirements also makes it harder for a third party to
| monetize their investment or ongoing use of infrastructure.
|
| But I suspect you will see integration in other areas, such
| as image generation.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _or even OpenAI_
|
| Apple originally partnered with OpenAI. We won't know all the
| details for some time, but given OpenAI's penchant for drama
| (they started leaking that they might sue Apple [1]), it seems
| fair to sideline them as a long-term partner.
|
| [1] https://www.macrumors.com/2026/05/14/openai-considering-
| lega...
| madrox wrote:
| They tried with OpenAI and that deal fell apart. My hunch is
| that they're considering their own device play given they
| brought Jony Ive on board.
|
| Anthropic doesn't have the spare compute laying around to do
| this deal. Even they're buying compute from Google.
| elzbardico wrote:
| You can be pretty sure that Google will be around us in a two
| year timeframe. Can't say the same neither about Anthropic or
| OpenAI.
| nikcub wrote:
| Google are the only one of the big three who can tick the boxes
| on being multimodal, price / performance and having Apple-level
| of compute available
| dwaite wrote:
| Only Google was willing to do what Apple wanted for a
| reasonable price.
|
| They licensed Gemini and Google infrastructure not just for
| use, but to accelerate the creation of the three independent
| Apple Foundation Models announced today:
|
| - AFM Core
|
| - AFM Core Advanced
|
| - AFM Cloud
|
| Google also worked to be able to host AFM Cloud on their
| infrastructure per Apple's private cloud compute architecture,
| including some form of independent third party review/audit.
|
| I suspect the only two organizations with both the model and
| the infrastructure needed for Apple were Google and xAI - and
| I'm not sure Apple would touch Grok with a ten foot pole, even
| if xAI were willing to let it be used for training.
| Danox wrote:
| Didn't Apple talked to Anthropic as their first choice, but
| they couldn't agree on an amount, almost similar to BeOS and
| Next remember them?
| dwaite wrote:
| We don't really know, we just saw a leak when the deal fell
| through. I suspect Apple wouldn't reach out to just one AI
| company at a time.
| amelius wrote:
| Wait, if it's Gemini why do they call it "Apple Intelligence"? Is
| Google okay with that?
| cyanydeez wrote:
| I don't think you conceptualize Google's game plan. all these
| companies care about is b2b contracts so they can inflate their
| balance sheets because when it's digital, it doesn't have to
| actually exist for it to "make money"
| jeffbee wrote:
| If iCloud is implemented on Google Cloud Storage, why do they
| call it iCloud?
| Someone1234 wrote:
| Google sold Apple the ability to run certain Gemini models on
| Apple's data-center hardware, using Google's orchestration
| layer. Apple hooks into that not dissimilar from an API-
| provider, and then builds everything upstream.
|
| Meaning the system prompt(s), harness, entry and exit points,
| and skills. So the product is still "Siri AI", because of all
| the stuff that takes it from a raw infrastructure concern upon
| up into a "product" is Apple's responsibility.
|
| Google are "okay with that" because Apple pays them $1B a year,
| per press reports, to be.
| Melatonic wrote:
| Any business can do this now actually - you just need to
| lease/rent hardware through a Google partner and you can run
| an Nvidia based server in your own datacenter running
| (supposedly) the latest full Gemini models.
| AnggaSP wrote:
| Yap it's called GDC and I've set it up for customer that
| requires it because of regulatory compliance.
|
| It's very expensive but you got the box ready in your data
| center and is managed by both Google and partner.
| wmf wrote:
| People keep saying Gemini but it's not clear that the models
| are Gemini. They might be separate models.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| There's loads of AI features out there that are powered by a
| model provider, yet are not branded by them. Why would this be
| different?
| hbn wrote:
| I'm sure they're getting a sufficiently big paycheque to white
| label their models for the biggest consumer computer seller on
| the planet.
| simianwords wrote:
| Apple could have done something like bedrock and used a SOTA
| model but instead they are fiddling with local models or
| whatever.
|
| Also I have seen that Apple has some strange lust towards image
| generation as if that's what people really want. I have this slop
| image generation thing on my phone and it is useless.
|
| Here's what I want: natural language interaction to achieve
| complex workflows in iPhone. Example: find the cheapest way to go
| from A to B and book it using the Deutsche Bahn Train app.
| henry2023 wrote:
| Local Gemini is a light year ahead of whatever Siri is so this
| is a big improvement already.
|
| If they don't like this in the future they can just change to
| the less convenient, less secure, and likely more expensive
| bedrock + SOTA.
| simianwords wrote:
| I don't disagree that local Gemini is better but if you've
| tried it in iPhone, it is slow, hallucinates and overheats
| the phone. For anything slightly non-trivial like the
| workflow example I gave, I think it will be close to useless.
| ciberado wrote:
| I honestly don't understand how anyone can believe that Apple is
| limiting user options for privacy reasons, rather than trying to
| maintain an unfair advantage over other vendors.
|
| I'm not saying people who hold this view are being dishonest at
| all. But sometimes, to me, brands like Harley-Davidson or Apple
| seem closer to a cult than to a typical corporation.
| slopinthebag wrote:
| Because privacy is actually a big feature, many people are
| skeptical about AI and the big model providers and don't trust
| them. They're less skeptical about on-device AI and so Apple is
| pushing that and making privacy a core feature of their online
| offering as well.
|
| I probably wouldn't use it without that. It's one thing sending
| my shitty code to be trained on, and another thing entirely to
| give these companies access to my personal life and
| information.
| t0mas88 wrote:
| That still doesn't explain why my data can only be sent to
| Apple and not to another vendor of my choice.
| wmf wrote:
| Because Apple has Private Cloud Compute tech that other
| vendors do not have.
| bigyabai wrote:
| Even if other vendors had Apple's hardware, it's doubtful
| that Apple would give competing services equal footing.
| See: The App Store.
|
| The hardware isn't a real justification, just a
| convenient fig leaf.
| spogbiper wrote:
| I have created a more private cloud compute that is
| superior to Apple's implementation. Why can't Apple users
| choose my better service?
| wmf wrote:
| That would be a good argument to take to the EU.
| e28eta wrote:
| Sounds like Apple offered to implement that, but it
| didn't fit the EU's requirements.
|
| I suspect if you paid apple enough money, and were
| willing to prove that your personal Private Cloud Compute
| did meet their requirements, it wouldn't be impossible.
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| If they let me use my own server, they won't even know my
| usage patterns, which is even better for privacy.
| nottorp wrote:
| Oh by the way, who decides if the data stays on device or
| gets sent to Apple?
|
| I bet it's Apple and not the user.
| jmull wrote:
| > ...closer to a cult...
|
| When you have to image a highly irrational reason to explain
| why groups of people do the things they do, there's a decent
| chance you just don't understand their perspective. They may be
| acting reasonably rationally from their own perspective. (As
| you said yourself: "I honestly don't understand...")
| satvikpendem wrote:
| One can be rational but still be in a bubble or cult.
| jmull wrote:
| I think it's pretty clear that the previous poster
| characterized the Apple brand as a cult to specifically
| express the idea that people have an irrational devotion to
| it.
| satvikpendem wrote:
| Well, they do have an irrational devotion to it. But even
| if it were rational, that again doesn't mean they're not
| in a cult.
| luk212 wrote:
| Very Apple-ish approach to AI catch up: wrap an external tool in
| a privacy architecture, embed into the OS and productize the
| orchestration layer.
|
| It will be interesting to see if the Private Cloud Compute + on-
| device routing can make third-party model capabilities feel like
| a first-party system without leaking user context to the model
| provider.
|
| If Apple handles the Google-Apple boundary right, this will be an
| elegant move on their part, otherwise it will feel like Apple
| Intelligence with a just a privacy-polished frontend for Gemini.
| al_borland wrote:
| As someone who doesn't use Android, they showed a lot of
| integration into the apps, which I think is where the real
| magic happens, and it's not something I can do with any 3rd
| party chatbots today (that I'm aware of). I also don't know
| that I would trust the other 3rd parties with the access
| required to pull it off.
| xattt wrote:
| If anything, having Shortcuts built-in at the OS level was a
| very long play that's going to pay off.
| aorloff wrote:
| Oh yes Apple "wraps" their AI in a "privacy architecture" --
| you can't use Carplay unless you turn it (Siri) on.
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| "Sorry, I don't know where you are"
| jasonmp85 wrote:
| How do you expect to use a nav system while driving without
| voice control?
| doikor wrote:
| Put in the destination before start driving?
|
| CarPlay does not work at all if you have not enabled Siri.
| As in it won't even connect.
| 00kevn wrote:
| No sense of adventure
| TylerE wrote:
| Since when? I've used Carplay for years and I've NEVER
| had Siri enabled. I despise voice control.
| koolala wrote:
| Never enabled it or never disabled it? Do you remember
| disabling it?
| TylerE wrote:
| Never enabled it. I always explicitly skip the
| "Setup/Enable siri" step on every update.
| wuliwong wrote:
| I almost never use Siri in my car and use a "nav system"
| every time I am driving.
| trollbridge wrote:
| Very American point of view...
| windexh8er wrote:
| I am and I very much agree with you. Many Americans 1)
| have no idea how to drive with any common courtesy or
| respect and 2) many drive while texting or doing who
| knows what all while cutting lanes and impeding traffic.
|
| I literally see these things every time I drive. And I
| work from home.
| az_reth wrote:
| I set it before I start moving, and then don't touch it
| while in motion.
| drusepth wrote:
| Before you start driving, at stop lights, while waiting in
| lines, etc.
|
| I don't know how it works on CarPlay but when I turn my car
| on I have a bunch of suggested addresses (home, work,
| parents, recent Maps searches, etc) that I just touch-to-
| go. Having to use voice every time you want to navigate not
| only sounds unnecessary, but cumbersome.
| geden wrote:
| Oh so exactly like Apple Maps via Carplay then.
| yunwal wrote:
| Yep, shouldn't require Siri at all
| preg_match wrote:
| You don't need to enable Gemini or voice assistant on
| android to use android auto. Some functionality is lost, of
| course, but you can still navigate and play music.
| adastra22 wrote:
| I never use Siri when using CarPlay? I'm confused by your
| question.
| aorloff wrote:
| If you disable Siri, you cannot connect to Carplay
| artursapek wrote:
| I use Carplay all the time and I didn't even realize it has
| voice control. I just set things up on my phone and drive.
| c1sc0 wrote:
| DIt disn't even occur to me that I need voice control. Stop
| car. Enter destination. Drive. How hard is that?
| ezfe wrote:
| Yes, but Siri can be turned off from invocation without
| turning off CarPlay. You can disable the side button and Hey
| Siri while leaving Siri "on."
| burgreblast wrote:
| No disrespect for your valuable discovery but this attitude
| of "it's possible, if you do these non-obvious steps" feels
| a lot like victim blaming in UI.
|
| If Apple (or anyone else) wanted to make a feature used,
| they can. For everyone else, if Siri is off CarPlay doesn't
| work. And that's by design.
|
| Not the design of "ooh if Siri is off then voice in CarPlay
| won't work" (warnable), but punishment if Siri is off.
|
| Again this pattern isn't Apple only but it's bad
| everywhere.
| toddmorey wrote:
| I'm interested in how it feels to use: whether there is any
| context leaking, as you mentioned, if it introduces latency,
| and whether there are any pricing implications? I know they
| weighed a variety of factors, including the smaller models, but
| cost had to be a big concern, too... I feel like Google is the
| only provider giving away so much AI inference for free.
|
| This will further blur the picture about when and how consumers
| / employees are supposed to pay for AI services. For example,
| they showed consumer rather than coding tasks, but could you
| select five files and ask Siri to write a Python script or a
| small app? Will enterprises just disable Siri AI functionality,
| or will they be able to route it through their own AI auditing
| and providers?
| paulddraper wrote:
| All I know is that Siri is a terrible user experience.
| scosman wrote:
| > just a privacy-polished frontend for Gemini
|
| I'd use this.
|
| I'd rather have strong privacy guarantees, but this is still
| good.
| dofm wrote:
| Is there a meaningful Google-Apple boundary in operation?
|
| They are buying the right to distill their own Gemini models
| and run them in their data centres (or at least data centres
| they control); unless I am missing something, this isn't going
| to be infrastructure that Google has operational control over.
| janalsncm wrote:
| If Apple is running the inference from Apple iPhones and
| Apple data centers then Apple has operational control.
| Google's influence ends the moment they hand the weights over
| to Apple.
| dofm wrote:
| Right -- I suppose I mis-phrased my first sentence a bit,
| because I guess it can be interpreted as me saying the
| boundary is blurred, when what I was trying to write is: in
| operation there is nothing crossing any boundary; Google
| are not in the picture.
| impulser_ wrote:
| They are using Google Cloud.
|
| https://security.apple.com/blog/expanding-
| pcc/?linkId=100000...
|
| "Now, we are collaborating with Google and NVIDIA to run
| new Apple Intelligence workloads on Google Cloud, extending
| our industry-leading PCC privacy commitments to third-party
| data centers for the first time."
| dofm wrote:
| That is news -- I guess not very surprising that they'd
| need more data centres than before.
|
| But again there is no Apple-to-Google transfer in the
| inference in the sense of the comment I was originally
| replying to (I am not suggesting you're implying
| otherwise, obviously)
|
| But I stand happily corrected where I said they aren't in
| the picture at all.
|
| That is an interesting press release because it outlines
| what they would have had to do with _any_ data centre
| they were outsourcing to.
| impulser_ wrote:
| This is probably why Google had to rent compute from
| SpaceX. They needed to free up NVIDIA GPUs for Apple so
| they probably moved internal workloads to SpaceX compute.
| materielle wrote:
| That's not so special, though? There's a difference
| between Google infra running Google services.
|
| Versus any F500 company running their services on GCP.
|
| It's a bit whacky to think about because Apple will
| operate Google owned software on GCP. But it should be
| sandboxed just the same.
|
| I'm not making a normative privacy argument here. Just
| pointing out that this is cloud business as usual.
| Perhaps it's interesting Apple is doing it, but basically
| everything else is already using either AWS or GCP at
| this point.
| airstrike wrote:
| I think the difference is scale. This is Apple, so it's
| an enormous amount of devices. And it's a seamless
| experience, to the user, going from local model to cloud
| models.
|
| So the question about which model Apple was going to use
| and where has been highly anticipated, especially by the
| likes of OpenAI and Anthropic. Imagine if either one
| could say they have Apple as their customer?
|
| Apple certainly has the cash to burn if they wanted to
| train their own model, but it also always seemed out of
| their core competency. This is a major win for Google.
|
| So "business as usual" but with huge implications for the
| AI ecosystem in general.
| ezfe wrote:
| iCloud already uses Google Cloud, so that still doesn't
| change the operational boundaries of where data goes
| LoganDark wrote:
| I hope they are still using PCC hardware rather than
| running private data through third-party servers.
| btown wrote:
| Per that link: I think there's an interesting question
| about whether a nefarious actor who's infiltrated a cloud
| provider with physical access to machines that are
| running signed operating systems, with signed binaries,
| with TDX remote attestation, and with hardware supply
| chain verification, has the ability to break the privacy
| guarantees of a tenant with Apple's sophistication.
|
| Certainly, one could tamper with the hardware, but could
| one do it in a way that wouldn't get that machine
| immediately flagged, removed from the routing pool, and
| told to wipe its memory immediately, by a watchtower
| (perhaps even the routing layer itself) that runs in a
| separate secure Apple datacenter?
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Why bother with all that cloak and dagger stuff when they
| can just buy the data? You believe Apple and/or Google
| isn't selling it? I have some land in Florida I'd like to
| talk about.
| appplication wrote:
| Having worked at Apple, I will say I firmly believe they
| do not sell data. I worked in data science and we had the
| shittiest inference because we had essentially no access,
| even internally, to longitudinal or cross-app user data.
| Best we had was 15 minute rotating sessions for a single
| app. There are internal teams dedicated to deanonymizing
| data to try to narrow down users - if they can
| successfully do so, and relevant fields that lead to
| deanonymization get permanently purged from internal
| logging.
|
| I can't speak to the current architecture but Apple has
| shown a consistent willingness to sacrifice access to
| user data in the name of selling privacy instead at a
| premium price (you could argue precisely because no one
| of their competition have any meaningful posture on
| this). I do believe they are quite serious in their
| commitment to that, as they have found this strategy to
| be more valuable than the data itself.
| tjoff wrote:
| But sending sensitive private audio recordings to the
| lowest bidder is par for the course?
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-49502292
| zelon88 wrote:
| Spoiler alert; Google is the nefarious actor.
| impulser_ wrote:
| I think the last thing Google wants to do is get on the
| bad side of their largest partners.
| huslage wrote:
| They are not _only_ using Google Cloud. They continue to
| build and invest in their own datacenters. It's not a
| binary choice.
| impulser_ wrote:
| Yeah, but the models are running in Google Cloud which
| makes sense they are based on Gemini.
| Someone wrote:
| Google Cloud, but, the way I read it, not Google's AI
| offerings. They, basically, hire Google servers to run
| their software on it.
|
| They also (claim to) ensure those servers run only
| software they have approved to run on it.
|
| (Part of their software are models derived from Google
| Gemini, but that's orthogonal to this)
| ProAm wrote:
| But google is paying SpaceX/xAi for compute... so...
| ActorNightly wrote:
| I absolutely adore the historical revisionism that apple cares
| about privacy.
|
| Run your router through a linux laptop as a proxy so you can
| capture traffic, connect any apple device to your router, and
| see the vasts amount of data your device sends to apple.
|
| Apple DGAF about privacy, they want your data as much as anyone
| else, their only thing is that they should be the only ones to
| get it and then other people have to pay them for it, rather
| than your device sending the data to the 3d party directly.
|
| And if you think your data is secure, reminder that The
| Fappening was all done targeting apple devices.
| Cider9986 wrote:
| Apple added e2ee and created the most complete end to end
| encrypted cloud ecosystem to prevent that from happening
| again.
| DANmode wrote:
| Is that secret code for "rate-limited auth on the Find My
| API"?
| Quothling wrote:
| > wrap an external tool in a privacy architecture
|
| Wouldn't it be more accurate to call Apple's architecture data
| protection rather than privacy? As an European citizen in a
| post Snowden world I would be surprised if any of my data on
| Apple services was actually kept private from the US
| government, and Apple certainly wants to own a lot of
| data/metadata about you. Gotta have Siri listening for carplay
| and so on. I would aboslutely trust Apple not to sell my data
| as a commodity though.
|
| > If Apple handles the Google-Apple boundary right, this will
| be an elegant move on their part, otherwise it will feel like
| Apple Intelligence with a just a privacy-polished frontend for
| Gemini.
|
| I'd say this is spot on. At least if what Microsoft is doing
| with Copilot Cowork is anything to go by. Cowork is not a
| privacy-polished as much as it's an Enterprise compliant polish
| to make Opus 4.8 run "safely" in your enterprise organisation.
| So far Microsoft is winning the AI war in non-tech enterprise
| with this, especially here in the EU. If Apple manages to do
| this for the private market that will be great for them.
|
| I'm not personally sold on what an AI should do on my phone
| though. I use a lot of AI professionally, but I haven't even
| turned on Bixby or whatever the Samsung AI is called.
| JimDabell wrote:
| > Wouldn't it be more accurate to call Apple's architecture
| data protection rather than privacy? As an European citizen
| in a post Snowden world I would be surprised if any of my
| data on Apple services was actually kept private from the US
| government, and Apple certainly wants to own a lot of
| data/metadata about you.
|
| Your conception doesn't seem to match PCC at all. The whole
| point of it is that nobody can access the data, not even the
| people running the servers.
|
| https://security.apple.com/blog/private-cloud-compute/
| homelander28 wrote:
| what i think why they are too much relying on Google is coz they
| are way much towards making models open source and launching more
| much better models to public as if in future apple part way from
| google they might still have much better models to rely on and if
| we see the history google has been partnered with Apple since the
| launch of first Iphone
| nraleigh wrote:
| This move kind of reminds me of the original iPhone with google
| maps. You're competing with google, but you're using their
| infrastructure. Why wouldn't they just go with another provider
| like OpenAI or Anthropic?
| MattDamonSpace wrote:
| Are they competing with Google?
| david-gpu wrote:
| What do you consider Android to be, if not a competitor of
| iOS?
| kube-system wrote:
| Most Android devices aren't even Google products, and for
| much of Android's existence, none of them were. Android is
| a way to get ads in front of people... as is their
| partnerships with Apple.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| That describes Google's business. For Apple, Google is a
| competitor. An Android user is one less iOS user.
| kube-system wrote:
| Then it's in their best interest to enable many Google
| products in iOS to give people less of a reason to buy an
| Android phone.
| spike021 wrote:
| not just google maps but google search itself has been on the
| iphone since it launched
| Tactical45 wrote:
| OpenAI or Anthropic are not anywhere as well funded as Google.
| Apple already has everyone in their pocket via the ecosystem,
| they just have to not crap the bed. They value stability over
| the competitive component here.
| nemothekid wrote:
| Given that they had originally selected OpenAI for Siri, and
| that deal fell through, I would guess something about their
| relationship with OpenAI fell through. Maybe OpenAI wouldn't
| let Apple run their model on Apple's servers.
| ralph84 wrote:
| Pretty much all of big tech compete with each other in some
| areas and partner in others.
|
| Google probably gave them the best deal. When you're the #3
| player you'll sacrifice margins to drive volume.
| WarmWash wrote:
| Google is almost closer to a conglomerate than a coherent
| horizontally integrated corporation. The individual parts of
| Google are like Fortune500 companies themselves, and tend to
| act in their own interest.
| d--b wrote:
| yeah or Magento teaming up with the X-Men to defeat the
| military in X2. XD
| al_borland wrote:
| To be fair, with the original iPhone they weren't competing.
| Google did backend web stuff well, so Apple partnered with them
| and made nice local apps that were fed by Google's cloud data.
| The same was true for the YouTube app.
|
| After Google saw the iPhone (before the public), they pivoted
| their vision for Android (it was originally on blackberry-style
| hardware), and that's when the "thermonuclear war" started.
| Kind of interesting Steve Jobs would have showed the iPhone off
| like that, when something very similar happened with Bill
| Gates, which prompted the development of Windows (according to
| Jobs).
|
| 19 years later, it's probably time to be pragmatic again. If
| Apple isn't able to deliver on some of these AI integrations
| into the OS, they risk losing users to Android. If they have to
| pay someone for a model, they might as well choose the one they
| think is going to be best for their users. This keeps existing
| iPhone users on iPhone, and may pull over some Android users
| looking for the same features, but with better privacy. That
| seems like a win for Apple. To pay OpenAI instead of Google
| would just be spite at this point. Maybe well deserved, but the
| leadership has all changed over in the last two decades, so
| they'd be fighting old wars. Though I think they should still
| think twice before showing Google anything that hasn't yet been
| released.
| sidibe wrote:
| > 19 years later, it's probably time to be pragmatic again
|
| These 2 have always been very pragmatic. They compete in an
| area or two but there is also a lot of money flowing both
| ways.
| moezd wrote:
| OpenAI and Anthropic, despite bombastic media coverage, are
| still frontier labs. Google won't go down under if Gemini
| doesn't sell enough anymore. Apple and Google are planning for
| the aftermath of the AI IPO craze, one way or another.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| So they run on TPUs and not Nvidia chips?
| wmf wrote:
| No, Siri runs on Apple Silicon.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Thanks. That's still very interesting that they don't need
| Nvidia to do any of this. Nvidia stock has been priced like
| AI isn't possible without them.
| kube-system wrote:
| Nvidia's moat is just around high-performance frontier
| models and CUDA.
|
| You can run smaller models on cheap commodity hardware.
|
| Your phone can probably run one of these:
|
| https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.ai
| ....
|
| https://apps.apple.com/us/app/google-ai-edge-
| gallery/id67496...
| ErneX wrote:
| They are using NVIDIA too:
|
| https://security.apple.com/blog/expanding-pcc/
|
| https://x.com/nvidia/status/2064100362752294992
| ErneX wrote:
| "Now, we are collaborating with Google and NVIDIA to run new
| Apple Intelligence workloads on Google Cloud, extending our
| industry-leading PCC privacy commitments to third-party data
| centers for the first time."
|
| https://security.apple.com/blog/expanding-pcc/
|
| https://x.com/nvidia/status/2064100362752294992
| davidczech wrote:
| The heaviest models run on Nvidia
| jamesgill wrote:
| Maybe I'm wrong, but this seems to strongly undercut Apple's
| claims about privacy.
| hectdev wrote:
| >The company reiterated that Apple Intelligence relies on on-
| device processing and Private Cloud Compute, with a promise
| that user data is only used to execute the immediate request
| and is not accessible to Apple or third parties. Apple added
| that outside experts can verify those privacy guarantees "at
| any time."
| bigyabai wrote:
| > Apple added that outside experts can verify those privacy
| guarantees "at any time."
|
| To my understanding, these "outside experts" have to go
| through a vetting process by Apple first. There are no
| publicly available audits of the infrastructure planned right
| now.
| create_accounts wrote:
| If you want to independently audit it from the outside, then
| you might not be an expert for Apple
| mark_l_watson wrote:
| I don't think so. They will be running on their servers, or
| running in the future on Google's servers with privacy
| guarantees.
|
| Do you think Google doesn't protect privacy for large paying
| customers?
|
| For years I have enjoyed using Google products that I pay for,
| and they are clear about privacy guarantees.
| VectorLock wrote:
| Maybe now we'll get a good voice prompt experience with Gemini on
| iPhone out of this deal.
| NorwegianDude wrote:
| > The company reiterated that Apple Intelligence relies on on-
| device processing and Private Cloud Compute, with a promise that
| user data is only used to execute the immediate request and is
| not accessible to Apple or third parties. Apple added that
| outside experts can verify those privacy guarantees "at any
| time."
|
| Yes, the "Apple needs to look at your data to do this, but we
| don't have any way to look at the data if we wanted to". That's
| impossible, unless they open souce iOS and let people take
| control over their devices, and let people self host inference,
| so people can check that there is no network traffic. If it is as
| they say, they could let people host it without any downsides.
| arbirk wrote:
| https://security.apple.com/blog/private-cloud-compute/
| nl wrote:
| Apple's PCC is the best option for this kind of offload that
| exists.
|
| However the PCC root keys are still signed by Apple which
| requires you to trust Apple _and the laws in the jurisdiction
| Apple operates in_.
|
| Edit: for this update they seems to be running Gemini on
| Nvidia GPUs in Google's cloud[0]. How key management works
| for this part is unknown, but the standard setup for this is
| that Nvidia and Google would have keys too.
|
| It does use the OHTTP relay[1] which makes it hard - maybe
| impossible - for Apple to hand over the keys for a particular
| person's data. _Maybe_ that provides some additional
| protection in US courts against overreach.
|
| Is this a problem for most people? Probably not - but it is
| something to be aware of.
|
| I think Apple have made a great attempt to make this as safe
| and private as possible, but until we have a truly trustless
| E2E encrypted execution environment I don't see how compute
| offload technologies gets around this problem.
|
| [0] > And to bring this model to production, we work with
| both Google and Nvidia to extend our Private Cloud Compute
| infrastructure to NVIDIA GPUs in Google's cloud, while
| maintaining Apple's unmatched privacy guarantees
|
| https://9to5mac.com/2026/06/08/craig-federighi-details-
| apple...
|
| [1] https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9458
| koolala wrote:
| Don't you think there is always going to be an escape hatch
| for peoples private data? Like if you ask it how to make an
| explosive the message won't stay private on Google's
| servers? Seems like there could be all kinds of things like
| that.
| NorwegianDude wrote:
| Exactly. That page objectively proves that Apple can't be
| trusted and breaks their promises.
| thefz wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM
| ErneX wrote:
| https://security.apple.com/blog/expanding-pcc/
| 0xWTF wrote:
| Google apps are the most downloaded apps in the Apple App Store
| already. This reminds me of the original Apple Maps, which was
| just a front end for Google Maps.
| dangoodmanUT wrote:
| I'm really not looking forward to Gemini models on my devices.
|
| Gemini models clearly gaslight the user and hallucinate, they're
| also SUPER verbose, as shown in the demos from the keynote.
|
| Plus, if they're not charging a subscription for this, you know
| we're getting the dumbest models...
| mark_l_watson wrote:
| If you pay for Gemini, then it is good. I recently used Gemini
| Ultra for a month and the gemini models are very good (and of
| course, you get a lot of Claude Opus tokens to use through the
| same plan).
|
| I also pay for Proton's Lumo+ private chat and for what it is
| it is also good.
|
| The free plans from all the providers are bad, which is fare
| enough.
|
| I use Apple devices and I expect to be paying for Gemini tokens
| after the integration.
| jaredcwhite wrote:
| Why is Apple providing people with a photorealistic deepfake
| generator so they can participate in dressing down women, digital
| blackface, and god knows what else? This is crossing a line, and
| simply saying "well other big tech companies crossed it first!"
| is not an excuse.
| slopinthebag wrote:
| Nah, they crossed the line when they allowed photo editing apps
| on the AppStore which can do all the things you listed and
| more. It's disgusting.
| jaredcwhite wrote:
| That is a completely ridiculous and absurd reply, and you
| know it.
| slopinthebag wrote:
| How so? Can you not create all sorts of unethical imagery
| with the photo editing apps on the App Store? And do they
| not make the production of unethical imagery much easier
| and accessible? Which part of my comment is ridiculous and
| absurd?
| wewewedxfgdf wrote:
| It is weird and disturbing that Apple has no native AI
| capability.
|
| This is one of the most cash rich companies in the world and it
| has failed to have any position in the most critical technology
| development perhaps ever.
|
| It's a clear signal that Apple became the most incredible
| operational/execution company under Tim Cook, but lost its
| innovation leadership.
| ohyoutravel wrote:
| Really I don't think this is a strong take at all. If anything
| this has positioned them extremely, extremely well for when the
| bubble bursts and they can go with the winner to provide
| reasonable capabilities.
| Gigachad wrote:
| It's looking like an incredible move so far. They will have
| wasted no money while the whole industry lit trillions on
| fire, and then at the end they can just rent a model for
| cheap and replace it with their own or whatever is cheapest
| at any time.
|
| The users really aren't Gemini users, they don't care what
| the model is behind the scenes.
| mitchell_h wrote:
| I take it as a signal they don't see any of their value being
| provided by the models. They're strong point was never frontier
| technologies. It's always been the delivery of the technology.
| shitloadofbooks wrote:
| You don't stay the most cash-rich company by chasing every
| expensive fad and they've been equally conservative with other
| "THIS WILL CHANGE EVERYTHING" tech fads such as Cryptocurrency
| and VR. I don't blame them for not rushing to light Billions a
| month on fire like the other big players; their play always
| seems to be to let things shake out and then deliver something
| refined and sophisticated.
|
| There also doesn't seem like any real opportunity for them to
| Apple-ify this tech (any more than today's announcement).
| There's lots of rough edges and the underlying technology is
| fundamentally janky and extremely problematic in Apple's second
| differentiator of privacy.
| johannes1234321 wrote:
| They are a hardware company at heart, the do software as
| software is needed.
|
| For building a competitive AI they'd have to hire the talent,
| which is expensive and then do a massive investment, which may
| still end up far behind the competition. (See there attempts
| with Siri)
|
| Now they can pick the model they want and if time is right they
| can still build their own.
|
| In the end they still want to sell devices. They aren't doing a
| search engine (while they could), they are not doing an LLM
| model, ...
| wewewedxfgdf wrote:
| >> They are a hardware company at heart, the do software as
| software is needed.
|
| This has never been true, not since Steve Jobs returned.
|
| The heart of Apple is software and hardware integration.
|
| Hardware companies that do software just to prop up the
| hardware business do terrible software, and (no doubt the
| Apple haters gonna hate this) but Apple does - for the most
| part - amazing software.
|
| >> which is expensive and then do a massive investment
|
| Apple has $145 billion in cash.
| calf wrote:
| Well it's half-and-half, why did Apple struggle for so long
| with Siri and its pre-LLM era technology, during the time of
| AlphaGo and so forth, and then after Covid why didn't Apple
| pivot to something like their own version of Gemini?
|
| But there are lots of differing possible reasons for this, and
| I think it is premature to conclude with any one in particular.
| mark_l_watson wrote:
| I have been using their on define AFM models for a year - for
| small models they are good. Their Secure Enclave server bases
| AFM model is good, but not in the same class as gemini 3.5
| flash or deep seek v4 flash.
| tobyhinloopen wrote:
| Just as long as you speak a major language
| TZubiri wrote:
| Another one bites the dust
|
| What a blunder, they resisted AI for like 2 years when it was all
| the buzz, and now when the bubble is about to bust and every user
| has AI fatigue they decide to finally dip into the fad?
|
| Before it was as if avoiding AI was a conscious design decision,
| and if there was an AI crash, Apple would be the only survivor
| left. Now it feels like they weren't in on the meme out of
| incompetence and are now late to the party.
|
| No one can know what Jobs' stance would be, but I like to think
| he would be anti-slop
| ralusek wrote:
| When people say the AI bubble is about to bust, I don't think
| anybody means that "the use of AI is going to go away." AI is
| absurdly useful. I think what people mean is "the valuations of
| these companies will have to snap to a reality that is actually
| attached to their market value."
| 0x20Fearless wrote:
| Exactly, small edge models is the future, highly personal
| experiences, and not these massive models that the cloud
| providers currently shove down our throats. While massive
| models are useful, these massive platforms are about to burst
| out of their promises. All while we're supper happy with tiny
| 4b up to 12b models working amazing for all these "omg ai
| thinks" daily tasks.
| mark_l_watson wrote:
| I agree that many AI businesses will go bust and they deserve
| it, but the tech is good.
|
| I can recommend my own layered approach, using the lowest
| capability models that get stuff done:
|
| 1. I maximally use local models like gemma4:26b-a4b-it-qat for
| everything that works with this free option.
|
| 2. I like paying for inexpensive APIs for mid-tier models like
| deepseek v4 flash, gcp-5-mini, gemini-2-flash for things that
| option 1. fails at. This option is almost free.
|
| 3. Pay for more expensive APIs like deepseek v4 pro, gemini 3.5
| flash, etc. This option is not too expensive.
|
| 4. If all else fails on a class of tasks, then pay for
| awesomeness of Claude Opus. $$ expensive, I try not to use
| unless absolutely necessary.
|
| I think developers and companies that just cram everything into
| Claude Opus are unprofessional.
| TZubiri wrote:
| I think you are conflating LLMs with AI.
|
| LLMs we all agreed were amazing back in 2023-2024.
|
| What's happening now with AI is more of a corporate
| phenomenon quite removed from the actual tech.
|
| Yes LLMs are useful, but replacing customer support with an
| LLM that gives user accounts away, or calling LLMs on a loop
| where the bottleneck is your checkbook and calling it AGI,
| those are phenomenons that are separate from LLMs.
| skynotblue wrote:
| A lot of people are missing that Google is light years ahead in
| terms of edge AI. They've been going on about it even before the
| GPT-craze. Pixel phones have had live captions (on edge
| transcriber) for a while.
| ErneX wrote:
| Apple ships iPhones with their neural engine since 2017.
| AnggaSP wrote:
| Yet they're lacking in the model spaces.
|
| Things changed since Apple Intelligence but I was hoping
| there'll be more things like live captions and what-not than
| chatbot use cases. I feel pixel is also moving towards that
| and abandoning the old way unfortunately.
| throwaway27448 wrote:
| How good is their offline (on-device) ai offering?
| SilverSlash wrote:
| Very good. Just look at Gemma 4.
| labrador wrote:
| I've been a paid subscriber to Claude for a couple of years, but
| lately I've been reaching for the free Gemini app on my Android
| Pixel 9 because it's so good at doing searches as part of its
| answers. The model feels fresh and up to date. Whether Apple can
| incorporate that search is an open question
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| Any word on pricing for Private Cloud model usage? (It's only
| free if your app has had <2 million downloads, and it has rate
| limits.)
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| Answer: once you hit 2 million downloads on any app, you fuck
| off
| throwaway27448 wrote:
| I'm happy with this so long as the cloud side of things can be
| entirely disabled.
| koolala wrote:
| It's a little interesting our duopoly of mobile phone OS
| controllers are so closely integrated with each other.
| chvid wrote:
| Let us hope the EU forces Apple to allow the end-user to choose
| the external model: Wouldn't it be amazing having privacy first
| local models calling out via a welldefined open protocol to a
| model of your choice: Claude, Grok, DeepSeek?
|
| Sounds like OS architecture done right - screw the kickback
| business model.
| mixdup wrote:
| Apple isn't shipping this in the EU
| chvid wrote:
| Apple isn't giving up the market of neither the EU nor China.
| mixdup wrote:
| They didn't say they aren't shipping in China, just working
| through regulatory issues. I assume that means they're
| working on a China-operated "private" cloud compute
| instance like every other US cloud provider
|
| They did say that they are specifically not shipping in the
| EU because of the DMA, so until the DMA or the EC's
| interpretation of the DMA, changes, these new AI features
| aren't shipping there. That is not the same thing as Apple
| abandoning the EU.
| pokstad wrote:
| Funny, OP wants them to force a feature via regulation, and
| regulation is the reason they won't even deliver the feature
| in question. Death by regulation.
| chvid wrote:
| The business model is the reason they won't deliver the
| feature (allowing the end-user to choose the backend
| model).
| Bud wrote:
| Let's actually not hope that, and let's not indulge the EU
| regulators' fantasies that they get to dictate the product
| design of products from non-EU countries.
|
| Force Apple to support all kinds of arbitrary models? That's a
| comically bad idea.
| conception wrote:
| "Let's not indulge US regulators fantasies that they get to
| dictate the product design of cars from non-US countries."
|
| Of course governments have the ability to decide what
| products are sold in their countries and how.
| chvid wrote:
| Why would it be ok that a monopoly business prevents free
| competition and consumer choice by only allowing certain or a
| single model provider that likely gives them kickback via
| some opaque business deal?
| devsda wrote:
| > EU regulators' fantasies that they get to dictate the
| product design of products from non-EU countries.
|
| They should get to regulate the design of products from non-
| EU countries only those that are sold inside EU.
|
| The fact that it is not cost effective for Apple to design
| two separate products(software or hardware) for EU and non-EU
| is an Apple problem.
| FrasiertheLion wrote:
| That's basically what we built at Tinfoil. We run open source
| models inside secure enclaves (also using Intel TDX/AMD SEV-SNP
| + NVIDIA Confidential Computing). All the code running inside
| the enclave is open source and the client SDKs (also open
| source) automatically verify that the pinned source code
| matches the runtime attestation. The protocol used is TLS
| (terminates in the enclave) + HPKE keys generated inside the
| enclave on boot. Docs walk you through the verification
| process: https://docs.tinfoil.sh/verification/verification-in-
| tinfoil
|
| Of course, we can't support Claude or Grok as they are closed
| source, but there is no incentive for companies that need your
| data to train the next generation of models to allow for
| private inference. One day...
| noobcoder wrote:
| At its core, it's still doing what Google Assistant and Siri were
| doing since many years
|
| Not sure what extra are we achieving here
| jiggawatts wrote:
| Only if you consider Google Image Search and Google Nano Banana
| to be "the same thing" since they both produce an image based
| on text input!
|
| Similarly, Google Translate's millions of lines of hand-rolled
| code has been entirely superseded by LLMs that do a vastly
| better job.
|
| The LLM-based AI assistants are based on a _wildly_ different
| technology stack with very different capabilities compared to
| the legacy "if-then-else" logic programming that Siri was
| based on.
| fastball wrote:
| Was Google Translate millions of lines of hand-rolled code?
| The Transformer architecture was _invented_ for Google
| Translate, before it was used to build "LLMs".
| vunderba wrote:
| I don't know about millions of lines of code, but Google
| Translate existed _WELL BEFORE_ transformer architectures
| and relied on more traditional statistical machine
| translation techniques. They later moved to a neural
| machine translation technique, and then only after that in
| ~2019 /2020 swapped to transformers.
|
| Honestly a lot of us who worked in the translation sector
| remember NMT as being a huge step up and in some language-
| pairs even surpassing DeepL at the time.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Neural_Machine_Transla
| t...
| pipeline_peak wrote:
| I'm not thrilled about any sort of Apple AI. I see it more as the
| convenience of platform lock in that ideally would be in the
| hands of all serious AI contenders but we all know that'll never
| happen.
|
| Every mainstream product seems to have their own "SmarterChild on
| steroids" bolted on top (Gemini for Google, Rovo for jira,
| Copilot for Microsoft everything, etc).
|
| I'll still use the serious ones like ChatGPT/Claude as my main
| but I think these companies know that and are just trying to jump
| the bandwagon so they don't look outdate. Either way, they can be
| surprisingly convenient and make up for UI/UX learning curves.
| pseingatl wrote:
| Built around=Front end?
| ElFitz wrote:
| I used to wonder what "apps" might become in an "App Intent-
| first" world.
|
| Bundles that provide data and capabilities to iOS and Siri? And
| perhaps libraries of UI components to display and interact with
| said data?
|
| But then, if that works really well, and gets strong adoption,
| why ever open the app? What's the point of having navigation
| flows inside an app? Could one make entire apps solely dedicated
| to providing a set of data, capabilities, and UI components to
| the system?
|
| In that world, what drives user retention, for such apps? What
| even _is_ an app? App engagement disappears as well.
|
| And that's not even diving into the use-case of Siri, say,
| planning a trip across five different apps (flights, hotel,
| restaurants, whatever) using just App Intents. If done well.
|
| In that world, do most apps just become plugins, providers for
| Siri?
| MattDamonSpace wrote:
| Well, there'll always be room for people who want different
| UI/UX. Humans are too visual to ever move to "pure voice" and
| so we'll inevitably have nice screens and thus UI preferences
| (technically you get preferences with voice too but it's
| weirder)
| ElFitz wrote:
| Yes, but you can have this by providing surfaces as UI
| components to Siri.
|
| Not sure if they do that (yet), but no reason an app couldn't
| expose "Here's what you can use to present data of shape X",
| or "here's a UI for process doing y".
|
| It feels like turning the common approach inside-out. But it
| works.
|
| Edit: you could even imagine, in that world, apps that only
| expose surfaces, composable UI libraries, multi-step flows,
| declaring what they're for, what kind of inputs they take,
| and what output they produce. Without ever owning any of the
| data (eg flights data, hotels inventory, booked trips,
| financial data, etc) or capabilities (eg book a flight).
| sagarpatil wrote:
| Go Genmoji!
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