Commentary: Apple's use of Google's Gemini is logical and a sign of desperation
The iPhone manufacturer is failing to develop competitive AI models. Of all companies, Google is providing the breakthrough. What does this mean?
Apple and Google: Partners and rivals.
(Image: Koshiro K / Shutterstock / Bearbeitung heise medien)
Apple's approach to AI has seemed helpless for a long time. As a reminder, as early as the summer of 2024 – and even that was years too late – the company presented Apple Intelligence. At the time, it was said that the tools like Writing Tools or image generators (Genmoji and Image Playground), available in English in the same year, were just the beginning, and a context-sensitive Siri with app control was on its way. This then, despite embarrassing TV commercials for unreleased features, simply didn't arrive because the system did not meet Apple's internal quality criteria.
Shouting at Siri
And even today, in the spring of 2025, Siri still works as if it had hardly been improved since 2011. You regularly have to waste a lot of time for the voice assistant to process simple requests. On iPhone, iPad, and Mac, it has indeed improved through the integration of ChatGPT, but one would like to see such services directly from Apple. But as it now turns out, the company simply cannot do it. It has therefore decided to switch to Google's Gemini base model – at least in the medium term.
Now one could say that this is only logical. Apple has been working with Google for the Safari search for a long time and earns a lot of money from it. Now some money – or another counter-deal – is going back to Google. Apple has already assured that it wants to run Gemini on its cloud technology (plus probably also locally on iPhone & Co.) and that the internet giant will not receive any data.
AI Experts Dismiss It
Market observers praise Apple for not (or only slightly) participating in the current AI bubble, which could cost Meta, Microsoft & Co. a lot of money if it bursts. Others, in turn, say that this is all part of Apple's usual strategy of waiting until others introduce new technology and then making it a mass product with significant improvements.
That may be fundamentally true. But it doesn't fit with Apple making bold AI announcements regarding context-sensitive Siri, only to retract them again. At the same time, there have been rumblings internally for many months. Apple has lost numerous experts in the AI field, right up to the management level. Good: Meta and others also spent crazy sums on it. But such departures always reveal a form of pressure to leave. Was Apple simply too hesitant in terms of AI? Was John Giannandrea, the now-fired AI chief, the right man despite his Google roots?
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At least No Losses
We will only have the answers to such questions in the coming years. The fact that Apple is now officially turning to Google Gemini is indeed a sign of desperation for a company that has committed itself to innovation. Of course, work on its technology continues internally; some analysts even believe that Gemini is just a stopgap, a “holdover” until something better comes along. But the base model is so good that Apple will likely take years to catch up, especially with a further hesitant course.
At least Apple is apparently not incurring financial losses due to AI. Unlike the billions of sums lost at OpenAI, Anthropic, but certainly also at Meta, Google, and possibly Microsoft, because the subscription fees for chatbots and the like do not cover the costs, Apple Intelligence is likely to be a bargain.
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