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Apple Is in Talks to Let Google's Gemini Power iPhone Generative AI Features
- minimaxir 3y agoNeither Google nor OpenAI's infra could handle the potential scale of Apple's userbase, given the scaling issues both companies are having. Even Google doesn't have enough GPUs.
- panarky 3y agoGemini doesn't run on GPUs, it runs on Google's custom TPU silicon. The TPU v4 was already competitive with Nvidia, and the new v5p is 2.4 times faster and more power efficient than v4.
- minimaxir 3y agoThat may be true: the economics of TPUs are more complicated but they certainly aren't as much in demand.
- echelon 3y ago> aren't as much in demand. Google gets to manufacture that demand at scale.
- TwentyPosts 3y agoThat's primarily just because Google is doing a poor job offering them to people. Bad documentation, and few trust Google enough to want to tie themselves to Google's trusted hardware. Also, Google is using all these TPUs for their own training and inference at the moment.
- saberience 3y agoDo you have a solid source for this claim? Everything I have read/heard tells me that companies would much, much rather have access to Nvidia chips than Googles TPUs.
- pkaye 3y agoI think there are different size Gemini models and some of them can fit on a phone with TPUs or similar and since each user will use their own phone, it offloads the computation.
- mupuff1234 3y agoBecause TPUs are aimed at Google workloads so probably not as easy to work with outside of Google.
- dagmx 3y agoNVIDIA chips are better for training due to the sheer prevalence of CUDA and NVIDIA being ahead of the curve in providing data centre hardware to scale up. They’re also not keeping stuff for just themselves. When it comes to inference, most of that isn’t really relevant. TPUs or any other specialized hardware will have a higher ROI. But Google aren’t giving them to others either I know you’re asking for a link, but it’s not really something other than Google can prove. However it is a reasonable extrapolation for anyone familiar with the product space to make.
- pjmlp 3y agoThe scale of 30% of world's mobile phone versus Google's 70% Android market share, or the 10% of desktop/laptop market versus 72% from Windows?
- microtonal 3y agoBut currently only a small subset of Android devices come with all of Google’s current phone AI features out of the box, Pixel 8 Pro and the Samsung S24 lineup. You can install the Gemini app on other phones, but last time I checked the install counts, it’s only a small percentage of the Android user base. (I’d also be surprised if a large population would be willing to pay the $20 monthly Google One tier to use Gemini for private use.)
- addandsubtract 3y agoI can't even use text summarization on my Pixel 8 Pro.
- freedomben 3y agodo you use Chrome browser? It doesn't work for me either but I use firefox mobile, so I suspect that may be why.
- addandsubtract 3y agoNo, afaik, it's still a region locked feature. US only. Pretty convenient that all popular product reviewers are US based and advertise the Pixel 8 as an AI powered device.
- freedomben 3y agoGah, that's obnoxious. Actually that might explain why it didn't work for me. I tried it when I was in Pakistan :-P
- alphabetting 3y ago"Google will quite literally have more TPUv5's than OpenAl, Meta, CoreWeave, Oracle, and Amazon will have GPUs combined" https://www.semianalysis.com/p/google-gemini-eats-the-world-gemini https://www.semianalysis.com/p/google-gemini-eats-the-world-...
- ildjarn 3y agoPart of the appeal of an iGizmo is not sending so much data to Google. I really doubt this is happening, and if it is, Apple will be hosting the models.
- ezst 3y ago> Part of the appeal of an iGizmo is not sending so much data to Google. I guess Apple's Marketing is doing its thing once again...
- throwaway290 3y agoWireshark an igizmo and a droid and see the difference for yourself :)
- ezst 3y agoIt shows encrypted streams that neither you or I can decipher. By default, either will spend its day scraping your surroundings (wifi and bluetooth) and report it back home, unless you opt-out (which both allow). Both are equally evil in my book.
- fragmede 3y agoCan’t you root both of those to setup a proxy to decrypt and see for yourself? If it’s encrypted, how can you tell that’s what it's doing to say with such certainty there?
- freedomben 3y agoOn Android the certificate pinning makes it very hard even with root. On iPhone where the owner of the phone (Apple) actively fights against your ability to gain root, I can't imagine it's easier, but if it is I'd appreciate being corrected.
- throwaway290 3y ago
- helsinkiandrew 3y agohttps://archive.is/u3Zlf https://archive.is/u3Zlf
- artninja1988 3y agoI thought they wanted to do their own thing and focused on efficient inference on device. Disappointed to hear this...
- timetopay 3y agoThe article is pretty clear that it's going to be a service offered as a secondary option instead of core functionality. >Apple is preparing new capabilities as part of iOS 18 — the next version of the iPhone operating system — based on its own AI models. But those enhancements will be focused on features that operate on its devices, rather than ones delivered via the cloud. So Apple is seeking a partner to do the heavy lifting of generative AI, including functions for creating images and writing essays based on simple prompts.
- helsinkiandrew 3y agoI don't think this excludes doing their own thing. It would be in the Apple playbook to have more than one team working on different approaches internally and still negotiate with Google about a possible partnership. I can't see how they can delivery 'thoughtful integration' with the Apple services when work is being done on Googles servers, but perhaps the "efficient inference on device" (which could be the biggest product leap for Apple since the iPhone) is taking too long and they need a stop gap to stop the downward pressure on their shareprice.
- heisenzombie 3y agoI feel like it will certainly need to be a hybrid approach for the moment. They’ll get a long way running small highly specific and tuned models locally on the neural engine for a lot of stuff. But, at some point, people are going to expect to ask questions and have something in the league of a Mistral/Claude/ChatGPT talk back and that’s just not possible with today’s hardware. Over time I expect more and more of that will get moved locally, and less will hit the “escape hatch” of throwing things to a giant LLM. If they end up renting rather than building that capability, it says to me that they’re betting on being able to move most of that locally to the phone on a relatively short time horizon, which is interesting.
- CTDOCodebases 3y agoImagine a world where every phone gets turned into a useful digital assistant that can order things for us online via APIs. I wonder if Amazon is ready for this.
- helsinkiandrew 3y ago> Imagine a world where every phone gets turned into a useful digital assistant that can order things for us online via APIs. I wonder if Amazon is ready for this. Due to its size and infrastructure Amazon has advantages of choice, price, delivery and service. No digital (or human) assistant is going to be able to find a better deals on most items and then negotiate for it to be delivered tomorrow, free or cheaply, with a fairly good, no quibble, return policy.
- CSMastermind 3y agoI think the more interesting world is where AI assistants overtake the GUI as the primary interface for many operating system functions. It's my belief that the lasting innovation of LLMs will be finally making voice a true first order interface for our computers. "We'll just be talking to them" is something I've heard since the 90s and it seems like we can finally see that reality on the horizon.
- idle_zealot 3y agoThat sounds endlessly frustrating. Imagine trying to use your computer and the primary way to accomplish anything is to convince/prompt-engineer some two-bit LLM into doing it. First you have to convince it that what you're doing is ethical and doesn't violate its safety guidelines, then you have to get it to actually translate your natural language into the actions you want to perform, which will be more difficult the less common those actions are, and finally you need to check its action plan for any subtle errors or misinterpretation. It would be like operating a computer by way of a phone call with an annoying relative who doesn't quite know how to use one. This will be the case until we have AI agents that are as intelligent and competent as a top-percentile human personal assistant. At the point where that's possible though, I doubt the future of phone interfaces will be the most interesting change.
- chocoboaus2 3y agoIf Apple uses a third party to provide this what the heck has the Siri team been doing the last five years?
- vbezhenar 3y agoApple put themselves in the corner with their privacy-first approach and local computations. To evolve AI you need to get all the data you can. It’s unsurprising that Apple progress was slow. And now they will pay to the Google who doesn’t hesitate to extract data from the users.
- xcv123 3y agoThat's not the issue. LLMs are not trained on whatever crap you can scrape from users text messages or emails. That is relatively useless for training.
- Rinzler89 3y agoThis. People are just trying to make excuses for apple's failure. "They're failing because they're soooo privacy conscious"
- xcv123 3y agoIs Apple really failing? $30B net profit per quarter. Who knows what they are researching behind the scenes. They can afford to hire any top AI researchers. Siri is optimized for cost and performance on small devices. Works very well considering that it runs locally on the iPhone hardware.
- c0wb0yc0d3r 3y agoWouldn't the issue be Gemini would need access to the users personal information in order to act on it? Yes there are applications where this wouldn't be needed, but I can't help but think that the number one application of ai would be adding to the capabilities of the personal assistant. To me a personal assistant that couldn't draw on the context of my location, calendar, or communications wouldn't be much improvement. If you believe the memes, Siri is already quite capable of searching Google for you.
- bugglebeetle 3y ago> Gemini has captured the imagination of consumers and businesses Citation needed. I’m fairly certain this is all about scale. OpenAI and Anthropic have obvious capacity issues and Apple obviously doesn’t want to get in bed with Microsoft. It’s a smart bet short term if they get data on what people are actually doing with Gemini.
- panarky 3y agoGoogle's strengths fit well with Apple's weaknesses and vice versa. Seems like a recipe for a strong partnership. It will make both companies better.
- microtonal 3y agoI think Google is just being pragmatic. Monthly income from use of their models is monthly income that does not go to OpenAI and others. They also partnered with Samsung for the AI features on the S24, which will initially be free, but subscription-based somewhere in 2025.
- freedomben 3y agodo you think this is really an Apple weakness? Or do you think this is just a stopgap measure while they polish their homegrown stuff? I can't imagine Apple doesn't release an iphone with special hardware running AI locally in the medium or long-term.
- mugivarra69 3y agoamazon is the only mofo who can handle it beside msft.
- Temporary_31337 3y agoUpon news like that I’d be shorting Apple. Seriously all these billions and zero in house models?
- eli 3y agoWhy is it different than web search? Surely Apple could build a search engine if they wanted to.
- resource_waste 3y ago[flagged]
- gman83 3y agoI don't see why everyone is so surprised by this. Google already provides the default search engine for iOS, and it's clear that Apple's on-device stuff is going to be years away. They don't have the infrastructure to do this themselves either, so they're going to need a partner. Steve Jobs always saw Apple and Google as natural partners, he just couldn't get over that Google launched Android. I think Apple by now realizes that Android was a necessary defensive play by Google aimed not at them, but at Microsoft, so maybe this partnership could be revived. Probably going to be more difficult now in the current regulatory environment, however.
- seydor 3y agoThis is very surprising. Stability AI can do this with 100M total funding. Apple is a 3 trillion dollar company. Sounds incompetent
- sa-code 3y agoMistral has less than 50 people and they're less than a year old
- kristiandupont 3y agoEvery product that any company needs is a choice between source/create. It's not more "competent" to build everything in house.
- ezst 3y agoOr maybe Apple doesn't want to touch that mess of a copyright and IP infringing hellhole and subcontracting is the smart move?
- throwaway290 3y agoThat would also explain why they didn't pick something like Mistral or Stability. Newcomer with no strong legal dept can easily be tanked if people catch on that training infringes and legal winds change. Google is less likely to fail catastrophically when it comes to that.
- camdenlock 3y agoThis is fine as long as they’re licensing model weights that each phone can use for local inference. Any other case: NOPE
- saberience 3y agoApple sending my data to Google would be one of the few actions they could take to make me consider going through the pain necessary to leave their ecosystem.
- Voultapher 3y agoAnd switch to Google's Android? Are there other reasonable options?
- Rinzler89 3y agoSwitch to Non-Google Android.
- ezst 3y agoThey take billions a year to do that with your search, and have been at it for decades. They collect the same amount, if not more, of personal data. I really don't see why people elevate Apple to higher standards there. Because they also sell high margin gadgets? They are a for profit, sit on a goldmine, and implement as many lock-in patterns to make sure you can't self host/escape this collection.
- Eudaimion 3y agoI am surprised that people are surprised about this. iCloud runs mostly on GCP. All of the storage in iCloud relies on Google Cloud Storage. PS. This is the reason why many people call Vercel, the Apple of the dev world. Vercel offers services that have great user experience, but under the hood are mostly wrapped AWS services.
- rallyforthesun 3y agoIf AI features on mobiles get that important, like websearch was for the internet. Why should i buy an apple product if it uses the same assistant (or worse, as it runs native in the android world?) edit typo
- wklauss 3y agoBetter integration? nicer or more powerful device? som exclusive apps or servcies? Same as today... Android phones do most of the same things an iPhone does but people who choose iPhone have their reasons to do so.
- rwc 3y agoThis is such a dramatic turnaround from the way Apple has positioned itself in the last few years you have to really wonder about their confidence level for in-house AI efforts. An alternative read is that AI in its current form can produce such unpredictable results they're content for now to use Google as a scapegoat for any oddities.
- dkrich 3y agoThis seems asymmetrically good for Google, less so for Apple. If Gemini proves to be an indispensable feature embedded in future iPhones it assists Google in branding and fine tuning. Meanwhile Google can do the same Android and lock down certain features for iPhone users
- mark_l_watson 3y agoIf Apple were to partner with anyone, I would suggest Perplexity, unless there is something about the way Perplexity operates, its business model, etc. that may make it an unstable partner down the road. Perplexity does have good competition in the ‘better web’ product space, but for right now Perplexity just makes searching and exploring more fun. For a few years, I think Apple would do well to have Siri partially wrap Perplexity services as appropriate. Long term, I hope Apple does everything on device with their own models with firm privacy guarantees.
- blisterpeanuts 3y agoAfter Gemini's embarrassing "woke images" debacle last month, probably a lot of people wouldn't want it on their phones, nor on their desktops/laptops. Until Gemini is cleaned up and all the political biases removed, it's a tainted product, at least among a lot of vocal influencers, if not the masses.
- freedomben 3y agoI don't know anybody not in the tech world who even knows about that, let alone would care enough to change their platform. My guess is pretty much all average consumers, and 80% of technical consumers, don't care at best and actively applaud Gemini at worst. I doubt this is a problem at all
- tharne 3y ago>I don't know anybody not in the tech world who even knows about that There's a headline about it right on the landing page of today's NYPost, so by now quite a few folks know about it.
- prossercj 3y agoNo one seems to have mentioned what is most obvious to me about this: if this goes through, Google will corner the market on mobile (on-device) AI. They already have Android users, this would give them iOS users too. Not a large market right now, but the way things are heading it could prove significant in the future.
- freedomben 3y agoDo you think regulators will allow this? I tend to think not. Especially with the mega-attention in place now. But that said, Google has played Gemini politically very well. "The other AI options aren't safe" is a message that regulators love to hear.
- nojvek 3y agoThey bought 30+ AI startups, all that for nought? Even Twitter got in the game and made Grok. Wow! So unambitious coming from Apple.