The second half of this year will have Apple as the special protagonist of information on generative artificial intelligence. Expectations have been growing in recent months due to the news that several of the big technology companies have been presenting while Cupertino remained silent. The company's CEO, Tim Cook, took advantage of the presentation of results at the end of January to reassure those who think that Apple has missed the boat on the most transformative technology for the future.
At the main headquarters of Apple Park the waters are stirred this week due to the lawsuit that the United States Department of Justice filed against the company, which it accuses of having created a monopoly with the iPhone. This is a lawsuit that, if it goes to court, will be resolved within quite some time. Meanwhile, there are other emergencies.
It's not that AI has caught Apple by surprise. In fact, it applies it to numerous functions that improve the experience of its devices, but it has apparently been left behind in generative artificial intelligence in text and images. The new phones in the Samsung Galaxy S24 and Pixel 8 range from Google already incorporate new functions such as simultaneous translation or instant identification of objects on the screen.
One of Apple's most unique products, its Siri voice assistant, launched alongside the iPhone 4S in October 2011. Since then, other assistants on the market seem to have taken the lead. Although their connection with generative AI will be what allows them to take a real leap. Among big technology companies, no one can afford the image of having been left behind in the field that is going to shake up consumer technology in the coming years.
In a recent interview, Cook announced big news regarding generative AI for the end of this year and justified the silence until now: “our modus operandi has always been to do work and then talk about work, and not get ahead of ourselves. And that's how we're going to keep it. But we have some things that we are incredibly excited about, which we will talk about later this year.”
Although the launch of some of Apple's AI advances arrives towards the end of the year, it is difficult for some things not to be revealed next June, during the worldwide developers conference (WWDC). This event serves to present the new versions of the operating systems of its devices, but in recent years it has gained weight as a showcase for great news. For example, last year the Vision Pro spatial computing viewer was unveiled at this event, months before its launch last January.
This week, the Bloomberg agency revealed the existence of conversations between Apple and Google about the possible incorporation of Gemini AI into iPhones. Previously, a deal with OpenAI, which provides ChatGPT AI to Microsoft, was also explored.
A possible pact with Google has some signs of reality because this company pays Apple to be the default search engine in the Safari browser. The 2023 bill that the apple coffers received was about 16.6 billion euros for this agreement, which mutually benefits both companies despite the disagreements they have had over the years.
For Google it would also be a blow to the table at a time when Microsoft seems to be ahead in everything related to artificial intelligence. A deal with Apple would put Gemini Nano AI in 2 billion devices. Nano is the most limited version of Gemini and works installed on mobile phones, without an internet connection, much faster than the more capable versions, connected to the cloud, internet servers. On the other hand, if Apple reached an agreement to use an online version of Gemini, it would provide its phones with even more features.
Meanwhile, the Cupertino company has a team working on developing a large AI language model with 30 billion parameters. The model that Apple scientists revealed a few days ago is called MML1. A giant wakes up.
