Apple, Google in talks to bring Gemini AI to iPhones: Report

By Emre Basaran

ISTANBUL (AA) - Cupertino-based tech giant Apple is in talks with Google to bring Gemini artificial intelligence (AI) engine to iPhones, a Bloomberg report said on Monday.

According to the report, the iPhone maker recently also had discussions with OpenAI, the developer of the immensely popular ChatGPT, for a possible licensing of their AI model.

If a deal on Gemini is reached, the two companies’ long-running partnership will deepen even though they will continue to rival each other in the smartphone realm with their Android and iOS operating systems.

Despite being direct competitors there, Google and Apple have had a mutualistic relationship as the former pays the latter billions of dollars every year to keep Google Search as the default in iPhones’ Safari browsers.

Being a secretive company, Apple has not so far talked about its own work on AI engines but has clearly fallen behind in the AI race despite massively popularizing it with the release of the iPhone 4S, which came packed with AI-based virtual assistant Siri in late 2011.

After 13 years, the capabilities of Siri have seen only an incremental increase while Google Assistant has proven to be invaluable for Android users.

A report by 9To5Mac news website claimed that the Siri code “is now a mess” beyond salvage due to the fact that Apple has kept its original code and only made additions to it after acquiring the namesake app – rather than “actually working on a new version of it.”

“The result is that the Siri code is now a mess, and what many sources say is that no one at Apple really wants to be the one to change it,” 9To5Mac’s Filipo Esposito said in the report.