Apple Intelligence aims to give iPhone edge over others but its timeline is little muddled

When we think of Apple, we think of a company that can do no wrong. The one that is almost always better. But lately, I have been having second thoughts about it. There is an area where Apple, although it is making all the right moves — for example, AI and privacy — seems to be lagging behind. And this area is Gen AI aka Apple Intelligence.
Although Apple Intelligence was detailed earlier in summer, for users, the tech giant unlocked the first wave of AI in October, with features including writing tools, image clean-up tool and Memory coming to iPhone and Mac users. This was just the beginning. There are more features coming soon. Features like Image Playground, Visual Intelligence, Genmoji and more will be reaching users in the coming weeks with iOS 18.2. Yet, I can’t help shake the feeling that Apple is running a little late to the party, at least when we compare it with the likes of Google and Samsung.
After the arrival of the iPhone 16 series, Apple started rolling out Apple Intelligence. The first set of features was released in October. But this phase included only a handful of AI-powered features.
The next move forward for Apple Intelligence, scheduled for December, will be happening with the most awaited-ChatGPT integration, Image Playground and Genmoji arriving with iOS 18.2. In other words, this one is going to finally bring a heavy dose of Gen AI to the iPhone and Mac users, similar to what is available on some other phones and computers.
After December too, the rollout will continue. A recent report by Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman mentions that Apple will partner with Google to integrate Gemini into the iPhone, just like ChatGPT. Although it is not expected to be out until 2025, the plans are afoot.
Gurman wrote, “Other future improvements include integration with Google Gemini. But Apple will probably give OpenAI a nice window of exclusivity, especially since it isn’t exactly paying for the technology. So, I wouldn’t expect the Gemini chatbot to arrive on iOS until next year.”
In short, the future AI line-up by Apple looks like: ChatGPT in December, Advanced Siri and Visual Intelligence in 2025 and Gemini after 2025. While it paints a good-enough picture, it is safe to say that Apple is taking baby steps in a high-speed race.
Why is it a high-speed race? Let’s look at how Google Pixel 9 series has pulled off AI features that are yet to come in iPhones.
Launched in August 2024, the Google Pixel 9 series arrived with Gemini at the heart. From camera to personal assistant, it delivers a plethora of AI features that are available now and work flawlessly. For instance, Pixel 9 series features a Pixel Studio which is equivalent to the Image Playground in iPhones. With a UI optimised for easy prompting, style changes and editing, Pixel Studio aims to give users a way to bring their ideas to the canvas quickly and effortlessly. Image Playground offers similar characteristics, but it is yet to arrive in a stable version.
Similarly, earlier this year, Samsung released Galaxy S24 with Circle to Search AI feature. And Apple followed up almost a year later, with Visual Intelligence, which is exclusive to limited models of the iPhones. More importantly, this too is a feature that is coming soon and is not yet here.
The bigger picture here is that while Apple is planning and plotting a lot, a lot of it is in the “coming soon” phase. And it is very evident. So much so that Apple CEO Tim Cook too has acknowledged it.
Cook recently highlighted that for Apple the focus is now on quality and user experience, instead of the speed of rollout. He said that Apple does not need to be first in artificial intelligence, it just needs to be the best. Wall Street Journal emphasised his four words for AI, — “Not first, but best.”
The best part, however, is something that will get clearer only in the coming weeks and months as new AI features reach Apple users. Although there is one area where Apple Intelligence is indeed better than the rest — privacy.
Unlike other privacy tools created by Google, Open AI, Microsoft and others, Apple is emphasising a strong focus on privacy. And it does seem that Apple Intelligence tools are going to have better privacy protection baked into them. By its nature, AI is tricky when it comes to privacy because data always needs to be transferred from a phone or a computer to AI servers. But Apple seems to have solved this issue in a way Google and others have not, or might not want to.
Apple has created what it calls “Private Cloud Compute” that uses custom hardware and software to create a mechanism where the data sharing between a user and AI system is completely private, not even accessible or visible to Apple. The company says, “With sophisticated technologies to satisfy our requirements of stateless computation, enforceable guarantees, no privileged access, non-targetability, and verifiable transparency, we believe Private Cloud Compute is nothing short of the world-leading security architecture for cloud AI compute at scale.”
Having said that, what good is the use of a sophisticated system if the users aren’t getting the features that they find genuinely helpful and polished? This is a challenge for Apple. It surely has the right plans, it has so far made good moves — although slowly — but it probably needs to ramp up fast. Because others are already ahead of the curve.