Gemini (at least public free version) hallucinates way too much. If it's like that, it can go very badly for Apple.

Local is probably similar to Gemma e4b you can get right now on Google Edge Gallery (the ios and Android app). Guessing that the more powerful version that will only work on the 12gb ram devices will be something unreleased that is similar but a bit larger

Google also awhile back announced being able to run full Gemini by leasing / renting hardware in your own datacenters so companies can train or access data without needing to send things to their datacenters. Nvidia based. Guessing Private Compute might just be Apple leasing a ton of those?

The smell is that Apple doesn't want to give the same level of access to third-party AI assistants that Siri will get.

For what it's worth, Apple claimed they proposed an "equivalent access" framework with some kind of "trusted agent framework" approach, but that it was shot down by the EU. I suspect it was way more inconvenient for third-party developers than Apple lets on.

It’s the DMA regulation that forces Apple to give the same access as they have to other AI chat apps.

Once it leaves the device Apple does not know what those other ai chat apps will do with the gathered data.

> Siri AI is private by design and deeply integrated across Apple’s platforms using on-device processing and Private Cloud Compute, which extends the privacy and security of iPhone into the cloud. However, under EU regulators’ extreme interpretation of the DMA, Apple would have to give any virtual assistant direct access to users’ private data — and the ability to directly control other installed applications — as soon as Siri AI is made available in the EU, without the essential protections necessary to keep users and their data safe.

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/06/due-to-dma-siri-ai-de...

> It's strange to me that Apple would choose to disadvantage themselves by selecting Google as their provider as opposed to, say, Anthropic or even OpenAI. Doesn't this mean they'll struggle more to differentiate themselves from the assistant on Android phones? Thinking more cynically, couldn't Google, if they wanted, feed Apple an inferior version of Gemini, ensuring they stay ahead?

Is it really all that difference from Apple defaulting to Google's search engine?

The differentiation is the integration, not the model itself which is mostly fungible. And afaik Apple is running these models on their own compute, so I don't think google can pull a bait and switch.

I don't think you conceptualize Google's game plan. all these companies care about is b2b contracts so they can inflate their balance sheets because when it's digital, it doesn't have to actually exist for it to "make money"

If iCloud is implemented on Google Cloud Storage, why do they call it iCloud?

Google sold Apple the ability to run certain Gemini models on Apple's data-center hardware, using Google's orchestration layer. Apple hooks into that not dissimilar from an API-provider, and then builds everything upstream.

Meaning the system prompt(s), harness, entry and exit points, and skills. So the product is still "Siri AI", because of all the stuff that takes it from a raw infrastructure concern upon up into a "product" is Apple's responsibility.

Google are "okay with that" because Apple pays them $1B a year, per press reports, to be.

Local Gemini is a light year ahead of whatever Siri is so this is a big improvement already.

If they don’t like this in the future they can just change to the less convenient, less secure bedrock + SOTA, and likely more expensive bedrock + SOTA.

Because privacy is actually a big feature, many people are skeptical about AI and the big model providers and don't trust them. They're less skeptical about on-device AI and so Apple is pushing that and making privacy a core feature of their online offering as well.

I probably wouldn't use it without that. It's one thing sending my shitty code to be trained on, and another thing entirely to give these companies access to my personal life and information.

> ...closer to a cult...

When you have to image a highly irrational reason to explain why groups of people do the things they do, there's a decent chance you just don't understand their perspective. They may be acting reasonably rationally from their own perspective. (As you said yourself: "I honestly don't understand...")

As someone who doesn't use Android, they showed a lot of integration into the apps, which I think is where the real magic happens, and it's not something I can do with any 3rd party chatbots today (that I'm aware of). I also don't know that I would trust the other 3rd parties with the access required to pull it off.

Are they competing with Google?

not just google maps but google search itself has been on the iphone since it launched

OpenAI or Anthropic are not anywhere as well funded as Google. Apple already has everyone in their pocket via the ecosystem, they just have to not crap the bed. They value stability over the competitive component here.

Given that they had originally selected OpenAI for Siri, and that deal fell through, I would guess something about their relationship with OpenAI fell through. Maybe OpenAI wouldn't let Apple run their model on Apple's servers.

No, Siri runs on Apple Silicon.