Apple Could Build an OpenClaw Competitor Eventually

[MacRumors]

Apple may eventually build a direct competitor to OpenClaw, an agentic AI system capable of autonomously operating software on behalf of the user, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman believes.

Writing in his Power On newsletter, Gurman says he expects Apple to develop a system that could fully operate iPhone, iPad, and Mac software on the user's behalf. The prediction comes on the back of comments made by Apple's Siri engineering chief, Mike Rockwell, following last week's WWDC keynote.

Rockwell appeared to leave the door open for Siri to expand beyond its current capabilities, describing the new engine underpinning the assistant as "a completely modern architecture" built with extensibility in mind:

[An agent is] something that is operating on a loop of information coming in, making decisions, and then taking action. And ours is primarily request based today.
 But the underpinning architecture for Siri is a completely modern architecture, and so our ability to extend in the future is is very similar.

Apple's SVP of Software Engineering, Craig Federighi, acknowledged the broader category but was measured in his framing of it, describing the space as experimental and saying that finding the right user experience remains the priority, while stopping short of ruling out Apple's eventual participation.

Apple's upcoming Siri implementation is newly rebuilt on a large language model foundation, and remains a request-based system. Full computer-use agentic functionality of the kind offered by OpenClaw and similar tools from Google and Anthropic would represent a significant expansion beyond what Apple announced last week.

Article Link: Apple Could Build an OpenClaw Competitor Eventually

 

[crococarbs]

Is this something users want? Def not something I'd ever need or want in the foreseeable future. I think I'd pay extra to NOT have that kind of stuff on my phone.

 

[danskin]

Is this something users want? Def not something I'd ever need or want in the foreseeable future. I think I'd pay extra to NOT have that kind of stuff on my phone.

Apple has a fairly good track record of gauging what people want. Or they will invent it and people will want it.

 

[mikethebigo]

Siri’s gotta be able to walk before it can run. Looking forward to regaining confidence in its basic competencies this fall.

 

[KurtWilde]

Eventually doing a lot of lifting

 

[dannys1]

That would be fantastic and I'd must rather Apple built it from scratch intertwined into the OS that running OpenClaw.

I'm already really blown about by the option to have an agent continually check a webpage in the background for you and let you know when it's updated - that's the end of quite a few websites based around doing this. I had run an opensource project to do it too but it was very hit and miss and got blocked as a bot a lot of the time when just checking simple things like when an item was available to buy again.

 

[Oestreich Dieter]

Is this something users want? Def not something I'd ever need or want in the foreseeable future. I think I'd pay extra to NOT have that kind of stuff on my phone.

did you know you wanted an iphone before it was invented?

 

[youdontsay]

One thing strikes me. If it is indeed an entirely new architecture for Siri. It's been done basically in a year or a bit more. It's wild they achieved to get where they are in such a short time. It goes to show how little, if anything, they've done for the past ten years lol.

 

[The Game 161]

im sure apple will add alot of new al tech as time goes on now they finally have it up and running

 

[ChromeAce]

Just give Siri access to Automator.

 

[svish]

Will be interesting to see how Siri will develop and evolve going forward. Anyway extremely happy with the changes this year.

 

[Abazigal]

Only Siri (and Apple by extension) will have the system level access required to make this happen anyways.

 

[adrianlondon]

I think I'd pay extra to NOT have that kind of stuff on my phone.

Oh you've just given me a great business idea.

I've written an app called AI-Agentic-LLM-Awesome!! but if you send me $10 (annual subscription) I will not send you the app.

 

[cjsuk]

Apple has a fairly good track record of gauging what people want. Or they will invent it and people will want it.

Apart from mice.

 

[gegy]

Is this something users want? Def not something I'd ever need or want in the foreseeable future. I think I'd pay extra to NOT have that kind of stuff on my phone.

I am not sure if the user needs this, but as a developer this could be interesting in xcode. With free tokens in basic version and extra tokens with iCloud+

 

[crococarbs]

did you know you wanted an iphone before it was invented?

Yes I did!!!

I was carrying a nokia phone and an ipod, and I was literally wishing that I could just have one device to do both!!! Of course the iPhone turned out to be more than what I "needed" i.e. it can do a lot of things that I don't really need or care about, so I do see your point to an extent.

 

[cjsuk]

Yes I did!!!

I was carrying a nokia phone and an ipod, and I was literally wishing that I could just have one device to do both!!! Of course the iPhone turned out to be more than what I "needed" i.e. it can do a lot of things that I don't really need or care about, so I do see your point to an extent.

I had an Orange SPV200 about 2 years before the iPhone came out that did both.

What Apple did was make it less ****. Which is what they do with everything.

Apart from mice.

 

[velcrovan]

“Apple could build XYZ eventually” what a headline!

 

[PBG4 Dude]

did you know you wanted an iphone before it was invented?

I was totally in the “who needs a smartphone?” Camp until the iPhone was announced. The $20 monthly flat data rate was also a huge win, making it affordable to use a smartphone.

 

[PBG4 Dude]

I am not sure if the user needs this, but as a developer this could be interesting in xcode. With free tokens in basic version and extra tokens with iCloud+

This past weekend I used oMLX to connect Qwen3.6-35B-A3B-bf16 to Xcode. Had it write a simple analog clock program with second, minute, and hour hands, animated to show the current time. It took about an hour including prompting to resolve errors and I needed to manually edit 2 lines of code to get it working, but it works, and is 100% local. Pretty stoked honestly.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

He also “expected” Siri AI in February. And, when that didn’t pan out, “Oh, I’ve heard from people inside Apple that they’re late!” Nah, they ALWAYS talk about new technologies that may affect how developers provide solutions to their customers… during the developer conference. And also “expected” users would have options of AI backend.

The only thing he’s been right on recently are things that any of us could have guessed and many have guessed here. And, the stuff he’s been wrong on? It DID cause a dip for AAPL, so perhaps he’s just padding his retirement portfolio. 😉

 

[Happy_John]

I had an Orange SPV200 about 2 years before the iPhone came out that did both.

What Apple did was make it less ****. Which is what they do with everything.

Yep. Apple didn't invent the touch-control orientated smartphone, but they sure as hell made it useable as a mainstream consumer item - before the iPhone the whole "mini handheld computer that's a phone" was very much a hobbyist item and the frustrations and constant tweaking that comes with that.

As you say, that's what Apple does - makes existing tech concepts into easy-to-use products.