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Report: Apple Asks Google to Run Siri on Its Servers
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webbuzz
macrumors 68030
And this coming from a trillion dollar company. Doesn’t instil confidence going forward if Apple isn't even bothering to support its own cloud services. Apple has become a seller of fluff and no substance which is not only disappointing but now it's become concerning. Billions wasted on a car project that should never have been given the green light, a continued failing to release their highly touted Apple Intelligence Siri experience, product stalling like an updated AppleTV and or speaker, incremental hardware updates to their flagship devices, no concrete direction on their AI projects and now this. As a long time Apple customer (owned the first Macintosh) and adopter of new products, I have lost faith in the Apple of today. It has become the seller of PR fluff, entertainment nobody asked for and a breaker of promises. Steve would die a second time over if he were alive today. What has Apple become? Utterly disappointing.
DavidLeblond
macrumors 68020
This all tells me we're definitely not getting any of this in 26.5.
tomtad
macrumors 68040
This was only really cooked up to explain the disaster of the Apple Maps launch and the reason why it was crap due to them not being a data company, they never really leaned into privacy much before then.
The best solution to this remains to allow the user to specify an AI assistant, like you choose a search engine, and give developers the nessesary system integrations to enable them to function. Any privacy issues can then be clearly flagged when a service is chosen by the user.
This also gives Apple an advantage as Google Pixels (and many Android devices) are locked in with Google Gemini, get an iPhone you get choice.
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Apple MessagePad
macrumors regular
Apple has used Google Cloud, AWS and Microsoft Azure cloud services to run Siri from the start. This is nothing new.
Wow, Apple has so messed up with AI, they need to go back to Google for even MORE help.
1: 'Can we have Gemini for us to tune on our amazing Apple Intelligence Servers?
2: 'OK our AI server farm is are actually a rack of 50 Mac minis. We think that might not be enough. Could you help us some more?
Good job that they spent all that time & cash on the Car and Vision Pro.
1: 'Can we have Gemini for us to tune on our amazing Apple Intelligence Servers?
2: 'OK our AI server farm is are actually a rack of 50 Mac minis. We think that might not be enough. Could you help us some more?
Good job that they spent all that time & cash on the Car and Vision Pro.
The Game 161
macrumors Nehalem
The issue with your statement is that it implies that Google somehow has access to Apple customer data just because Apple might opt to store data blobs on Google servers.
That is exactly what I'm saying: this is a solved problem. Trusting Google is not a requirement at all. Apple can absolutely store data is Google data-center with Google having no way to access it. Customers like this bring their own encryption keys, for example.
This is a solved problem. Apple data could be co-located with data that Google has access to within the same data center, but that still does not mean that Google all of a sudden has access to start selling your information to data brokers.
Mrkevinfinnerty
macrumors 68040
They heavily marketed Private Cloud Compute so it is really.
manhattanboy
macrumors 6502a
Apple should just buy Claude at 51% ownership and then just have that team take over all Apple AI efforts. Apple has the consumer data that Claude can then use to further develop their models beyond coding and enterprise in an ethical way at least relative to other AI companies.
manhattanboy
macrumors 6502a
What is sad is it took too long for Apple to correct course. After 6 months of missed delays in the Siri AI years back they should have fired the leadership.
Phineasgage1848
macrumors regular
I think concerns on this are way overblown and Apple will explain it when the new Siri rolls out: The shift likely comes from Google rolling out their own version of Private Cloud Compute called "Private AI Compute" https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/products/google-private-ai-compute/ in November of last year. Seems extremely likely Apple helped them with this to move the deal forward.
People here confusing storing end to end encrypted data on cloud with actual processing being done on it. There is no way Siri Gemini will have the same privacy levels Photos of the cloud has.
People make fun for Siri being dumb in comparison with other AI assistants due to the fact there is an effort to keep everything local. Thats a good thing and the only assistant I tolerate together with HomeKit.
Microsoft are making clowns of themselves with the forced AI crap why try to replicate? Apple is already awesome with AI. Their machines are very good for running Ai locally and *gasp* affordably. No need for this Google crap or OpenAI just allow the user to input some API key so they can use whatever service they want including local.
People make fun for Siri being dumb in comparison with other AI assistants due to the fact there is an effort to keep everything local. Thats a good thing and the only assistant I tolerate together with HomeKit.
Microsoft are making clowns of themselves with the forced AI crap why try to replicate? Apple is already awesome with AI. Their machines are very good for running Ai locally and *gasp* affordably. No need for this Google crap or OpenAI just allow the user to input some API key so they can use whatever service they want including local.
and also get much better AI photo editing capabilities. is it possible with this partnership the iPhones photo editing feature will get better 🤔
Apple already said as much a couple of months ago.
" ... After careful evaluation, Apple determined that Google's Al technology provides the most capable foundation for Apple Foundation Models and is excited about the innovative new experiences it will unlock for Apple users. Apple Intelligence will continue to run on Apple devices and Private Cloud Compute, while maintaining Apple's industry-leading privacy standards. ..."
Joint statement from Google and Apple
Apple and Google have entered into a multi-year collaboration under which the next generation of Apple Foundation Models will be based on Google's Gemini models and clou…
So Apple is getting access to a variant of Gemini model that has been ported to run on Apple's PCC and fit inside Apple Privacy/Encryption methods.
Apple isn't getting unmodified Gemini with a super thin facade of Apple. It is much closer to Apple getting a 'ported' version of Gemini. ( Somewhat similar to how MS office isn't the exact same binaries as MS Office on Windows. )
If it is the same modified version as running on PCC (i.e., with Apple encryption key methods , etc. wrapped around it ) what is the meaningful difference ? If Apple put there PCC silicon inside a Google Data center ... would that be different ( Google provides power and internet connection) but all running on Apple hardware?
I haven't read the article, but this may be tap dancing around maybe Apple weaving in access to the unported version of Gemini soon for some corner cases. If is about Apple not wanting to pay for hardware that may have half life of 2 years then is a substantively different issue than privacy. The Information also had rumors about Apple making a joint chip with Broadcomm. If don't want to do that long term then Google Cloud with encryption keys policy managed by Apple is an option. ( if a semi-custom Gemini model costs $1B for 4 years and a server chip development cost $1B for 4 years, it is a larger hardware development risk to sit on top of shared hardware where there are more customers than just Apple PCC).
The key piece most of the thread seems to miss is the PCC running at 10% utilization. That is horrible financially for a hosted services provider (want to be up in the 65-95% range). A vastly more expensive Apple chip run at those levels would be an even bigger financial crater.
The other issue mentioned is that they have servers with no placement in a datacenter. Is there tons of empty Apple datacenter space and gobs of excess electricity to put these in and power them up??? [ If Apple had gobs of excess space they could rack them and turn them off in the datacenter. ]
It could be that when the ported Gemini rolls out PCC goes to 99% utitilization. At that point it isn't really a "Or it could be" issue. It would be they need both options issue. There would be occasional peak load spill-over events when PCC would get overwhelmed and Apple would need a spill-load facility to soak up the rest. [ pragmatically in some parts of world may just need to use Google because Apple isn't close enough. Also has some folks pointed out Apple may be able to 'hand wave' at their green datacenter pledge by sending excessive compute loads to Google centers that don't technically count. ]
Another issue with depends how you read it "...run a future version of Siri powered by Gemini, .." . Is that the one coming in Fall 2026 or that is an even larger footprint model 2-3 years down the road? Or is Apple decided to do a "Apple AI Pro" variant with Google that is priced more like Gemini AI Ultra/Plus. Users who are very heavy duty workload... PCC hardware may not be the best match if PCC is primarily designed around being a "no additional cost" service. One of PCC's features is to forget as much data as soon as possible. That works for one-shot queries. Probably doesn't work for 8-48 hour long assignments.
Please. Saying Apple and Google are similar is the textbook example of a false equivalency.
Google makes 80% of their revenue from ads. They are an advertising company disguised as a tech company. History has proven Google will abuse your data if it helps them monetize you for ads.
100% agree. Apple has over 150,000 people employed have been working on Siri for 15 years. xAI has about 1200 and started in 2023. The capabilities aren't even close. Some one needs to walk into Apple headquarters with a sink in their hand, and start cutting heads.
Given Apple’s longstanding emphasis on privacy, yes, it absolutely does matter.
And no, while that might not be enough to make me “leave Apple” I would most likely disable Siri integration with Google if queries are being handed over to them.
iCloud data is already largely on Google Cloud infrastructure. The encryption is managed by Apple's policies. If the AI compute goes to Google Infrastructure while the encryption is managed by Apple there is no material difference.
If someone runs their MS Exchange on a Azure server where they, not Microsoft, run the encryption keys there little material difference between running in that companies building or in Microsoft's.
At 10% utilization rate, it likely is more that PCC is untested as much as "not a good solution".
More than a few of iCloud services compute/storage are outsourced now. PCC was actually the odd-duck compared to the rest of Apple cloud services are being spun as 100% internally run. Once that becomes a high volume services business it would be natural for it to go outsourced hardware to scale just like the rest. That doesn't mean the outsource folks get to look at the clear data. It just all encrypted inside of 'Apple' instances.
Will Co
macrumors 6502a
That's not concerning to me, assuming Apple's privacy systems are as stated - that my iCloud data is encrypted, and according to Apple, only my devices know the keys.If that is painful for you, then I have some very, very painful news…
Apple has been using Google servers to store people‘s iCloud data since at least 2018, likely earlier. They also used and or are still using Microsoft and Amazon cloud servers to power iCloud.
Apple ditches Microsoft Azure, confirms that it uses Google Cloud for iCloud
In a document updated last month, Apple confirmed that it uses Google Cloud Platform to host user data for iCloud. Interestingly, the file no longer makes a mention of Microsoft Azure.www.neowin.net
And there is nothing sneaky or unknown about this, Apple confirmed it almost a decade ago themselves.
Write from Apple‘s own mouth in 2018, they use Google servers to store iCloud data.
My concern with Siri or whatever it becomes, is that if the contexts of questions are being sent to Google systems for processing, then there is a big privacy concern. Writing encrypted data to a drive in a Google data centre is one thing, but providing Siri data for Google to process is quite another.
Slightly…embarrassing? And if you got an iPhone for privacy, you might as well just get a Samsung now?
scrapesleon
macrumors 68000
Because Nuvia as gone on to become a king-pin in the server space? Nope. The server business is 'insanely great' hasn't particularly worked out for Ampere either.
Nuvia managed to get bought to build SoC that compete in the exact same space that Apple choice to sit to. How dos that prove Apple wrong?
Arm itself was covering the server core space themselves. That is a major reason why it got precarious for Ampere. Use Arm cores and have smaller differentiation gap. Use enitrely custom cores and see most hypercalars just 'buy off the shelf' from Arm.
Apple cloud services at scale run at AWS/Google Cloud/Azure/Cloudflare/Akamai ( Apple private relay services run from Cloudflare/Akamai etc. not Apple data centers. ). There are Linus/Arm core servers at the base of all of those vendors Apple can use and didn't spend a dime on a server process.
A server chip that simply just provisioned PCI-e lanes to Nuvia chips? How is that suppose to get traction when Nvidia rolls out their own Arm cores integrated with their custom bus to their GPU cores? Nuvia nor Ampere has special magic there. Why would Apple be any different?
Would happen anyway if there was no viable product. What is the software stack that would make this? No MacOS Server ( Apple cloud services are all mainly Linux. )
Even with all the hiccups with "Apple AI" phone, mac, iPad sales are all up. How are they a decade back in those markets? In terms of AI compute the Arm cores have extremely little to do with the current situation. [ At Qualcomm Nuvia brought almost nothing to covers NPU/GPU areas which Qualcomm was already doing. ]
DGX Spark vs Mac Studio where Studio is a decade behind in hardware?