Robert Triggs / Android Authority
There’s a lot to dive into with Apple Intelligence and Google Gemini, however for the overwhelming majority of cellular customers, there’s just one possibility available on the market proper now — that’s Gemini. The Android crowd has been enjoying with Google’s AI assistant for months now, and the latest rollout of the identical app for iOS implies that iPhone customers can begin meaningfully enjoying with AI, too.
After all, there’s the Apple Intelligence beta to attempt, supplied you turn your system to US English and join the fortunately quick waitlist (at the very least in my case). It’s not a tall ask, however solely iPhone fans will trouble leaping by means of these hoops, particularly in the event that they dwell exterior the US.
Even then, you’ll want an iPhone 15 Professional or a brand new iPhone 16 mannequin operating iOS 18.1, and there are additional restrictions on options for EU and Chinese language residents. For many iPhone homeowners, Apple Intelligence nonetheless isn’t on the radar as we strategy 2025, regardless of being introduced again in June 2024.
Google has simply introduced AI options to extra iPhones than Apple ever will.
By comparability, you may seize Gemini on any Android system with 2GB of RAM operating Android 10 or newer, which is a vastly vast internet. For iPhones and iPads, the necessities are equally low: simply iOS 16 or newer. If that’s not sufficient, Gemini helps over 28 languages and 195 territories; Apple helps only one language. The underside line is that anybody trying to check out AI, iPhone customers included, can have a a lot simpler time getting maintain of and utilizing Gemini than Apple’s beta toolset.
Robert Triggs / Android Authority
After all, the standalone Gemini app and Apple Intelligence are fairly totally different in scope. Apple is trying to combine AI extra broadly than by means of a single app, providing notification summaries, reply strategies and textual content rewriting instruments, picture enhancing (Google Images’ superior Magic Editor works on iOS too, by the way in which), and net web page summaries. It’s extra akin to Galaxy AI than the expertise you’ll see utilizing the Gemini app alone.
Nonetheless, my hands-on with Apple Intelligence has left me with blended impressions. Siri is outwardly smarter, but it’s nonetheless restricted to quick responses and routines reasonably than being a extra clever all-around helper. In lieu of with the ability to remap the button, my resolution is to launch Gemini through the Motion Button, then it’s only a click on away to talk with the extra spectacular Gemini Dwell. Plus, that places picture era and camera-based queries at my fingertips. Early entry to Apple’s Picture Playground is locked behind the iOS 18.2 beta. Nearly as good as notification summaries are, Q&A-style chats are what I discover essentially the most helpful, and Gemini excels at this. Siri doesn’t.
If I may, I would swap Siri for Gemini Dwell immediately.
As I solely dabble in iOS just a few occasions a yr, I may not be deeply built-in sufficient to see the advantages of Siri’s cross-app capabilities. However Gemini performs properly with all my Google apps, even when stepping exterior its OS, making it the higher instrument to change into conversant in throughout platforms. I’m nonetheless experimenting with Apple Intelligence and determining the way it all stacks up subsequent to Gemini and different Android options I’ve change into used to, however one factor’s clear to me: Apple is a great distance behind the competitors. Nonetheless, I suppose that a lot is clear by now.
Practically six months later, Apple stays in “early entry” and beta for options that Google and Samsung have had for the higher a part of a yr (and even longer in some circumstances), and early impressions are telling. Apple’s greatest options are good integrations like notification and Mail summaries, however these hardly really feel like cutting-edge AI in comparison with the broader capabilities of huge language fashions, like Gemini or ChatGPT, of which Siri is definitely no competitor.
Robert Triggs / Android Authority
Evaluate the presently restrictive state of entry, single language possibility, and small variety of supported gadgets with the convenience of entry to Google’s Magic Editor and now Gemini (arguably the 2 most helpful instruments within the suite), and it’s clear that Google is shifting shortly to carry AI to virtually everybody whereas Apple remains to be sprucing its tough edges. Mockingly, Google has already introduced AI options to extra iPhone homeowners than Apple ever will.
Apple will get there ultimately, I think about, however by then, Android and Google can be nicely into their next-generation AI. You probably have an iPhone, don’t wait months for Apple Intelligence to lastly arrive in completed kind. Obtain the iOS Gemini app at the moment and see what all of the fuss is about.
