Apple and Google announced this week that Apple is going to use Google’s Gemini AI models as the foundation for Apple’s AI efforts, such as an upcoming improvement to Siri. Rebecca Bellan of TechCrunch reports that Apple also considered competitors such as OpenAI (ChatGPT) and Antropic (Claude), but thought that Google was the best fit—although it isn’t an exclusive relationship, and Apple could work with other AI companies on certain projects. Apple first announced that an improved version of Siri was in the works back in 2024, at its WWDC developer conference. But Apple had trouble getting to a product that it liked using AI foundation models that Apple had developed in-house, so that led to where we are now. Apple and Google already work together in many other ways. Hopefully, using Gemini as a foundation and then adding a user experience designed by Apple will result in something really useful for all of us. We should see the results of this collaboration later this year. And now, the news of note from the past week:
- As John Gruber of Daring Fireball reports, Google had another AI announcement this week: it is using Gemini to bring “personal intelligence” to Google apps on the iPhone, Android, and the Web. This will start in beta this week, but only for a small group of testers at first. The idea is that you would let Gemini know details about yourself based on what is contained in a Google app—such as your Gmail—and then Gemini would be able to provide more personal answers to your queries. As Gruber points out, this is similar to what Apple promised back at WWDC in 2024.
- There are obvious privacy implications with what Google is planning, and Brian X. Chen discusses those issues and how one might use this AI technology in this article for the New York Times.
- Apple also announced this week that starting on January 28, Apple will introduce the Apple Creator Studio, a suite of apps. You can either pay $12.99 for a month or $129 for a year, and you get access to the following apps: Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, Pixelmator Pro, Motion, Compressor, and MainStage. All of those apps are available for the Mac. Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro were previously available for the iPad, and starting January 28, Pixelmator Pro will also be available for the iPad as a part of this suite.
- Harry McCracken of Fast Company notes that the Apple Creator Studio service is designed for creative people who do a little bit of everything. For example, a musician may use Logic Pro to write songs, but they also may want to edit music videos (Final Cut Pro) or create album artwork (Pixelmator Pro).
- Malcolm Owen of AppleInsider compares the apps in Apple Creative Studio to the apps offered by Adobe in its various suites. For example, Apple’s Pixelmator Pro is a competitor to Adobe Photoshop. I currently have a subscription to Photoshop, and I use it for editing photos and graphics for this website and for my personal use. But I only barely understand the complexity of Photoshop, so I will consider getting this bundle and switching to Pixelmator Pro.
- On the iPad, I’m a big fan of Photomator. It is sort of like the Photos app with a lot more photo editing features added. Photomator was made by the same company that made Pixelmator, a company that Apple acquired about a year ago. To my surprise, Photomator is not a part of the bundle, and Ryan Christoffel of 9to5Mac reports that it will continue to be sold separately. I had a feeling that this bundle was coming from Apple at some point, but I assumed that Apple would create an app called Photomator Pro for the iPad. Instead, Apple brought Pixelmator Pro to the iPad.
- Apple says that if you subscribe to the Apple Creative Studio, in addition to those creative apps, you will also get access to “intelligent features and premium content” for the apps Keynote, Pages, Numbers, and Freeform. Jason Snell of Six Colors criticizes this decision. What if you don’t want a professional app for working with photos, movies, and music, but you do enjoy apps such as Keynote and Numbers? (For example, perhaps you are an attorney and you use Keynote for presentations and Numbers for making spreadsheets.) If those people want to access these premium features (whatever they will be), you need to pay $12.99 a month or $129 a year for a creative suite of apps that you won’t use just so you can access, for example, a premium feature in Keynote. He raises a good point.
- If you use Verizon for your cellphone service, you may have lost cellphone service for much of the day on Wednesday, as noted by John Gruber of Daring Fireball. Fortunately, large outages like this don’t happen very often, but I know that they can be a big pain for many people when they do.
- David Sparks of MacSparky discusses five new types of products that, according to the rumor mill, Apple might announce this year.
- In an article for Six Colors, Glenn Fleishman explains how to block unwanted calls and texts on your iPhone using iOS 26. He notes that this is particularly a problem for senior citizens, who may receive as many as 50 calls a day from people trying to scam them. My father recently passed away, and I’ve been monitoring his cellphone for matters that I need to tend to as the executor of his estate. I am amazed—and frankly, disgusted—at the fraudulent texts, phone calls, etc. that I see on his device.
- As we all look forward to an improved version of Siri later this year, Gabrielle Rockson of People reports that James Ward, a high school teacher in Texas, got lots of value out of the current version of Siri. When his son wanted to mine for crystals, he asked Siri where to go, and was told to go to a state park about six hours away. Once there, they started mining and discovered a 2.09-carat brown diamond (apparently worth thousands of dollars).
- Joe Rossignol of MacRumors reports that there are now 36 airlines that use the iPhone feature to help you find lost luggage that has an AirTag in it.
- I rarely discuss games on this website, but as someone who was a teenager in the 1980s, I have a soft spot for the original classic arcade games. Apple announced this week that the Apple Arcade subscription will soon include the app Retrocade, a game that recreates the Atari games Asteroids, Bubble Bobble, Centipede, Galaga, Pac-Man, and Space Invaders. The games will work on the iPhone and iPad, but to my surprise, they will also work on the Vision Pro, where the app will create a virtual arcade. I can’t wait to see what that looks like. Perhaps I can finally fulfill my childhood fantasy of having a full-size arcade game in my house.
- Speaking of the Vision Pro, earlier this week, I discussed using that device to watch an immersive NBA basketball game and how incredible that experience was. Chance Miller of 9to5Mac provided this perspective on the experience.
- At the recent Golden Globes, two Apple TV shows were winners: The Studio and Pluribus. But as David Snow of Cult of Mac notes, the win for The Studio was interesting because that series included an episode in which the characters go to the Golden Globes. As the winner, Seth Rogen noted in his acceptance speech: “We just pretended to do this, and now it’s happening. I thought the only way I’d get to hold [an award] is to create a whole show to give myself a fake one.”
- And finally, here is the video that I have been waiting for since I wrote my first post on this website in 2008: an iPhone ad from Apple that features … attorneys! Enjoy: