Track Hyper | Apple and Google: Joining forces to conquer AI smartphones

Author: Zhou Yuan / Wall Street News

The allure of AI technology is unstoppable.

The upcoming Apple iPhone 16 series, set to be released in September (tentative), is focusing on software system upgrades based on AI technology, given the relatively lagging hardware compared to the Android camp. This becomes the biggest highlight of this generation of Apple phones. At the same time, Google, the developer of the Android system, the archenemy of iOS, is set to release the Pixel 9 series in the near future (August 13), with some AI features exposed.

In the era of "traditional smartphones," Google, the company that developed the Android system, the biggest rival of iOS, almost had no presence, and few people would notice that Google also has smartphones. In the AI era, Google may have the opportunity to change this embarrassing market perception.

There is almost a consensus in the market that the iPhone 16 series will be Apple's first AI phone. Do not underestimate this. After all, the Samsung Galaxy S24, with limited hardware improvements, saw a surge in sales by leveraging the "AI phone" label.

iPhone 16 Series: The Biggest Highlight is AI

Although at WWDC 2024, Apple's Apple Intelligent strategy did not bring anything new, using AI technology to reconstruct the multi-terminal operating system concept, including iOS 18 system, actually replicates the first layer "AI enables cross-system integration" and the second layer "AI reconstructs the operating system" of the Chinese Honor "AI Four-Layer Architecture" technology framework.

However, due to Apple's brand, technological innovation, and product definition appeal in consumer electronics, unparalleled in the global industry, the technology route "looked upon" by Apple, the final market acceptance is also unmatched.

This can be seen from Apple's stock price dropping by 1.91% (total market value of $296.05 billion) on the day (June 10) when it just released its "AI strategy" at WWDC 2024, but from the next day (June 11) until July 5, its stock price continued to rise by 16.89% (total market value of $347.07 billion, second only to Microsoft's $347.50 billion, ranking as the second-largest technology company in the world).

So, what AI features will the iPhone 16 series have? Let's first briefly talk about the very limited hardware upgrades of this generation of Apple flagship.

In addition to the exclusive news from Wall Street News before - the Apple iPhone 16 series battery shell has been changed from aluminum alloy to all small steel shells (but the battery capacity remains the same, still only about 4600mAh/40W), this generation of Apple flagship has also upgraded the imaging system - upgraded to a 48-megapixel ultra-wide-angle lens, and upgraded the 3x periscope telephoto lens to a 5x periscope telephoto lens; the screen uses the new Samsung M14 panel, with the peak brightness in some areas increased to 2000nit; and the starting memory is also upgraded to 8GB across the board With such a minor hardware upgrade, it can easily be "crushed" to the extreme by the Android counterparts in China. Therefore, AI has become the market focus of iPhone 16.

Apple has upgraded the memory standard configuration of this generation flagship to 8GB across the board, also as a result of considering AI. Because Apple Intelligent requires a minimum of 8GB of memory for devices.

Both the standard version and Pro version of iPhone 16, equipped with the A18 chip, and the Pro Max version with the A18 Pro chip, are all based on TSMC's 3nm process technology. The only difference lies in the advanced technical features such as AI computing power and ray tracing performance. For the consumer end experience, these differences are not clearly perceptible. Therefore, pricing becomes "difficult": limited hardware upgrades with imperceptible software application improvements.

However, looking at the "innovations" in Apple AI from WWDC 2024, such as iOS supporting voice transcription to generate key summaries, Siri freely calling ChatGPT (related to GPT-4o), answering questions more naturally, understanding vague expressions, comprehending multi-turn conversations, AI photo editing, AI video and image creation, etc., are not particularly impressive.

According to Apple's Senior Vice President of Machine Learning and AI Strategy, John Giannandrea, and Apple's Senior Vice President of Software Engineering, Craig Federighi, the large language model running on the iPhone is about 3B, which is significantly lower compared to the starting point of 7B for large models on the end side by domestic counterparts.

Of course, it is still difficult to say what AI features the iPhone 16 series will have and whether they will be "amazing".

Google is also advancing AI phone technology

Looking at Google, the upcoming Pixel 9 series includes AI applications that are not built into the Android system, but rather come from Google AI (corresponding to Apple Intelligent?).

According to leaked information, the AI functions of the Pixel 9 series mainly include Add Me, Screenshots, and Studio, corresponding to AI photo editing, AI screenshot information search, and AI creation studio. In terms of core functions, Google believes that the role of edge AI should revolve around daily scenario applications for consumer end users, possibly not focusing primarily on "productivity tools" as claimed by domestic manufacturers.

Among them, the AI application of Screenshots also integrates Google's original function—search. The search function of Screenshots mainly focuses on searching for information related to historical screenshots, making it easier for users to quickly find target images among thousands (or tens of thousands) of screenshots on the end side based on vague memories In addition, like Apple and Honor in China, Google is also promoting the integration of AI technology with the Android system. Honor refers to it as "reconstructing the underlying operating system with AI technology." If Google embeds AI technology into the Android system, what would be the difference in AI application between the Pixel 9 series and the previous Google smartphones?

Industry speculation suggests that with the Pixel 9 series, AI functions can be used on the edge (localized), while existing Google smartphones, due to chip performance and memory capacity limitations, can only call AI on the cloud side, which may result in slower speeds and inability to access AI applications when offline.

If edge AI applications are attractive enough to meet high-frequency user needs, a wave of phone upgrades may occur.

Google's focus on this point is similar to the platform-level AI feature called "Anytime Door" launched by Honor in January this year: both focus their technology research and development on daily user applications rather than "office productivity tools."

For example, some AI applications in Google's Pixel 8 series include a quick information screening feature, where users can simply use their voice to call up Gemini, search for information in Google-related applications, and then directly access the corresponding app services.

Therefore, the development companies of iOS and Android systems—Apple and Google—are both looking forward to the new technological applications of AI smartphones, which are imminent. Whether their respective AI smartphones can inject new momentum into the increasingly shrinking existing market due to a lack of new technological innovations will soon be answered.

From this perspective, Apple and Google are jointly ushering in a new technological journey for smartphones in the AI era