logo
WWDC: Apple faces AI, regulatory challenges as it woos software developers

WWDC: Apple faces AI, regulatory challenges as it woos software developers

Yahooa day ago

By Stephen Nellis
CUPERTINO, California (Reuters) -Apple is facing an unprecedented set of technical and regulatory challenges as some of its key executives are set to take the stage on Monday at the company's annual software developer conference.
On the technical side, many of the long-awaited artificial-intelligence features Apple promised at the same conference a year ago have been delayed until next year, even as its rivals such as Alphabet's Google and Microsoft woo developers with a bevvy of new AI features. Those unfulfilled promises included key improvements to Siri, its digital assistant.
On the regulatory front, courts in the U.S. and Europe are poised to pull down the lucrative walls around Apple's App Store as even some of the company's former supporters question whether its fees are justified.
Those challenges are coming to a head at the same time U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened 25% tariffs on Apple's best-selling iPhone. Apple's shares are down more than 40% since the start of the year, a sharper decline than Google and also lagging the AI-driven gains in Microsoft shares.
Apple has launched some of the AI features it promised last year, including a set of writing tools and image-generation tools, but it still relies on partners such as ChatGPT creator OpenAI for some of those capabilities. Bloomberg has reported that Apple may open up in-house AI models to developers this year.
But analysts do not believe Apple yet has what technologists call a "multi-modal" model - that is, one capable of understanding imagery, audio and language at the same time - that could power a pair of smart glasses, a category that has become a runaway hit for Meta Platforms. Google said last month it would jump back in to this category, with partners.
Such glasses, which are far lighter and cheaper than Apple's Vision Pro headset, could become useful because they would understand what the user is looking at and could help answer questions about it.
While Apple has focused on its $3,500 Vision Pro headset, Google and Meta have seized on the smart glasses as a cheaper way to deploy their AI software prowess against Apple in its stronghold of hardware. Meta Ray-Bans all sell for less than $400.
Analysts say Apple needs to answer that challenge but that it is not likely to do so this week.
"I'm not trying to replace my phone - this is a complementary thing that gives me more world context, because it's got a camera and it sees what I see, and I can talk to it in natural language," said Ben Bajarin, CEO of technology consultancy Creative Strategies. "Apple is not positioned to do that."
To be sure, Apple's rivals are not decisively ahead in smart glasses. Anshel Sag, principal analyst with Moor Insights & Strategy, said Meta's Ray-Bans still lack some features and Google has not yet landed its "Gemini" model in a mass-market pair of glasses yet.
"Meta has the undisputed lead, but Google is catching up fast and probably has the best-suited AI for the job," Sag said. "Vision Pro is great, but it's a showroom product that developers can use."
But Bob O'Donnell, CEO of TECHnalysis Research, said it remains far from clear that smart glasses will gain wide acceptance. O'Donnell also said it is not certain that Apple is at any particular disadvantage if it partners with a company such as Google, OpenAI or even a smaller firm like Perplexity for core AI technology.
So far, O'Donnell said, there is not yet strong evidence that consumers are basing major hardware-purchasing decisions on AI features.
"There's an argument to be made that it's OK that (Apple) is behind because, except for the bleeding edge, most people don't care," O'Donnell said.

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Syngenta group expects minimal impact from U.S tariffs in 2025, executive says
Syngenta group expects minimal impact from U.S tariffs in 2025, executive says

Yahoo

time25 minutes ago

  • Yahoo

Syngenta group expects minimal impact from U.S tariffs in 2025, executive says

CAMPINAS, Brazil (Reuters) -Agrochemicals company Syngenta Group expects a minimal impact from tariffs imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump on its business in 2025, Steven Hawkins, global president of Syngenta's crop protection business, said on Tuesday. While the company is growing and investing in its portfolio of biological products, these are not a substitute for synthetic crop protections, Hawkins told journalists on the sidelines of Syngenta's One Agro event in Brazil's Campinas, a city in the state of Sao Paulo.

Meta is reportedly making a $15 billion bet on AGI
Meta is reportedly making a $15 billion bet on AGI

The Verge

time28 minutes ago

  • The Verge

Meta is reportedly making a $15 billion bet on AGI

Meta is close to finalizing an almost $15 billion investment in Scale AI, the tech giant's largest-ever external investment, which would give Meta a 49% stake in the company, according to The Information. As part of the deal, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is personally assembling a team of about 50 people to help Meta supercharge its AI goals — specifically, to achieve artificial general intelligence — and Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang is set to join that group once the deal is final, according to Bloomberg and The New York Times. AGI is the concept of AI that equals or surpasses human cognitive abilities, and it's something that nearly every AI industry leader is currently racing to achieve before their competitors. Bloomberg was first to report on the planned multibillion-dollar investment. Scale, the AI giant that provides training data to industry leaders like OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, and Meta, in April reportedly expected that its 2025 revenue would more than double year-over-year to about $2 billion. It's also currently planning a tender offer for employees and early investors at a $25 billion valuation. Meta has been concerned about falling behind in the AI race as competitors like OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and Microsoft pull ahead. In May, Meta delayed the launch of its new flagship model, dubbed Behemoth, amid concerns about its capabilities compared to competing models, The Wall Street Journal reported. The company's investment in Scale AI is likely a bid to catch up as competing tech giants each choose one or more AI startups to back for greater chances of AI success, whether internally or externally. Amazon has invested at least $8 billion in Anthropic, the AI startup founded by ex-OpenAI research executives, and Anthropic's tech now powers Amazon's Alexa Plus. Google has given at least $3 billion to Anthropic, and the two companies share a significant cloud contract. Microsoft has famously invested at least $13 billion in OpenAI and currently gets a share of the company's revenue. Besides its forthcoming deal with Meta, Scale has spent the last few months leaning hard into deals with governments across the world, like a five-year deal with Qatar to provide automation tools for civil service, healthcare, and more. The company has said its work with countries in Asia and Europe could account for a big piece of sales coming up. And in March, Scale signed a multimillion-dollar deal with the Department of Defense for a flagship AI agent program for the U.S. military.

OpenAI will reportedly start using Google's cloud servers
OpenAI will reportedly start using Google's cloud servers

Engadget

time29 minutes ago

  • Engadget

OpenAI will reportedly start using Google's cloud servers

OpenAI has inked a deal with Google to begin using the latter's cloud service to meet its growing needs for increased computing capacity, according to a report by Reuters . This is something of a surprise, given that Google and OpenAI are rivals in the AI space. The terms of the deal remain unknown, but reporting indicates it has been in the negotiation phase for the past several months. This marks OpenAI's latest move to diversify its compute sources away from Microsoft Azure. Microsoft had been OpenAI's exclusive data center provider until January , after OpenAI CEO Sam Altman blamed the lack of compute capacity for the delay of several products. The company made a deal in March with CoreWeave to provide increased cloud compute capacity . That deal was worth nearly $12 billion. Microsoft Azure may no longer be the exclusive cloud provider for OpenAI, but it's not as if the two companies have parted ways. OpenAI still relies heavily on Azure and the corporations are currently in negotiations to revise the terms of their partnership, which will likely revise the equity stake Microsoft holds in OpenAI . However, this is certainly a win for Google Cloud. ChatGPT poses the biggest threat to Google's search business in years , and this deal could indicate a softening between the two companies. In any event, it'll certainly bring a whole lot of money into Google Cloud's coffers. The platform made $43 billion last year and accounted for 12 percent of parent company Alphabet's overall revenue. The addition of OpenAI to its customer portfolio will likely extend those numbers dramatically. To view this content, you'll need to update your privacy settings. Please click here and view the "Content and social-media partners" setting to do so. $GOOG CEO ADMITS GOOGLE CLOUD IS RUNNING INTO REAL CONSTRAINTS Not just from permitting delays, but from infrastructure bottlenecks. And when AI buildouts stall, there's usually one common denominator: not enough $NVDA-powered systems 👀 — Shay Boloor (@StockSavvyShay) May 20, 2025 There is an elephant in the room. Google has famously struggled to meet customer demand for its cloud services, and this was before bringing on OpenAI. Simply put, it needs more data centers . Will OpenAI get priority access over pre-existing customers? Engadget has reached out to Google and will update this story if we hear back. To that end, OpenAI is certainly thriving. The company recently announced that the current adoption rate of its software will lead to $10 billion in annual revenue as of June. It told investors that it has a target revenue goal of around $12 billion for the year, which it should easily meet with new subscribers.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store