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Apple is doing early work on an AirTag-sized AI pin, set for 2027

Apple’s slightly bigger AirTag will be an AI interface, rumors imply. (Picture: Apple)

Apple plans to compete in the AI pin race against OpenAI’s upcoming device said to upend the smartphone/assistant market.

The device in early stage planning will be similar to a slightly thicker AirTag, paywalled The Information writes.

It will be thin, flat and circular, come with an aluminum shell and offer two cameras on the front to observe it’s surroundings and take pictures. It will also have a three microphone array for listening in — and an included speaker for output, writes MacRumors.

There is only one button on it, presumably for turning it on and off.

The presumptive idea for such a pin would be for use with an AI assistant without having to spring out a full feature phone just to check the surroundings — and it will probably work along with a phone in the Apple ecosystem.

The finished system could be able to launch as early as 2027, and Apple plans to produce around 20 million devices at launch, Engadget writes.

There is not much time to act; OpenAI said yesterday that their first device will be ready in late 2026.

Read more: The Verge, Engadget, MacRumors.

Apple’s Google partnership will allow them to tinker with the AI

Expect more advanced AI features in June, not spring, a new report says. (Picture: generated)

More detail is coming out on the Apple-Google AI deal, and it is clear it will come with absolutely no Google or Gemini type branding or references on the Apple side.

The LLM will supposedly function like any other, and be better at things such as scanning your Calendar app for upcoming events and your Contacts for sending messages. It should also be better at providing «emotional support» through «conversational responses» according to a report from paywalled The Information, seen by 9to5Mac.

The Google model will not be in a glass house over at Googleplex, but rather sit on Apple’s Private Cloud Compute servers, and, according to The Information, Apple can choose to ask Google to implement improvements to it, or tinker with the model themselves — thereby evolving it to their particular needs.

Timewise, «some features» will launch already this spring, but others — like remembering past conversations, or things like warning of the weather ahead of an Apple Calendar event, won’t be launching until the WWDC in June, apparently.

Read more: The Information (paywalled), 9to5Mac, AppleInsider — and some choice speculation from The Verge.

It’s official: Apple chooses Google as AI provider

You’ll find Google’s AI under the hood of your Apple devices in the near future. (Picture: generated)

In a joint statement, Apple says that «Google’s Al technology provides the most capable foundation for Apple Foundation Models,» and will now be driving AI for Apple.

All of Google/Apple’s models will continue to run on Apple’s Private Cloud Compute, ensuring industry leading safety and privacy for queries and prompts.

Unpacking the statement reveals a lot. Firstly that Apple is not limiting Google to make a long awaited smarter Siri assistant, but will be using it as a foundation for «innovative new experiences» for all Apple users.

The deal was tentatively agreed in November, and the reason for such a late statement could be that Apple has decided to expand the scope.

This means Google will be delivering AI services to Android and iOS, cornering the smartphone market, and to Chrome, which basically has a browser monopoly — spurring antitrust ideas for many, including from Elon Musk.

Apple has been rumored to announce a revamped Siri assistant in March or April this year, writes MacRumors

ChatGPT now has an Apple Music app

You can now find Apple Music in the App list for ChatGPT. (Picture: Screenshot)

After days of rumors, Apple Music is now available as an app inside ChatGPT.

That means you can ask ChatGPT to create playlists, find songs, albums and artists — which can be helpful for those faint songs you can only describe from memory, or for recommending similar songs in the same lane.

The app can even create complex playlists based on natural language and preferences right in ChatGPT, and will give you an option to add it to your library — always asking politely first.

To add it, go to Settings->Apps->Browse apps in the ChatGPT app, and add it from the list. You will then have access by typing /Apple Music.

You will be asked to sign in to Apple Music from your account, and non-subscribers will only be able to listen to short previews of songs.

Read more: MacRumors, 9to5Mac, and Digital Music News.

ChatGPT tops Apple’s App Store free downloads for 2025

ChatGPT tops Apple's charts for 2025. — The data does not lie: ChatGPT was most downloaded in 2025. (Picture: screenshot)

In a show of force, ChatGPT becomes the most downloaded free app on iOS in USA this year — ahead of Google and Threads.

Topping this chart is another clear indicator of how people have come to use a lot of AI.

Besting Google on the list could also indicate ChatGPT’s real threat to the search behemoth — as more and more people prefer to use it instead of Google’s offerings, TechCrunch notes.

The only other AI app on Apple’s top list is Google Gemini, ticking in at a respectable 10th place, still ahead of Facebook and Temu, which topped the chart last year.

Read more: Apple’s 2025 chart, writeups by MacRumors and TechCrunch.

Weekend roundup: Gemini is going to space, Apple chooses Google, and Amazon’s had it with Perplexity

Gemini is launching to orbit
Google’s latest moonshot might almost be literal. They are preparing for sending their TPU processors into low-earth orbit, and maybe then build a proper AI data center in space — where there is ample sunlight to provide it with energy. They have already tested a TPU in orbit conditions in a particle accelerator and it survived, and the next step is the launch of two prototype satellites in early 2027. They call it Project Suncatcher, and say that «in the future, space may be the best place to scale AI compute.»
More at: Sundar Pichai’s tweet, Google’s announcement blog

Google close to Apple deal for AI Siri
Apparently, Apple has chosen Gemini for its upcoming AI version of the Siri assistant. They will use what is likely a custom version of the model with 1.2 trillion parameters, running on Apple’s Private Cloud Compute servers. Apple supposedly also tested options from OpenAI and Anthropic, but Anthropic’s fees were too high and Apple already partners with Google for search results. The deal will cost Apple $1 billion a year, far less than the $20 billion Google pays Apple to be their search provider.
More at: Bloomberg, MacRumors, TechCrunch.

Read on for more!

Continue reading “Weekend roundup: Gemini is going to space, Apple chooses Google, and Amazon’s had it with Perplexity”

Report: Apple planning an AI search engine for Siri as early as March 2026

The long promised Siri LLM upgrade is slated for March, 2026. — Siri will take on Perplexity and OpenAI with its coming revamp. (Picture: Apple)

World Knowledge Answers, as it is known internally, will be a massive upgrade for their voice search assistant Siri, according to Bloomberg.

Rumor is that Apple will use an underlying, custom model from Google for the brains of the assistant, and Apple has been looking at it for quite a while.

Continue reading “Report: Apple planning an AI search engine for Siri as early as March 2026”

Friday roundup: A good week for coding, speech models

Coding and speech models grab the headlines for this weeks roundup. — Both OpenAI and Microsoft are out with speech-to-speech models this week. (Picture: OpenAI)

OpenAI makes Realtime API generally available
The agentic Realtime model is a native speech-to-speech model that can be used to make customer service agents, phone reps and voice navigation features. It doesn’t go through speech-to-text and text-to-speech loops and generates audio «directly through a single model and API.» OpenAI is marketing this to developers who want more natural flowing speech, and it’s not available as distinct model in ChatGPT – yet. You can hear it and see it in use at places like Zillow, T-mobile, StubHub and Oscar Health, though. With general availability, it will surely show up in a lot more places soon.
More at: OpenAI’s launch page, discussion on r/OpenAI.

Read on for more news!

Continue reading “Friday roundup: A good week for coding, speech models”

Apple boss says AI is «as big or bigger» than internet, smartphones

Apple is preparing to "significantly" invest in the AI space. — «We will make the investment to do it,» Cook said. (Picture: Adobe)

Add cloud computing and apps, and you have the mindset of CEO Tim Cook at an all hands meeting in Cupertino yesterday, as reported by Bloomberg.

— Apple must do this. Apple will do this. This is sort of ours to grab, the Apple chief said.

He also said during the Q2 earnings call on Thursday that Apple would «invest significantly» in AI projects next quarter.

— We’ve rarely been first, he added, telling employees that — There was a PC before the Mac, there was a smartphone before the iPhone, there were many tablets before the iPad, there was an MP3 player before iPod.

Together, these statements might signal a new era for Apple — attacking the AI market with some sense of renewed urgency, and investing aggressively in the process.

Go read the full scoop from Bloomberg.

ChatGPT removes sharing with Google feature, and other Friday news in short

If you clicked this box, your ChatGPT session would be on Google
ChatGPT was just two clicks away from spilling your secrets to Google, an investigation found yesterday. The «Make this chat discoverable» button on the share feature would register the whole chat on search engines. Plenty of people made that mistake, sharing «deeply personal details, including struggles with addiction, experiences of physical abuse, or serious mental health issues.» OpenAI removed the feature shortly after, saying it «introduced too many opportunities for folks to accidentally share things they didn’t intend to.» They are now scrambling to remove «indexed content from the relevant search engines.»

Apple open to mergers and acquisitions in AI space
— We’re very open to M&A that accelerates our roadmap, Apple’s Tim Cook said on yesterday’s earnings call. — We are not stuck on a certain size company, although the ones that we have acquired thus far this year are small in nature. He also said Apple was going to «significantly» grow it’s AI investments, after the company reported a 10% increase in revenue — the largest jump since 2021. They are also «making good progress» on personalizing Siri, he said.

Zuckerberg throws shade on open source projects
Mark Zuckerberg of Meta recently posted a manifesto of sorts, mapping out what he sees as a benevolent «personal superintelligence» «for everyone.» In it, he quietly states that superintelligence will pose new safety concerns, and «We’ll need to be rigorous about mitigating these risks and careful about what we choose to open source.» He repeated this in his later earnings call, saying «we kind of wrestle with whether it’s productive or helpful to share that.» See also his original post.

Developers are slightly souring on AI coding
A new survey from Stack Overflow shows a significant drop in developer trust in AI coding, with trust in its accuracy dropping from 40% in previous years to 29% in 2025. «Favorability» has also dropped from 72% to 60% on a yearly basis. 52% of developers say they use AI agents in their work, while 72% reject «vibe coding.» The survey was taken with 49,000 worldwide developers. Stack Overflow is no stranger to AI effects, having dropped sharply after the AI coding boom.

Meta hires Ruoming Pang, Apple’s lead on foundational models

Meta hires top Apple AI talent for it's Superintelligence Labs. — Meta is looking to kickstart its AI teams after a string of mishaps. (Picture: Meta)

The top AI executive and 15-year Google veteran was offered «tens of millions» in compensation to join the Superintelligence Labs at Meta.

Pang was in charge of roughly 100 developers making Apple’s Foundational models, powering features the company calls «Apple Intelligence,» and is found in every corner of iOS 26, such as email summaries, notifications and Genmoji — that was all over the latest WWDC 2025.

Bad vibes at Apple
Bloomberg (paywalled) writes that news of Apple considering other models than its in-house ones to power a smarter Siri has impacted the morale at the foundational model team, and MacRumors says that other engineers are also entertaining offers from outside companies.

Continue reading “Meta hires Ruoming Pang, Apple’s lead on foundational models”

Apple might be dropping own AI, integrating Anthropic or OpenAI instead

Apple is considering partnering with Anthropic of OpenAI for it's LLM-based Siri in 2026. — Siri might be getting smarter, with a little outside help. (Picture: Apple)

Bloomberg reports that the iPhone company is considering opting out of using its homegrown LLM for future versions of the chatbot Siri.

They have instead asked Anthropic and OpenAI to train some of their models on their Private Cloud Compute servers.

The Samsung model
This mirrors Samsung’s approach to integrating Large Language Models in its Galaxy phones, where they have some in-house, lower level AI doing the legwork and passing the rest off to Google’s Gemini, writes Engadget.

According to Bloomberg, Apple has recently focused on Anthropic as the most promising LLM, being more compatible with Apple servers and offering the best experience.

Continue reading “Apple might be dropping own AI, integrating Anthropic or OpenAI instead”

A facelift, and some actually useful AI features from Apple at WWDC

All Apple software is getting a facelift - and some useful features. — Some cosmetics for iOS 26, and some standout, actually useful features, too. (Picture: Apple)

Yes, Apple held its developer conference and traditional keynote to announce new software yesterday. It’s hard to miss.

It debuted a new user interface across its systems, and launched a whole suite of «Apple Intelligence» features.

Continue reading “A facelift, and some actually useful AI features from Apple at WWDC”

Jony Ive joins OpenAI on breakthrough hardware project

Jony Ive and Sam Altman are teaming up for a great hardware challenge. — The Apple design guru is teaming up with OpenAI to solve a great challenge. (Picture: OpenAI)

He has been working with the company for eighteen months on the frontier of modern hardware design; the standalone AI product.

Citing significant progress already done, Sam Altman says «I think it is the coolest piece of technology that the world will have ever seen,» according to The Washington Post.

Continue reading “Jony Ive joins OpenAI on breakthrough hardware project”

Apple reportedly has ChatGPT-level AI for Siri in the works

Apple might improve with its own LLM chatbot, says reports. — Apple is still playing catch-up in the LLM market, but that may change soon, according to recent reports. (Picture: Apple)

In an article mainly about how Apple got AI and LLMs so wrong, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, a noted Apple-watcher, also notes a few things it’s getting right.

One of those is the significant progress it is having during testing of an AI chatbot version of Apple’s personal Siri assistant, developed by a team in Zurich.

MacRumors reports that Apple is testing a completely new architecture — not the current patchwork Siri that punts to ChatGPT — but a standalone LLM designed to eventually replace Siri outright.

Continue reading “Apple reportedly has ChatGPT-level AI for Siri in the works”