[WWDC 2023] Genital AI Threatens the iOS/Mac Ecosystem… Apple Vs Google MS

[WWDC 2023] Genital AI Threatens the iOS/Mac Ecosystem… Apple Vs Google MS

[디지털데일리 이종현기자] Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) 2023 has begun. The five-day event, from the 5th to the 9th, will be held at the Apple Park headquarters in California, USA. The keynote presentation will also be broadcast live online.

Before the event, what the information technology (IT) industry paid attention to was artificial intelligence (AI). Since the announcement of ChatGPT OpenAI, great concern has emerged as to whether Apple will introduce new technologies related to productive AI, which has emerged as the biggest trend in the information technology (IT) industry.

Competing with Apple on platforms are Google and Microsoft (MS), which held their own developer events such as WWDC2023 in May. And the biggest topic at both events was productive AI. Both companies announced a policy to merge generative AI based on the Large Language Model (LLM) into the overall platform rather than a point solution.

The main stage of the productive AI competition is expected to be the cloud. However, the evaluation of the IT industry is that even Apple cannot be free from this competition. This is because Apple is a company that provides a powerful platform called iOS and Mac, respectively, on mobile and personal computers (PCs).

According to StatCounter, a market share research organization, Apple trails Android and Windows with 31.6% in mobile platforms and 18.8% in PC platforms in May. The competitiveness of the platform itself and the ever-expanding hardware (HW) ecosystem, including the iPhone, iMac, headset, iPad, and Apple Watch, as well as Apple-designed M1 and M2 semiconductor chips , is the base.

As much as HW can have a significant impact on platform share, the opposite is also possible. At the I/O developer event, Google demonstrated a way to personalize Android devices, including a chatbot called Bard, based on generative AI technology. The more productive AI technology is installed in Android, the more competitive Android companies like Samsung Electronics will become.

Microsoft’s AI breakthrough, which has formed a common front with OpenAI, is even more fierce. At the ‘Build 2023’ developer event, MS presented its vision of incorporating ‘Copilot’, an AI assistant, into every area. In addition to previously released productivity applications (apps) such as Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and Teams, Windows, the operating system (OS), is also included. Co-Pilot will be installed in Windows 11 in the fall.

Generative AI technologies are rapidly emerging as ‘killer content’ that must be deployed on the platform. In the past, just as ‘Final Cut’ became ‘the reason why video workers must use Mac,’ MS Co-Pilot is said to be ‘the reason why developers and document workers must use Windows’ .

As such, while competitors are putting productive AI to the fore, Apple has shown a rather lukewarm response. Apple took a more pragmatic AI approach at WWDC23, such as auto-correcting iPhone text based on machine learning (ML), recognizing your pet and automatically saving it to a separate folder, and turning off automatic noise cancellation on the iPod Pro which made .

Over the past few years, Apple hasn’t shown much interest in AI. Instead of the comprehensive name AI, it focused on ML, which promotes individual functions. However, it’s hard to see Apple giving up on AI completely.

Notable is Siri, a voice-activated AI assistant. Released in 2011, Siri has stood out as an AI assistant that recognizes and responds to users’ voices. Google Assistant, Amazon’s Alexa, Microsoft’s Cortana, Samsung’s Bixby, and KT’s GiGA Genie were also influenced by Siri. It can be seen that Siri has also influenced productive AI services such as MS Co-Pilot.

However, it is evaluated that Siri has not shown innovative technological progress since its initial release. At WWDC23, an update was unveiled to improve the call phrase “Hey Siri” to “Siri,” an improvement that Amazon and Microsoft have already demonstrated when calling Alexa and Cortana. In the age of ChatGPT, it is somewhat inadequate to compare with productive AI technologies like Co-Pilot, Bard, and Dali.

Some speculate that Apple is also developing generative AI technology as well as upgrading Siri’s capabilities. However, it is not known whether Apple can still have influence in a situation where competitors focus on ‘what each person is good at’ and compete with Apple through the results.

MS accepts LLM OpenAI and focuses on creating services for companies (B2B) or developers which they are good at. Intel, Nvidia, Adobe, SAP, Workday, Samsung Electronics, and other leading companies in all fields form an alliance that combines Microsoft technology with their own technology. On the face of it, it’s ‘Apple vs MS’, but it’s no exaggeration to say it’s actually ‘Apple vs MS United Front’. And the same goes for Google.

Attention is focused on whether Apple, which became the world’s best company with the invention of the century called the iPhone, will continue its position in the AI ​​era, or whether there will be another ‘generational shift’ happen

Meanwhile, at WWDC23, what Apple emphasized most strongly is the augmented reality (AR) glass ‘Apple Vision Pro’. This product, which costs about 4.5 million won ($3499) in Korean currency, is integrated with Apple’s M2 chip and a dedicated chipset for the past few years, 12 cameras, and a small ultra-high resolution OLED display . 5000 patented technologies were used. It is evaluated to have introduced the most innovative technology in the metaverse market, which has lost some attention since productive AI.

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