Apple lost the AI race — now the real challenge starts
For an AI loser, Apple did an awful lot of winning last year.
The mess that was the Apple Intelligence rollout was embarrassing, to be sure, but through it all, the company kept doing what it does best: selling iPhones. With this week's news that it'll use Gemini models to power the long-awaited smarter Siri, Apple seems to have taken a big 'ol L in the whole AI race. But there's still a major challenge ahead - and Apple isn't out of the running just yet.
Apple Intelligence got off to a well-documented rough start in 2024. The iPhone 16 was "Built for Apple Intelligence," but shipped without it. Features arrived over the next few months, b …