From a business perspective it’s a smart move (inasmuch as “integrating AI” is the default which I fundamentally disagree with) since Apple won’t be left holding the bag on a bunch of AI datacenters when/if the AI bubble pops.
I don’t want to lose trust in Apple, but I literally moved away from Google/Android to try and retain control over my data and now they’re taking me… right back to Google. Guess I’ll retreat further into self-hosting.
As long as Apple doesn't take any crazy left turns with their privacy policy then it should be relatively harmless if they add in a google wrapper to iOS (and we won't need to take hard right turns with grapheneOS phones and framework laptops).
Did you forget all the Apple Intelligence stuff? They were never "ignoring" if anything they talked a big talk, and then failed so hard.
The whole iPhone 16 was marketed as AI first phone (including in billboards). They had full length ads running touting AI benefits.
Apple was never "ignoring" or "sitting AI out". They were very much in it. And they failed.