But it's a whole lot easier to switch from Gemini to Claude or Gemini to a hypothetical good proprietary LLM if it's white label instead of "iOS with Gemini"
Depends on where you are. In my experience here in Sweden Google Maps is still better, Apple maps sent us for a loop in Stockholm (literally {{{(>_<)}}} )
Google wanted to shove ads in it. Apple refused and to switch.
Their hand was forced by that refusal.
Apple announced last year they are putting their own ads in Maps so if that was the real problem the corporate leadership has done a complete 180 on user experience.
Apple is a very VERY different company than they were back then.
Back then they didn’t have all sorts of services that they advertised to you constantly. They didn’t have search ads in the App Store. They weren’t trying to squeeze every penny out of every customer all the time no matter how annoying.
Maybe I'm weird but mobile assistants have never been useful for me. I tried Siri a couple of times and it didn't work. I haven't tried it since because even if it worked perfectly I'm not sure I'd have any use for it.
I see it more like the Vision Pro. Doesn't matter how good the product ends up being, I just don't think it's something most people are going to have a use for.
As far as I'm concerned no one has proved the utility of these mobile assistants yet.
It'll absolutely be interesting to see if "Google" or "Gemini" appear anywhere in the new Siri UI.
