Apple limiting AI to priciest iPhones generates less excitement in China

Apple's inclusion of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) capabilities in its devices has received a mixed reaction in China, where some smartphone industry veterans referred to the AI push as lacking novelty.

The US tech giant on Monday unveiled its long-awaited AI blueprint during its annual Worldwide Developers Conference, charting out plans to bake a range of related functions into iPhones, iPads and Mac computers. The new functionality includes text generation, photo editing and call transcription.

The company has also teamed with Microsoft-backed OpenAI to use ChatGPT for handling user queries via Siri, Apple's digital assistant.

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Apple's move was invigorating for Chinese iPhone fans, although it remains unclear when the company's AI features will make it to devices inside China's heavily regulated internet services market.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman (left) talks with Apple senior vice-president of services Eddy Cue during the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in Cupertino, California on June 10, 2024. Photo: Getty Images via AFP alt=OpenAI CEO Sam Altman (left) talks with Apple senior vice-president of services Eddy Cue during the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in Cupertino, California on June 10, 2024. Photo: Getty Images via AFP>

Li An, who runs a five-person app development studio in Hangzhou, capital of eastern Zhejiang province, hailed Apple's AI integration as a big and positive move for iOS app developers in China. The updates will persuade iPhone users to stay in the Apple ecosystem, he said.

At the same time, Apple's perceived tardiness to the AI race engulfing Silicon Valley right now has led to rehashed criticism of the company not being truly innovative.

Li Nan, a co-founder of Chinese smartphone brand Meizu who left the company in 2019, said he found Apple's AI features disappointing as the company is just copying from others and integrating existing large language models (LLMs) - the technology that underpins chatbots like ChatGPT. Chinese handsets already have similar AI features like photo editing, the entrepreneur wrote on the microblogging platform Weibo.

Apple did not immediately respond to questions about Li's remarks on Wednesday.

Other users on Weibo also argued that similar functionality could be found on cheaper Chinese handsets. Apple is only making its AI functions available on the premium iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max for now.

Like much of the technology industry, Chinese smartphone brands have been aggressive in their adoption of AI in hopes of standing out in a crowded and stagnant handset market. Canalys, a consultancy, forecast 1 per cent growth in Chinese smartphone shipments this year.

"The GenAI-capable smartphone presents important opportunities for Chinese vendors to differentiate in the high end in 2024 to challenge Apple in their home market," Canalys analyst Lucas Zhong wrote in a note in April.

Chinese vendors, from Beijing-based Xiaomi to Guangdong-based Vivo, Oppo and Huawei Technologies, have been racing to add a variety of AI-powered functions to their devices to help users write text messages, edit photos, answer calls and take notes.

Similar to Apple's tie-up with OpenAI, they have each teamed up with Chinese LLM developers.

Xiaomi has integrated Alibaba Group Holding's Tongyi Qianwen model into its latest flagship Xiaomi 14 series phones, in addition to other AI-related features like photo enhancement. The company has been using GenAI to improve its Xiao Ai chatbot in smartphones and electric vehicles. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.

Oppo also announced in early June that it is looking to "democratise [AI phones] for the first time in the industry", as the company pledges to bring AI functions to all of its products, including more affordable devices. It aims to have its AI features available to 50 million users by year's end.

With foreign LLMs banned on the mainland, Samsung Electronics struck a deal with Baidu to provide AI capabilities for its Galaxy S24 phones in the country. The Beijing-based internet search giant is also said to be in talks with Apple about a similar partnership.

In recent years, Apple has sought to differentiate itself from rivals by emphasising privacy, which is seen as a challenge when using data-hungry LLMs, especially those developed by third parties.

"Apple's much-anticipated adoption of AI has been delayed due to long-standing privacy concerns surrounding generative AI," said Ivan Lam, an analyst at market consultancy Counterpoint. "This is why AI has already been used in many features and functions on Apple devices, but only in an assistive capacity rather than in a general way."

This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2024 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

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