Apple and Gemini? Pathetic.
After 15 years of squandered AI potential, Apple has done the unthinkable: outsourcing Siri’s brain to Google. It’s not strategy; it’s surrender. A company that once owned the stack now rents intelligence, proving once again that culture, not hardware or software is Apple’s real unfinished product.
A pathetic excuse for 15 years of wasted effort and a disastrous foray into AI.
There used to be an expression amongst basketball players, “White Men Can’t Jump.”
Apple just showed us it can’t do AI.
This is not trivial. Apple needs to own this stack, the way they owned iTunes and music downloads and the MP3 player market, and then owned the smartphone market with iOS and not Android.
Mark Gurman
Shameful. Just, shameful.
The biggest deal, in this deal, is that once again, under Tim Cook’s leadership, Apple have done an #epicfail on AI, Siri, and all the products now backlogged for two years which depended on them.
Once again, coming from me, the mouth of AAPL analysis and support for 25 years, I say “pathetic” to this outcome. However it’s dressed up, it’s a pig. Lipstick and hair wax, but a pig, of and outcome.
Cook & Co should hang their heads in shame at squandering a lead in agentic assistants and AI which Apple began delivering as far back as 2011 when they acquired Siri, and have totally squandered ever since.
Tommo_UK
If you still celebrate this deal, read this, and get real.
Apple‘s leadership is not up to the job. there needs to be a wholesale change. This may look calm on the surface, but remember, this odyssey is not 1 year old. not two. not a three year failure even, but fifteen years of utter incompetence at managing and developing what is now the core of Apple’s problems:
A lobotomised and non functional Siri delaying the product release schedule, and shedding key staff in the process, since they lied their way into the AI story with promises in 2024, and are going to go into 2026 on the back of Google instead.
For me, this is something akin to what I would have said, if Apple had ever shipped Macs with Windows installed by default, selling hardware, but losing control of the stack. a bit like it did when it began licensing PowerMac designs in the 90s, only to discover it’s error when its licencees began producing better, faster, and cheaper “Macs” than Apple could even dream of offering.
A project Steve Jobs sensibly shut down immediately upon his return to Apple, understanding you have to own the stack, not rent it, or rent it out.
This is a capitulation event for me.
Apple may introduce, later, their own AI and LLMs, but they have had years to do so, and failed. Nothing, in my eyes can ever forgive the sheer incompetence, hubris and contempt for its customer, that Apple has shown in the last few years, and never so exemplified in anything as Siri and AI.
Tommo_UK
Apple needs a new culture, and a new CEO.
Subscribe for free by accepting early Founder Member access to this tier — and early beta access the moment it goes live.
That was my personal from-the-heart ”Intraday Update.” Here’s my “FYI” take:
So Apple reportedly plans to licence Google’s 1.2 trillion-parameter Gemini model for Siri, paying ~$1 billion annually.
This isn’t just a product move. It signals a deeper cultural collapse at Apple — fifteen years of promise, delays, and under-execution. The company that once owned the stack is now renting intelligence.
1. The Licence Admission
Apple’s deal with Google is striking for its implications:
- A custom version of Google’s Gemini model (1.2 trillion parameters) will support Siri starting in 2026.
- It’s reportedly a stop-gap. Apple will continue developing its own models internally, but in the interim it is outsourcing the core.
- The price tag (~$1 billion/year) underscores how far behind Apple has fallen.
- Apple will, reportedly, not be making this arrangement “very public” but will keep the dependency under-wraps [presumably to hide its utter embarrassment and humiliation].
2. Why This Hits So Hard
a) Loss of Stack Control
Apple built its reputation by owning the stack: iTunes, iPod, iPhone, iOS, App Store, etc. That control created margins, differentiation, and cultural identity. By outsourcing its brain (AI model), it gives up both margin and narrative. And also control of its AI model, even for however long it takes them to- if ever - to catch up with their own.
b) Fifteen Years of Failed Execution
- Apple acquired Siri in 2011, promised intelligent assistants ever since, but consistently lagged competitors, and then boxed it for two years.
- Delays: Siri revamp keeps getting pushed (now 2026).
- Apple has lost key AI-engineering talent, and repeatedly shifted internal structures, and has no option but to lean on Google for a favour, when once it held all the cards, and all of the leverage.
This isn’t a slip-up. It’s a pattern of failure, with an arc 15 years in the making.
c) Culture vs. Hardware
In my previous article, “From FAANG to MANGO” I said:
“Apple’s next product needs to be culture, not hardware.”
This deal confirms the opposite: culture still hasn’t shifted. The hardware may be fine, but culture matters most when you’re trying to lead the next phase (AI, cognition). Renting someone else’s brain is not leadership.
3. “Pathetic” either way
I wrote this in sorrow:
“Pathetic excuse for 15 years of wasted effort and a disastrous foray into AI.”
And I stand by it. Because:
- If Apple bet on internal models and lost — that’s incompetence.
- If Apple bet on external models to plug a gap — that’s admission of cultural defeat.
Neither path is comforting.
4. But What Now?
Apple isn’t dead. It will thrive for years, decades maybe. But this is not the Apple we use to invest in, and love, and have faith in. It is a transactional machine, no longer a bleeding innovator. A deal like this could still work if executed with honesty. There are two possible narratives:
Narrative 1 - Stop-gap rationalised:
Apple admits it fell behind, buys time, builds own model for future.
That could pass muster — if Apple uses the time wisely, rebuilds culture, delivers. But it will still have squandered its lead, and its reputation, and its strategic advantage, and its product release schedule.
This is not forgivable. It is sheer incompetence and poor judgment.
Narrative 2 - Optics theatre:
Apple buys a headline, delays execution further, composes a marketing narrative while internal culture remains unchanged.
That’s what worries me. Because then we’re back at “story > substance.”
5. My Verdict
At ~$270 (near the print and recent high - excluding the Q4 AH action which drove AAPL up to an insane $283 on news its Air was a flop, China missed, and iPhone sales were up 6%) I remain unimpressed by the upside unless culture changes visibly. And frankly, I no longer care whether it doubles in the next 10 years thanks to inflation, financial engineering via buybacks, selling high margin credit products, and insurance. This is not anywhere close to the company I used to love and follow. It’s an “Artificial Apple,” with very little “Intelligence” on show.
Because for me:
- Hardware alone won’t cut it.
- Culture needs to reset: internal ambition, engineering excellence, market reinvention.
Apple can’t ship any more
It wasn’t always that way:
Tommo_UK
Apple could have avoided this catastrophe, firstly by remembering Steve Jobs’ famous remark, “Real Artists Ship,” and secondly buy either buying, or duplicating, Perplexity last summer when I wrote this article.
Until Apple can ship, and do so repeatedly, the multiple (35×+) remains faithium-priced, not fact-priced. And as for Jim Cramer and his “AAPL’s PE is too low?” We’re talking about a guy who fawned over Tim Cook so much he promised to buy all three iPhones because they were all so fantastic.
The magic is over for me, the gloss gone. It’s now the morning-after, following 25 years of following the company and writing about its stock, and I find myself waking up to a pig in the bed next to me.
With lipstick everywhere.
It’s just not my scene. I’ll carry on covering Apple, but more cynical now than ever, and with every concern I’ve ever voiced, now come true over the last few years, it will take a lot to win me back around, given how many better and surer investments there are than this pig of company.
Written in sorrow, and with one last homage:
— Tommo_UK, London. Friday, 7th November 2025.
Any comments, or thoughts, from investors, as opposed to 20-year long buy-and-holders who couldn’t care less because they’re just glad to be living off the dividends from their 11,000% share price increase? Leave them below 😎
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