Ahead of its Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) on June 10, Apple CEO Tim Cook met with 22-year-old Indian developer Akshat Srivastava. Srivastava’s app, MindBud, was a winner in Apple’s annual Swift Student Challenge, highlighting the company’s focus on capturing developer interest in AI. The narrative echoed a similar strategy at Google, which on May 14 announced features and initiatives to entice developers to build apps and services using its Gemini large language model (LLM). This LLM-powered suite of features encompasses Android, Chrome, YouTube, and other platforms with estimated active user bases of 3.9 billion, 3.2 billion, and 2.5 billion respectively.
With Apple and Google both vying for generative AI dominance, a new battleground has emerged in the mobile app ecosystem. The stakes are high: commercialization of generative AI. As more developers build apps and services utilizing Apple and Google’s AI stacks, these tech giants stand to earn substantial revenue from the billions invested in building generative AI use cases and application programming interfaces (APIs).
Srivastava, speaking about Apple’s developer outreach, emphasized its role in empowering independent innovators. He highlighted the simplicity and strength of Apple’s developer documentation, making it easy to build an app and seamlessly market it across iOS, iPadOS, and macOS platforms. This, he noted, facilitates reaching a wider audience, allowing independent developers to focus on creativity and core use cases rather than complex coding and debugging issues.
However, developers being courted by Google find themselves at a crossroads. Varun Mayya, an independent developer and technology content creator, pointed out Google’s outreach as a major draw. He contrasted Google’s expansive reach with Apple’s smaller market, suggesting that bootstrapped developer companies in India may find it more challenging to build commercially viable apps on Apple’s platform. Yet, Mayya acknowledged the advantages of Apple’s specialized hardware components, such as the lidar sensor, which enable apps leveraging visual design and potentially optimize Apple’s AI stack.
While Google has been incorporating AI features for a year, Apple’s entry into the generative AI arena is relatively new. Dubbed ‘Apple Intelligence,’ the company’s push includes on-device features like live call transcriptions, email writing and summarization, photo editing, and a new interface for Siri. Apple also opened its AI APIs for developers to integrate AI into existing apps or create entirely new ones.
Industry stakeholders believe that despite both companies being perceived as ‘late’ to the AI party, their global influence and user base could trigger a new tug-of-war between Android and iOS. Google’s estimated 70% market share at the end of last year compared to iOS’s nearly 1.5 billion devices globally underscores the motivation behind both companies’ efforts to attract developers.
Apple and Google have poured billions into developing their AI models, and monetizing these investments is now a priority. A key strategy involves encouraging developers to build applications using locally running, scaled-down versions of large language models to appeal to users.
Mayya voiced skepticism regarding the innovative use cases showcased by Apple at WWDC. He suggested that many of these features are already available from Google and others, and that Apple’s native development of simple AI use cases within two to three years could disincentivize developers from building for Apple. He argued that Google’s third-party app ecosystem is significantly larger and more promising.
Despite these differences, both Mayya and Srivastava agree that the opening of AI APIs could lead to increased opportunities for developers within the vast iOS App Store and Android Play Store marketplaces. However, challenges persist.
An anonymous senior iOS developer working for a multinational company highlighted ‘barriers’ within Apple’s developer ecosystem. He pointed to fees developers are required to pay to build apps for certain platforms, such as Vision Pro, and the potential challenge this could pose during the beta phase of AI APIs. Additionally, the developer noted that the requirement for Indian iOS developers to own a Mac, an expensive device, poses a significant barrier to entry in the country, leading many Indian developers to favor Google’s ecosystem.
In response to these concerns, Apple stated that it does not charge any fees for its developer tools and features. Android devices dominate the Indian market, accounting for nearly 95% of the country’s 800 million active smartphones, while Apple’s iPhones hold an estimated 4% market share, equating to approximately 30 million users.
Despite its smaller presence, industry experts believe Apple’s ecosystem strategy could be crucial in luring developers. Jayanth Kolla, partner and cofounder of Convergence Catalyst, argued that the success of Edge AI, the focus of both Apple and Google, remains to be seen at scale. He believes that with its vast global user base, Apple could excel in seamlessly integrating local AI applications into its user experience. However, the effectiveness of this promise, both in terms of operational seamlessness and its privacy pitch, remains to be seen.
Google did not respond to requests for comment at the time of publication.
