Why Google I/O Scared This 2007 Apple Fanboy for the First Time

As an Apple Fanboy going back to 2007, this is the first year I’ve felt fear for Apple’s future. And after just watching Apple’s WWDC I am still scared for them.

I have not been super worried for the last several months about Siri not being fully AI-enabled yet—because I understand the difficulty of protecting against prompt injection. Especially since Apple is the Privacy/Security company, and they have the most context on the most people anywhere. Security-wise, they have to get it perfectly right, not just a little bit.

So the delays didn’t freak me out. Especially since they’re low-key implementing Apple Intelligence all over the place throughout the operating systems and apps. It’s a typical Apple game of continuous subtle integrations of a new technology. They don’t blow people over, but they add up over time.

What scared me for the first time was this year’s Google I/O.

It wasn’t that it was just better than Apple across everything, or that it did Apple better than Apple. It didn’t.

What scared me is that they showed they’re going in a completely new direction—a direction that I wish Apple were going in.

Rather than being an ad company—which I’ve always hated about Google—I got the distinct sense that they just became an AI company.

Everything that they showed, and just like the whole feel of the presentation, felt really big. Really different. Like the vision and focus of the company had moved from being this nasty “Android is a mobile platform to help bolster search and ads” to something like “We’re the best at data and AI, and now all our products are based around that.”

I’ve not heard that from Apple, even after their 2025 WWDC.

I loved WWDC this year. I love the design update. I love all the new Apple Intelligence features and how they’re integrated with everything. It’s all great stuff. Especially how they’re merging things more smoothly, like Phone on macOS. Google is still way behind on this stuff—especially since they don’t have a desktop/laptop OS.

But all this was still old Apple improving at old Apple things, which is the UI/UX of our digital lives. They’re building LifeOS, basically, and it’s gorgeous. But Google is coming at that from the Data / AI angle first, and thinking less about the UI/UX (which they’ve always sucked at).

My concern for Apple is that Google’s vision here is so damn powerful. Gemini is in everything now. Deeper than Apple Intelligence. It’s in most of their Workplace services, it’s deeper in their Mobile OS.

It’s kind of like Google’s OS is now Gemini, and the question is just where and how Gemini runs.

Diverging focus

My friend was watching WWDC with me just now and they were like, “I’m concerned for Apple because Google I/O was way better.”

The way I explained my take was to say that I see them in completely different ways now.

1. Apple is the UI/UX to the world
2. Google is the Data/AI layer

So it’s not that Google just beat Apple at being Apple. I don’t think they did. Apple is still the way I want to interact with the world. I like the hardware better. I like the software better. And I like the unified experience better.

But I wish Apple had Google’s AI-first mentality to things.

So for me the real question is whether Apple can fix their AI before Google can fix their UI/UX.

My gut says Google is moving way faster on their path than Apple is on theirs. And this concerns me, because I feel like anyone who wins at AI has advantages everywhere else as well.

Tim basically said the big upgrade to Siri isn’t coming until 2026. That’s insane to me. It’s 2025 and it works like 40% of the time for me, for doing basic things like turning on the lights.

I don’t know if Apple has that long, honestly. It could be that by the time they get Siri figured out, Gemini is already miles ahead.

And in the meantime Meta and OpenAI will be trying to replace the iPhone as the primary interface to AI, and to LifeOS itself.

I want Apple to win. But they’re running out of time.