This week, OpenAI announced that apps can now run directly within ChatGPT, allowing users to book travel, create playlists, and edit designs without switching between different apps. Some were quick to declare it the app platform of the future, predicting a ChatGPT-powered world where Apple’s App Store would be deprecated.
But while OpenAI’s app platform poses new threats, Apple’s vision for an improved Siri (albeit still far behind) could still play out in its favor.
After all, Apple already controls the hardware and operating system and has about 1.5 billion iPhone users worldwide, compared to ChatGPT’s 800 million weekly active users. If Apple’s bet pays off, the iPhone maker will not only maintain its dominance in the app industry, but also be in a position to modernize how apps are used in the age of AI.
Apple’s plan is to force close the app icon without killing the app itself. The company’s AI-powered computing vision, announced at last year’s developer conference, will see iPhone users interact with an all-new Siri and a revamped system that will change the way they use apps on their phones. (Imagine fewer taps and more conversations.)
Is the app obsolete or a long-lived app?
It’s an idea whose time has come.
Organizing small tappable icons on your iPhone’s home screen to make online information more accessible is an outdated metaphor for computing. Apps, which resemble miniature versions of a computer’s desktop, are becoming a less common way for users to interact with many of their favorite online services.
These days, consumers are as likely to ask an AI assistant for recommendations and insights as they are to do a Google search or launch a dedicated single-purpose app like Yelp. They speak loudly into their smart speakers or Bluetooth-connected AirPods to play their favorite songs. They ask the chatbot for business information or a summary of new movie or show reviews.
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AI, a large language model trained on things like web scraping data, determines what you want to know and provides a response.
This is probably easier than going through Google search results to find the right link with the answer. (This is something Google itself recognized more than a decade ago when it began displaying answers to users’ queries directly on search results pages.)
AI is often easier than finding and launching the right app on an often overcrowded iPhone and navigating its user interface (which varies from app to app) to perform tasks or get answers to questions.
However, ChatGPT’s app system, while seemingly improved in this model, remains locked within ChatGPT’s user experience. Consumers will need to engage with a chatbot-style interface to use the app, which may require user education. To invoke an app, you must either name it as the first word of the prompt, or mention the name of the app and display a button that prompts you to “Answer using app.” Next, you need to enter your exact query. (If you fail to do this, early testing by Bloomberg shows you can get stuck at a loading screen with no results.)
We have to wonder if this is the future of apps, or just a future where there are no other competitors. When another solution becomes available, one built into the iPhone, will consumers continue to use ChatGPT or will they give Siri another try? We don’t know, but we’re not going to count Apple out, even though Siri has such a bad reputation at the moment.
Siri may be embarrassing in its current state, but Apple’s entire ecosystem has its benefits. First, consumers either already have the apps they want on their phones, or even if they don’t, they know how to find them in the App Store. They have been using many of these apps for years. Muscle memory goes a long way!
On the other hand, there are some obstacles to getting started using ChatGPT’s app platform.
Of course, you need to install the app in question. Next, you’ll need to connect your app to ChatGPT, passing through a permissions screen with a warning. This process requires you to authenticate with the app using your existing username and password, and enter a two-factor authentication code if required.
Things should be easier after this one-time setup. For example, you can generate a Spotify playlist with AI and then launch it in the Spotify app with just a tap.
However, if Apple can deliver on things as promised, the experience won’t be all that different from Apple’s plans. Apple says you’ll be able to talk to Siri and send text messages to control apps.
There are other drawbacks to the OpenAI app model. You can’t move back and forth between apps, and you can only work with one app at a time. This can be helpful when comparing rates and deciding between a hotel room and an Airbnb.
Using an app within ChatGPT also removes the branding, design, and identity that consumers associate with their favorite apps. (Perhaps that’s a good thing for people who don’t like the clutter of Spotify’s app, but maybe not everyone.) And in some cases, it might be easier to achieve your goals with the mobile app version than with the ChatGPT app version, since it’s more flexible.
Finally, it can be difficult to force users to switch app platforms if there is no clear benefit to using the app within ChatGPT. However, it’s good to be able to do that.
Can Apple save Siri’s reputation with AI features?
In a demonstration at WWDC 2024 (Apple assured us it wasn’t “demoware”), the company showed how apps can work with this new system and how it can use other AI features, such as proofreading.
Most importantly, Apple told developers that they will be able to take advantage of some of its AI features without any additional work, such as note-taking apps with proofing and rewriting tools. Additionally, developers who have already integrated SiriKit into their apps will be able to do even more when it comes to letting users take actions within their apps. (SiriKit, a toolkit that allows apps to interoperate with Siri and Apple’s Shortcuts, is what developers have been using since iOS 10.)
These developers will see enhancements as soon as the new Siri is released.
Apple said it will initially focus on categories such as notes, media, messaging, payments, restaurant reservations, VoIP calls, and workouts.
Apps in these categories allow users to perform actions via Siri. In practice, this means that Siri can summon any item from an app’s menu. For example, you can ask Siri to show presenter notes in a slide deck, and the productivity app will respond accordingly.
Apps can also use Apple’s standard text system to access the text displayed on the page. This can make navigating your app more natural, without requiring users to type specific verbal prompts or commands. For example, if you have a reminder to wish your grandpa a happy birthday, you can take that action by saying “FaceTime grandpa.”
Apple’s existing Intents framework has also been updated to access Apple Intelligence, covering more apps in categories such as books, browsers, cameras, document readers, file management, journals, email, photos, presentations, spreadsheets, whiteboards, word processors, and more. Here, Apple creates new predefined, trained, and tested “intents” and makes them available to developers.
This means you can tell the photo editing app Darkroom to apply a cinematic filter to your images via Siri. Additionally, Siri can suggest actions for apps, allowing iPhone users to discover what apps can do and take those actions.
Developers have adopted the App Intents framework introduced in iOS 16. That’s because it provides the ability to integrate your app’s actions and content with other platform features, including Apple Intelligence as well as Spotlight, Siri, iPhone action buttons, widgets, controls, and visual search capabilities.
Also, unlike ChatGPT, Apple runs its own operating system on its own hardware and provides the App Store as a discovery mechanism, app infrastructure, developer tools, APIs, and frameworks, as well as an AI-powered interface to help you use your apps.
Apple may have to borrow AI technology from other companies to accomplish that last part, but it has the data to personalize app recommendations and, for those who value privacy, controls that can limit how much information the apps themselves can collect. (Where is the “Do Not Track” option in ChatGPT’s app system?)
OpenAI’s system does not work out of the box for all apps at launch. This requires developer adoption and relies on Model Context Protocol (MCP), a new technology for connecting AI assistants to other systems. As such, ChatGPT currently only works with a handful of apps, including Booking.com, Expedia, Spotify, Figma, Coursera, Zillow, and Canva. Adoption of MCP is growing, but delays in widespread adoption could give Apple the extra time it needs to catch up.
Additionally, rumors suggest that Apple’s AI system is almost ready. The company is reportedly already testing this internally, and it will allow users to use Siri voice commands to perform actions within the app. Bloomberg reported that this smarter version of Siri works out of the box and works with many apps, including those from major companies like Uber, AllTrails, Threads, Temu, Amazon, YouTube, Facebook, and WhatsApp. And Apple confirmed to TechCrunch that it’s still on track to ship next year.
Apple has the iPhone, OpenAI has Jony Ive
The iPhone’s status as an app platform will be difficult to disrupt, even for a large and powerful company like OpenAI.
The ChatGPT maker also understands this, which is why OpenAI is considering its own device with Jony Ive, Apple’s former head of design. The company wants its AI to become part of consumers’ daily lives and habits, and that may require a hardware device.
However, the company has so far struggled to come up with a better computing paradigm than smartphones, according to the report. At the same time, the public has expressed an aversion to always-on AI devices that violate existing social norms and threaten privacy.
The AI backlash has blanketed AI device maker Friend’s New York subway posters, prompted Taylor Swift fans to attack idols dabbling in AI, and threatened the reputations of popular consumer brands and corporate businesses alike. Therefore, the future success of OpenAI devices remains in question.
Currently, this means that OpenAI’s app model is essentially one that uses that app to control other apps.
If Apple can successfully upgrade Siri, that intermediary may not be necessary.
