Apple has spent two years trying to catch up in AI.
Its fix was to borrow the brains of a rival.
Apple's big reveal was a smarter Siri. The twist is what powers it.
The new Siri runs on Google's Gemini AI under the hood. It also gets its own app, on top of working inside other apps.
For a company that sells privacy and in-house control, leaning on Google is a real shift. Apple says it built its next-generation Apple Intelligence models with Google, too.
This marks a change in tone. Apple long said it would build its own AI in-house.
Apple tried to get ahead of the worry. Software chief Craig Federighi said privacy in AI is non-negotiable, and that outside experts can keep checking that promise.
When two giants like Apple and Google team up, it touches a lot of portfolios. Market Briefs explains moves like this in plain English each morning. A free investing masterclass is included when you join.
Most of the event fixed things users had complained about. Apple rebuilt search across Spotlight, Photos, and Mail.
The goal was clear. Show fixes first, then features.
The Photos app picked up new AI editing tools. Messages now suggests AI replies, and the Phone app can pull facts from your other apps mid-call.
Safari can now manage your tabs, and you can update a password with one tap. A new dictation tool even fixes your spelling and punctuation as you talk.
Shortcuts can be built in plain language, with no code. The Health app added support for perimenopause, a first for Apple.
The App Store is changing, too. It will bundle apps together and suggest them based on what you already use.
Parents also get more say over calls, apps, and purchases on a child's phone. Apple says the basics got faster as well, with photos loading 70% faster and AirDrop 80% quicker.
Apple also let users dial back Liquid Glass, a design update many disliked. And iOS 27 reaches further than ever.
It goes all the way back to the iPhone 11, the widest release Apple has ever shipped.
There was a tease for investors watching hardware, too. A researcher found hints of a foldable iPhone buried in the iOS 27 test software, though Apple said nothing official.
This was Tim Cook's last WWDC as CEO. He hands the reins to hardware chief John Ternus on September 1.
Cook will stay on as chairman. Ternus has run Apple's hardware for years.
That closes out a run that turned Apple into a multi-trillion-dollar company. For Google, slipping Gemini onto the iPhone puts its AI in front of a huge crowd.
Apple's pitch used to be that it did the hard parts itself. Now the smartest part of its phone runs on Google.
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