At its September 9th press conference, Apple launched a visual search feature called "Visual Intelligence," which provides a new paradigm for interacting with software and services and introduces new modes for its search.
Apple describes' visual intelligence 'as a way to instantly understand everything you see. At the press conference, Apple explained that the "visual intelligence" feature can be used to do more things. It is not only a simple way to help users understand things in the camera view, but also a new path to access third-party services, meaning that users do not need to launch independent applications.
This feature only requires users to click on the new "Camera Control" button to achieve. At the press conference, through several demonstrations, Apple demonstrated how users can click the "camera control" button to obtain information about restaurants you see while out, or identify dog breeds you see while walking, or convert activity posters on the wall into calendar entries containing all details.
Craig Federighi, Senior Vice President of Software Engineering at Apple, later mentioned that this feature can also be used to access Google search. This may be interpreted as a turning point in the search partnership between Apple and Google.
Federighi pointed out, "Camera control is also your gateway to third-party tools, which can quickly and easily leverage their expertise in specific fields
Apple Google relationship upgrade
At present, Apple and Google still maintain a partnership in the search field, with Google's parent company Alphabet paying Apple approximately $20 billion annually to make Google the default search engine for its Safari browser. However, this transaction is facing uncertainty in the future.
Previously, the US Department of Justice argued that Google paid operating system operators to make its search engine the default setting for system browsers, which violated US antitrust laws.
The judgment of the Federal Court in the US capital at the beginning of last month also supported the Department of Justice's claim. This ruling not only affects Google, but also Apple has suffered a blow, as it means Apple will lose $20 billion in revenue for nothing. Of course, Google has also explicitly stated that it will appeal this result.
Now, with the launch of Apple's new "visual intelligence" feature, the search partnership between Apple and Google seems to have "upgraded".
By clicking the "Camera Control" button, Apple demonstrated to users how to quickly take photos or record videos, as well as how to swipe their fingers to compose and adjust options such as zoom, exposure, or depth of field in the new camera preview experience.
This button also provides iPhone 16 users with Apple's newly launched "visual intelligence" search function, which is the key to Apple's cooperation with Google - iPhone 16 series users will be able to access Google's search engine and visual search function by clicking the "camera control" button.
For example, in a demonstration, a person points their iPhone at a bicycle, lightly presses the camera control button, and then a window pops up in the camera view for the user to view a series of similar options available for purchase. In addition, a smaller button appeared on the screen with the words "More results from Google" written on it, indicating that users can continue their Google search by clicking this button.
A Google spokesperson pointed out that at this stage, the company has no information to share about its partnerships. However, this feature is still considered an extension of the existing relationship between the two companies and does not involve Google's Gemini AI model.
The interesting aspect of the 'visual intelligence' feature is that it provides a new paradigm for interacting with software and services, indicating that the concept of the App Store is becoming outdated. With new artificial intelligence technologies, users can ask questions to AI on a new interface, use AI to perform productivity tasks, creatively process images and videos, and so on, without having to rely on applications for assistance.
Apple is currently cleverly positioning itself as a platform for third-party services, including artificial intelligence technology, search services, and potential future providers, to avoid getting involved in fierce competition between AI tools such as ChatGPT. At the press conference, Apple also demonstrated how to access OpenAI's ChatGPT through Siri.