By Abdulkadir Gunyol and Emir Yildirim
ISTANBUL (AA) - US-based Apple is falling behind in the artificial intelligence (AI) race among other smartphone companies, as the iPhone maker faces criticism for postponing its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) and firing its Siri project head, John Giannandrea.
Rivals such as Samsung, Huawei, Xiaomi, and Google, like the iPhone maker, have invested heavily in AI, but while these companies have launched major products in recent years, Apple's silence has been deafening.
Apple recently postponed its Worldwide Developers Conference, where new technology features are typically unveiled, and fired Siri project lead John Giannandrea, replacing him with Mike Rockwell, formerly of the Apple Vision Pro team.
While these developments contribute to the many AI-related criticisms Apple is facing, the development of the company’s pioneering virtual assistant Siri’s development has also been stagnant.
Apple and OpenAI reached an agreement to leverage ChatGPT when Siri stumbles upon a taxing task—this integration allows iPhone users to directly use ChatGPT for questions while voicing them to Siri.
- Competitors push ahead
Samsung, one of Apple’s largest rivals in the smartphone industry, has invested heavily in AI over the years. The South Korean tech giant’s Galaxy AI, featured in its latest smartphones and tablets, offers users various AI capabilities.
Samsung users can use Google’s Gemini assistant across all apps by simply long-pressing the side button on the device, while its AI-powered writing, summary, and other text-based tools are available to users at their fingertips.
Similarly, Google’s Pixel phones also come with their own AI features onboard. Pixel phones can even create short videos using the Veo 3 AI model.
Chinese giant Huawei’s virtual assistant Celia, powered by the large language models (LLMs) Pangu and DeepSeek, can differentiate between 100 different scenarios and recognize some 11 various emotions based on context, responding to prompts with human-like answers.
Chinese brands Xiaomi and Oppo have also strengthened their positions, particularly in the mid-range and budget segments, offering real-time translation and summarization via AI.
- Apple falls short in camera capabilities
Smartphone cameras have advanced significantly over the years, rivaling traditional and expensive dedicated cameras. Chinese phone makers’ flagship models performed particularly well above other brands as of mid-2025.
Huawei and Oppo phones’ camera performances stood out amongst competitors, according to DxOMark, a French technology company that tests and benchmarks consumer electronics. The Huawei Pura 80 Ultra, released last month, reached the highest camera score of 175 points on the DxOMark website.
The Oppo Find X8 Ultra collected 169 points, the Vivo X200 Ultra 167 points, and the Huawei Pura 70 Ultra 163 points, while Apple’s highest-tier model this generation, the iPhone 16 Pro Max, received 161 points, ranking fifth on the list.
- Samsung may sell most phones but Apple reigns supreme in brand value
South Korean tech giant Samsung sold the most smartphones worldwide in the second quarter of this year, reaching 60.6 million units, according to the International Data Corporation.
Apple lagged behind with 46.4 million iPhones sold during the same period, followed by Xiaomi with 42 million, Vivo with 27 million, and Transsion with 25 million smartphones shipped.
However, Apple remains the most valuable brand with a brand value of $574.5 billion, according to Brand Finance.
Microsoft ranks second to Apple with $461.1 billion and Google with $413 billion. Samsung ranked sixth with a brand value of $110.6 billion, the list showed.