It is reported that Baidu will provide AI functions for iOS 18 and iPhone 16, and the Bank of China can't buy it?

Recently, there have been many reports that Apple is in talks with Google to bring its large AI model, Gemini, to the iPhone to support some of the new AI features that are expected to be added in iOS 18. Later, it was reported that Apple also communicated with Baidu to introduce Wenxin Yiyan to domestic iPhones.

Today's report from the Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily seems to confirm the news that Apple will use Wenxin Yiyan in China, and the reporter of the newspaper learned from people familiar with the matter that Baidu will provide AI capabilities for Apple's iPhone 16, Mac system and iOS 18 released this year.

According to the report, Baidu is not the only company that is negotiating cooperation with Apple. People familiar with the matter told the "Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily" reporter that Apple had negotiated with Ali and another Tsinghua domestic large-scale model company, and finally decided that Baidu would provide this service. Apple expects to be billed via an API interface.

In addition, the report also mentioned that Apple's use of domestic large-scale model AI functions for devices such as iPhones in China is mainly due to compliance needs, and the company has not been able to solve compliance problems in the short term, but the AI functions of overseas versions of iPhones and other devices are from Apple's own large models.

Can't buy an iPhone from the Bank of China?

Since the news of Apple's plan to introduce Baidu Wenxin Yiyan to domestic iPhones has caused many netizens to worry, and even many friends have left messages saying that they will not buy Chinese iPhones in the future. But in reality, if the iPhone offers different large language models for different regions, it is not directly related to the phone version.

iOS has a built-in feature called "countryd" that allows you to decide whether or not to enable certain features based on the user's region. For example, third-party app stores that are currently only available in the EU can use multiple criteria such as location and SIM card to determine a user's location. Therefore, in the future, even if you buy an iPhone from an out-of-region region, the system functions will be switched when you use it in China.

In fact, as a global company, Apple has no wrong decision to optimize its products and services according to the characteristics of different markets. Some netizens may be concerned about this, which may stem from their disgust with certain behaviors of Baidu, such as frequent redirects to apps and advertisements on the web.

But it's worth noting that as a capability that may be integrated into the system, Wenxin Yiyan's performance in Apple's ecosystem will certainly be more constrained. Moreover, the news also mentioned that Apple uses the form of API billing to call Wenxin Yiyan, and Apple will naturally have greater control as the paying Party A. Therefore, there is no need to worry too much about the iPhone experience after the introduction of Wenxin Yiyan, and there is no need to reject the Chinese iPhone because of this.