The Losers' Club

In the world of technology, it is sometimes difficult to understand who the winner of the race is. Because not everyone may be running the same race.

Marques Brownlee’s latest video discusses exactly this question. Did Apple lose the AI race? The answer he gives at the end of the video is clear: “Apple lost the AI race.” I agree. I can even go one step further and say this: Apple is not among the winners of the AI era today; it is in the “Losers' Club.”

The reason for this is not that Apple Intelligence is missing a few features. The problem is much deeper.

For twenty years, Apple’s greatest strength was that it was not the company to release new technologies first. Apple did not invent the MP3 player. It didn't invent the smartphone, either. Nor the tablet. But it redefined them all with the best user experience. Apple’s strategy was always the same: Wait, let others make mistakes, let the technology mature, and then integrate it perfectly into your own ecosystem.

This model worked perfectly in the hardware era.

But AI is a different game.

This time, the race is not about releasing the best product. It is about training the best model, having the largest data pool, attracting the most developers, and capturing the feedback loop created by millions of users every day.

OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, Meta, and xAI are doing exactly that.

Apple, on the other hand, waited.

Perhaps it waited too long.

The new Siri introduced on the WWDC stage is still nowhere to be seen. As for Apple Intelligence, it is only just trying to catch up with many features that its competitors have been offering for a long time. Today, an iPhone user can do many things that Siri cannot by opening the ChatGPT app.

This is an unusual situation for Apple.

In the past, competitors would copy Apple’s features.

Today, Apple is trying to catch up with its competitors.

Even this psychological threshold is significant in itself.

So, did Apple really lose?

This is where the second view in Brownlee’s video comes into play.

Perhaps there are really two separate races.

The first is the race to develop AI models.

The leaders of this race are now largely determined: OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, Meta, and xAI.

Apple has fallen behind in this race.

The second race is the race to produce the devices on which AI will run.

This is where the picture changes.

Billions of people around the world still have iPhones in their pockets. Apple Silicon offers some of the most powerful local AI processors on the market today. Apple has a serious hardware advantage when it comes to on-device AI.

However, the question is:

Is hardware enough on its own?

In the past, it was.

Today, it might not be.

Because for the first time, software is becoming more valuable than hardware.

In the past, you would buy a computer and then choose the software.

Today, people choose ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini first; then they decide which device to use them on.

This change, which seems small, is actually shifting the power balance of the technology sector.

AI is no longer a feature.

It is the new operating system.

Soon, people will not open apps on their phones one by one.

“Book my flight.”

“Reschedule the meeting.”

“Prepare the tax documents.”

“Edit this text.”

A single AI will manage all of these.

When that day comes, the phone brand may fall into the background.

The real question will be:

Who is your AI?

This is where Apple’s real risk lies.

Because as the user starts to connect to ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini, Apple may face the risk of turning into a company that only produces hardware.

Today, we don't change our computer brand because we use Google’s search engine.

Tomorrow, we may change our phone brand for the AI we use.

This possibility would have seemed like science fiction a few years ago.

Today, it doesn't seem far off at all.

Apple is still one of the most powerful companies in the world.

Its engineering prowess is indisputable.

Its hardware quality is top-tier.

Its ecosystem is unique.

However, for the first time in the history of technology, Apple is not the company writing the rules of the game.

It is in the position of a company trying to adapt to the rules written by others.

And this role does not suit Apple at all.

Perhaps in a few years, Apple will offer a truly powerful AI experience.

Perhaps it will be a leader again.

We have seen examples of this in the history of technology.

However, when we look at the picture today, the reality does not change.

The first act of the AI revolution has closed.

As the curtain fell, OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, Meta, and xAI were in the center of the stage.

Apple was backstage.

And in the history of technology, sometimes missing the first act can mean losing the entire game.

The Book I Read This Week: Change Your Genes with the Power of Thought

One of the books that caught my attention this week was Dr. Dawson Church’s work titled "Change Your Genes with the Power of Thought."

The book addresses the field of epigenetics, which has been gaining increasing interest in recent years, in the language of popular science. Its basic approach is quite interesting: Even if our genes do not change, how genes work can be influenced by our lifestyle, diet, stress, and environmental conditions.

A significant distinction needs to be made here. Epigenetics is a rapidly developing field of research with strong scientific foundations today. In contrast, more ambitious interpretations that thoughts alone change genes or directly cure diseases are still debated in the scientific world. Therefore, it is useful to separate scientific data from the author’s interpretations while reading the book.

Despite this, the book manages to look at human biology from a different window. It is quite successful in conveying the effects of stress, sleep, nutrition, and lifestyle habits on gene expression with understandable examples.

For me, the book’s most important contribution was making me question the understanding that “Genes are destiny,” which has been accepted as an absolute truth for years. Our DNA may be our starting point; however, the research showing that our lifestyle, environment, and habits can significantly influence how this genetic potential manifests is truly worth thinking about.

Science often cares more about asking the right questions than having definitive answers. "Change Your Genes with the Power of Thought" is exactly one of those books that does this and can find a place on the bookshelves of those who love reading popular science.