If you’re someone who cares about software — and I’m not just talking about updates, design, or flashy animations — there’s almost an unsaid rule. iPhones are reliably smoother. But if you care about innovations and flexibility, Android is where the magic happens.
In the wee hours of 2025, Android has taken a clear lead in pushing AI — for a good cause. Now, before you go “bah, AI again,” here’s the real picture. Your Android phone is perfectly fine without AI. Also, your Android phone is dramatically better than iPhones — with AI.
The best example? Look no further than Google’s Pixel 10 Pro. Over the years, it has added tools that are astoundingly practical. Scam alert midway through calls. Real-time warning in chat. Call Screening and Hold for Me. Gemini for file analysis. There are plenty of AI-powered features that are meaningfully good.
It might, however, come as a surprise that despite Siri being terrible in its current state, Apple is already doing AI in a way that gives users more control and flexibility than even an AI-first Android phone like the Google Pixel 10 Pro.
The Pixel 10 Pro is an AI wizard
I can’t count on fingers the number of action points where the Pixel 10 Pro has deployed AI to good measure. Magic Cue, for example, uses AI to understand the current task and automatically pulls up relevant information.
If you’re chatting with a friend about an upcoming trip, the AI will look up data across Google apps and automatically surface details such as flight and hotel details, among others. It works even during voice calls.
The next-gen Pro Res Zoom, which uses Google’s most advanced imaging model, is mind-bendingly good when it clicks. On a similar note, the text-based photo editing (that lets you simply describe the desired changes) and camera coach work pretty well.
Building atop the Hold for Me system and real-time call screening, the Phone app lets an AI ask the purpose of a call before you pick it up. The real-time translation system can create an eerily good version of your voice speaking a different language, and all of it happens in real-time.
Then we have the daily hub feature, which gives you a briefing of your day plans, from meetings to travel plans, in a clean and well-composed dashboard. It’s like having a digital secretary living in your phone.
Of course, there’s Gemini, which can pull off its own multi-modal set of actions. From text-based actions to editing images and creating videos, it can do a lot. In the Files, it automatically pops up when you open a PDF file so that you can get a quick summary or extract specific information.
In a nutshell, Google has baked Gemini into nearly every nook and cranny within Android. And in most cases, it triggers automatically and works in the background. The approach is convenient, but at the same time, it feels restrictive. This is where the iPhone takes a big lead.
The iPhone lets you dictate what AI can do for you
I’ll put it out in the most blunt terms. The iPhone experience is a lot less smart compared to Android on the Pixel 10 Pro, and it’s obviously due to AI and deep system-level Gemini integration. And it doesn’t take one to be a genius at guessing why the iPhone can’t quite pull off what the Pixel phones can.
Siri feels like a relic of a past era of assistants compared to Gemini. And it’s only due to the ChatGPT integration that Apple Intelligence feels even half as competitive. But there is one corner of on-device AI where the iPhone is doing way better than the Pixel 10 Pro.
With the release of iOS 26, Apple added AI-first features in the Shortcuts app. More specifically, there’s a new system called Use Model action that puts an AI model at the center of any activity or automation you want to accomplish. And here’s the best part.
You can either use ChatGPT, push Apple’s AI model in the company’s private cloud, or use on-device AI for maximum speed and privacy without ever using an internet connection. Think of it as a chain of multi-step actions, and the AI is just one step of the process. You pick the right kind of AI, and the exact step where you need it.
It’s extremely versatile. Check out the video below. I created a shortcut that takes a screenshot of whatever video I am watching on the iPhone. The image is passed through Google Lens to identify the film or TV show, and the AI automatically tells me the name, a short description, and the streaming service to watch it. All of this happens with a single click of a button.
On a similar note, I created an AI-powered shortcut that essentially turns Apple Notes into a memory bank. This one automatically takes a screenshot, analyzes the page content to write a descriptive summary, saves the page URL, and even adds contextual hashtags to help with search. All of this information, alongside the screenshot, is saved neatly in Apple Notes.
You can set the storage destination within other apps, as well. Simply put, you just have to imagine a work scenario where AI can be helpful, and you can easily integrate it within a shortcut to perform multi-step tasks with a single button-press or tap.
What I want the Pixel to learn from the iPhone
There is little doubt that Gemini is smarter and more versatile than ChatGPT at the moment — at least in the context of smartphones. With AI, it’s a consistent cat-and-mouse chase where Gemini 3 and GPT 5.2 are consistently fighting for the top spot in benchmark tables.
But what really matters is how an AI model has been integrated at the heart of the most widely used computing machine on the planet — the humble phone in your hand. And more importantly, how well it gets work done. Gemini far excels at it, thanks to Google being the architect of the AI, the underlying mobile operating system, and the hardware.
Apple hasn’t quite nailed the AI development part yet. But it has the foundations ready, and is already exploiting it in a better way than the Pixels, or other top-tier Android phones that tap into on-device Gemini Nano chops. The theme here is that Gemini mostly works in the background for you.
You can’t make it work as a middleman in a long chain of tasks. There is an agentic side to it, but you don’t control all the steps. On the iPhone, you can push AI at any stage of a workflow and get the desired task handled. And thanks to multi-modal capabilities, it can handle text, voice, and visuals with ease.
The possibilities are limitless. And here’s the more interesting part. Every device, including the iPhone 15 Pro and all the subsequent models, is ready for on-device AI, running atop the most powerful mobile processor in their respective generations. It’s only a matter of time before Apple performs Siri’s AI brain transplant – which is apparently happening early next year — and makes it as smart as Gemini.
It’s pretty ironic, though, that Apple is reportedly borrowing the Gemini framework from Google to enhance Siri. As far as integrating with apps goes, the Foundation Model Framework is already out there for developers to integrate AI features within their iPhone apps. Compared to the scattered nature of Android hardware, iOS developers don’t have to worry about a phone lacking the necessary firepower to run the on-device AI tasks.
Apple has been ready with three generations of iPhones to handle it all. And we are already seeing some apps that are tapping into. Once Siri steps up, it will be an explosion of iPhone apps that can tap into AI locally. But more importantly, it would be the Shortcuts app – and Siri voice interactions – that will truly enhance the user experience, and in just the exact way users want it.
The iPhone already does it to a healthy extent, and this is where it appeals to me a lot more than the Pixel 10 Pro. At least, for now.
