※ This fictional letter is inspired by messages from real readers of my articles.
※ All names and details have been anonymized, modified, and published with consent.
Dear Saltnfire,
I read your Private Diary entry where your MacBook’s Wi-Fi suddenly stopped working — had a good laugh at that one. Lately, people keep saying Apple will collapse because of AI. That Google is pulling ahead, Samsung is catching up, key engineers are leaving, and Apple might become the next Nokia. I’m genuinely curious what you think.
From. A fan in Korea
Dear Bro
I grew up using Samsung Galaxy phones and Windows PCs. Only recently did I switch to Apple devices. That’s why I can now see the difference between the two companies’ products with unusual clarity. I’m not here to argue which company has the better hardware specs or marketing strategy. I’m a writer who studies phenomenological management — the question of how technology is perceived by human beings. I don’t care about brand fandom or consumer identity. So let me answer your question from the simplest angle:
Does this device help me move through the world smoothly, or does it get in my way and piss me off? (Pure user perspective)
1. Apple Doesn’t Sell “Features.”:
It Sells an Extension of Your Body — and a Wider World.
(1) Extension of Body
As I wrote in [🚬 The Endorphin Habit Model: Building Sticky Brands Beyond the Dopamine Hook],
some objects create a kind of endorphin habit. At first they feel unfamiliar — cigarettes, eyeglasses, Levi’s jeans — but once your body adapts, they “stick” to you. They stop being “products.” They become part of your world-maintenance system. And that kind of habit is stronger than dopamine-chasing. Google used to feel like “an extra hand.” Reliable. Quiet. Helpful.
But not anymore. YouTube Music is full of low-quality uploads and messy playlists. Google Search is a wall of ads and spammy AI articles. If there were a viable alternative search engine, I would’ve abandoned Google years ago.
What about Apple?
People think of Apple as a hipster brand, a symbol of innovation. But the truth is: Apple is deeply conservative. It doesn’t chase “new categories” for the sake of novelty. When Steve Jobs said Think Different, he didn’t mean “invent something the world has never seen.” He meant:
Take what everyone already uses — and rebuild it so humans perceive the world differently.
iPod, iPhone, iPad, Mac, Watch — none of these products were “new.” They were simply Apple-fied. (Apple Style) Apple understands one thing better than any tech company:
Humans experience the world through their bodies. So if you sync the device’s rhythm with the body’s rhythm, the device becomes part of the self.
Once you get past the 1% learning curve of iOS, the whole system sticks to you like a second skin. Apple designs:
- the tactile feel of your fingers
- the direction of your gaze
- the force and speed of your swipe
- the ambient rhythm of your heartbeat
…so the device becomes a gateway into a different perceptual world. Anything that breaks immersion — cables, cluttered icons, noisy widgets — is eliminated. Apple wants your device to be something you “play with,” not something you “operate.”
And when you look at the entire suite —
iPhone, Mac, iPad, Vision Pro, Apple Pencil — it becomes obvious: No company today can match Apple in creating the feeling that your body is extending into a different world through a device.
(2) Apple Builds a Perceptually Unified World. Vs. Samsung Builds a Collection of Features.
The first thing that shocked me when I switched to Apple was how reliable Face ID and Touch ID are. Grow a beard? Shave your head? Dark room? Half asleep? It still recognizes you. That is what I call embodied identification — the feeling that device = me. Apple’s ecosystem doesn’t just connect devices. It connects perceptual worlds:
- iPhone = portal
- Mac = work world
- iPad = creative world
- Apple Watch = health world
- AirPods / Vision Pro = sensory world
One OS. One design philosophy. One bodily rhythm. This is why when creators describe Apple products, they often say: “My thoughts spill out of me without friction.” That is the definition of flow.
Samsung, in contrast:
- The camera, sensors, and software each behave differently.
- Recognition often falls back to pattern unlock.
- Tiny delays stack up when switching apps or typing.
- You constantly feel like you’re using a machine instead of moving through a world.
Security isn’t bad per se, but Android’s multi-layer architecture (Google + manufacturer + carrier) creates perceptual instability — updates come inconsistently, permissions feel scattered, and users often sense vulnerability even when the system is technically safe. To Samsung’s credit, Android’s openness adds fun features — photo editing, quirky tools, foldable devices, built-in styluses, and recently, a lot of AI experiments.
And in Korea — where people are reward-sensitive, competitive, and dopamine-driven — Samsung’s design philosophy actually fits the cultural rhythm. After seeing Samsung’s fast-paced, stimulus-heavy UX, Siri really does feel hopeless in comparison. And some professors use Siri as an example to spout nonsense, claiming that Apple will become Nokia.
(3) Why Apple Looks Behind in AI
Let’s be honest: Siri is basically unusable by 2025 standards. But Apple still seems far more interested in integrating AI into its device ecosystem than in competing directly in raw LLM model performance. (Their entire strategy is “on-device AI,” not “cloud AI supremacy.”) So Apple doesn’t showcase AI features like Samsung, nor does it publish research chaos like Google or OpenAI.
Right now the AI market is stuck in an LLM arm-wrestling match. Grok, DeepSeek, Claude, Gemini, GPT — everyone’s fighting. This is essentially a “brain war.” At the current speed of development, LLM performance will soon plateau, and the industry will likely converge into two dominant types: Gemini And Claude. (Personally, I think it is highly likely that GPT will disappear. Its performance degradation is too severe.) Anyway, Once the “brain race” stabilizes, the next war becomes:
Who can build the most perfect Body for AI?
Here’s where Apple becomes terrifying. Apple is quietly sitting on hundreds of billions of dollars in cash. They haven’t revealed much yet. But if they decide to build a dedicated AI object, OpenAI and Google may end up lining up to put their models on Apple hardware — not the other way around. Because OpenAI and Google can build brains, but they cannot:
- design world-class hardware
- run a global OS
- manage a vertically integrated supply chain
- manufacture tens of millions of devices on command
That is a completely different skill universe. Google’s software often beats Apple’s, yet Google still pays Apple billions each year just to appear as the default search engine on the iPhone. That alone says everything.
(4) “Apple is too closed for AI.” 👉 Is that actually true?
This argument is all over YouTube:
“Apple is closed. GPT is open. They don’t match. GPT will win. Apple will die. OR Samsung will be the real AI winner.”
Sounds persuasive — until you zoom in. Believing “Apple can’t do what Samsung is doing with AI features” is a massive misunderstanding of Apple’s engineering depth.
Let me give one concrete example from my own life:
Lossless audio.
I tried everything to play true lossless Billy Joel tracks. The conclusion I reached is simple: Android + Samsung cannot guarantee a bit-perfect audio path. Not because “they don’t have the codec,” but because the entire system is fragmented:
- Snapdragon chip
- Android OS
- Google’s audio frameworks
- Manufacturer-specific audio paths
- Diverse output hardware
Somewhere in that chain, automatic conversion / compression / resampling kicks in. So even if the file is lossless, the playback is not. Apple, in contrast, controls:
- the hardware
- the chip
- the OS
- the audio path
- the output device
All designed under one roof. So the flow: Lossless file → Music app → Decoder → DAC → Output stays intact from beginning to end.
Drawing from this experience, Apple’s device-AI integration may be late in arriving — but once it does, it is likely to emerge in a form that delivers genuine, practical utility in everyday life while minimizing battery consumption.
So why doesn’t Apple release real AI features?
Apple’s integrated hardware design and manufacturing capabilities, including chips, are the best in the world. But, there could be several reasons that Apple does not release AI. First, current AI is essentially chatbot and software technology, which falls outside Apple’s core expertise as a hardware company. More critically, its profitability has yet to be established. As mentioned above, Apple is a highly conservative company — one that takes what others have perfected and reimagines it in the Apple way. Their stance likely reflects a view that AI remains too uncertain at this stage. Second, Because of philosophy. GPT becomes stronger the more personal data you feed it. But Apple is fundamentally a device-centric company. They protect the user’s private world inside the device.
Remember the famous story: even CIA + Steve Jobs couldn’t break an iPhone passcode. For Apple, user data going to a “public server” is almost a violation of identity. No one yet knows exactly
how Apple will reconcile GPT-level AI with Apple’s privacy architecture. But the logical path looks like this: AI becomes a lower layer of the OS AND user data never leaves the device.
(5) Who are Apple’s real competitors?
If Apple’s essence is:
- hardware that feels like an extension of the body
- a unified OS that synchronizes bodily perception
- a world that expands through integrated devices
- Apple represents the lifestyle of professions that lead public taste, such as artists and creators.
…then very few companies even operate in the same conceptual space. I can think of only two.
(A) Sony PlayStation
Anyone who has held a DualSense controller knows Sony is obsessed with “the feel of the hand.” It’s the closest object on the market to “linking bodily rhythm with world rhythm.” Each vibration, tension, click communicates a different texture. But PlayStation has a fatal limitation:
It requires an entire mise-en-scène. TV, audio system, cables, sofa, game discs — the user must construct the world manually.
Apple is the opposite: Carry one device, and your studio opens anywhere. Sony can’t escape being a “gaming ritual.” Apple designs “life rituals.”
(B) Porsche
I’ve ridden a Porsche a few times (not my car, sadly lol 😂). The moment the car hits 140 km/h: the body lowers, the steering stabilizes, the world blurs into a single flow. For a moment you’re not sure:
“Am I driving the car? Or is the car driving me?”
Toyota and Hyundai never gave me that sensation. Porsche dissolves the boundary between body and environment — exactly what Apple does with devices. They don’t have Tesla’s SW magic or Hyundai’s comfort, but the phenomenological feel is closer to Apple than any tech company. (And yes, Steve Jobs loved the Porsche 911. 😆)
2. Jony Ive × OpenAI: The Coming AI Object?
(1) Why is OpenAI so desperate to build a physical object?
Google already dominates the world of software and data:
- Search
- Gmail
- YouTube
- Chrome
- Android
- Maps
- Docs
- Drive
And through Samsung, Google is even expanding its influence into hardware ecosystems. No matter how strong GPT is in reasoning, it cannot beat the habits people already built around Google’s world. It’s like the QWERTY keyboard — even if a better layout existed, people stayed because the world was already standardized. GPT still can’t surpass Google Search in mass adoption. Economically, OpenAI also suffers from the endless platform fees paid to the App Store and Google Play. So if OpenAI wants to:
- prove ChatGPT’s presence globally,
- break Google’s search monopoly, and
- stop paying platform taxes,
there is only one solution:
Release an AI object people can carry everywhere.
A hardware anchor. This is why OpenAI acquired Jony Ive’s design firm and aggressively hired ex-Apple hardware designers. If OpenAI can actually ship and mass-produce this device,that might be the first true threat Apple & Google has faced in years.
(2) No one actually knows how this will end
Apple’s strength has never been “design” alone. It owns:
- hardware that feels like an extension of the body,
- world-class component integration (camera, speakers, sensors),
- a unified OS across devices,
- a manufacturing and supply-chain empire,
- and a mountain of cash — enough to mass-produce tens of millions of devices on demand.
OpenAI, by contrast, has only one thing: a chatbot. Even if OpenAI’s device proves exceptional, it remains doubtful whether it can surpass Apple’s products — which combine all of these capabilities in one. A great product, after all, is never just about elegant design. Because Open AI doesn’t even have the money to buy GPUs right now, so it is questionable whether they have the funds for manufacturing and supply chain management.
Jony Ive can design it. Samsung can manufacture it. SoftBank can fund it. Yes — on paper, that’s a dream team. But if Apple decides the AI product is promising, they can simply create their own fully integrated version and swallow the market. Recent reports even suggest Apple may adopt Google Gemini as the next-generation Siri engine. If that happens, Apple won’t fight GPT head-on. They’ll absorb AI into the OS layer and make it part of their global ecosystem. That is Apple’s true power:
They don’t need to be first. They just need to enter the arena once, because cash + hardware + OS + manufacturing = instant domination.
The tech world is unpredictable. Trends shift every month. But one truth remains: There are only three operating systems in the world: Android, Windows, macOS / iOS. And among them, only Apple integrates:
- mobile + PC + tablet under one OS philosophy,
- hardware design + manufacturing,
- software + marketing — all inside a single company.
Plus, they’re drowning in cash. 💰 Apple simply cannot “accidentally die.” So no — despite what YouTube prophets claim, Apple will not collapse because of AI. If anything:
AI will eventually conform to Apple’s ecosystem, not the other way around.
3. Conclusion: “AI is not a brain war. It’s a perception war.”
Throughout this letter, I never even discussed Apple’s brand marketing. I focused solely on hardware, OS, and perception. Samsung, Google, Microsoft all compete separately. Apple fights all three at once. Yes, Apple currently has:
- no LLM of its own,
- a Siri that barely works,
- and a reputation of being slow in AI features.
But once the battle shifts to consumer perception and device-based immersion, Apple’s structure guarantees its return to the throne. Here is the core idea in one sentence:
The AI war won’t end with “brains” (models). It will end with “bodies” (devices + OS). And the company that designs, manufactures, and markets the best “body” is Apple.
Thanks for reading.
from Saltnfire
Sincerely
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