Timing really is everything—sometimes. That’s certainly the case for Samsung versus Apple this week, as the two battle it out in the premium smartphone segment. Samsung is about to make an exciting upgrade move just as Apple’s key defense has suddenly been undermined by a surprising mistake.
Samsung is now readying its new Galaxy S25 flagship for launch, which will be at the forefront of the company’s push to AI everything and will come with the innovative Android 15 and the delayed release of One UI 7. Security and privacy—Apple’s core DNA—has become the latest battleground between the two phone giants, and Samsung had made clear its intent to close the gap. One UI 7 does exactly that.
Samsung says “One UI 7 enhances security and privacy in the age of AI, giving users greater transparency and choice.” The company also says “now is the turning point of AI technology, and we need bold innovation that goes beyond the existing methods of success… let’s establish ourselves as a leading device AI company this year through advanced intelligence.”
This aligns with the latest upgrade promise ahead of the Galaxy S25 launch, with reliable leaker Ice Universe posting on X that “Samsung Galaxy S25 will tell Apple what leading AI is. Many new AI functions of S25 have not been leaked so far, which is very surprising to me.”
“Samsung is reportedly about to show Apple what AI is really all about,” Phone Arena suggests. “Samsung has everything in place to make a statement about GalaxyAI with its 2025 flagship line. For security purposes, much of the AI activities handled by the Galaxy S25 line will stay on-device… The tweet from Ice Universe sets the bar high and we look forward to seeing the new AI features that allow Samsung to meet the height of that bar.”
We had expected on-device versus off-device AI processing to define the difference between Apple’s and Samsung’s devices, with the Galaxy-maker tied to Google’s way of working holding it back from matching Apple’s end-to-end control. Yes, Apple links to ChatGPT in the way Samsung links to Gemini, but the iMaker is careful to clearly call out whenever user data goes off-device.
But Apple’s real “groundbreaking” move was the development of Private Cloud Compute. This extends the secure device enclave through to Apple’s cloud, ensuring that “personal user data sent to PCC isn’t accessible to anyone other than the user—not even to Apple.” Apple says PCC is “the most advanced security architecture ever deployed for cloud AI compute at scale.”
Meanwhile, in November, Samsung’s Kim Dae-hyun promised “generated AI that meets the level of user needs, operational technology that enhances personalized experience and usability, and security technology that protects personal information safely… When I wake up in the morning, an AI secretary [will] brief today’s schedule and handle what I want with a natural conversation as if talking to a person is typical. The era of using AI like this will become our daily life, not the future.”
The enabler for this is Samsung’s hybrid-AI. “A technology that uses on-device AI and cloud AI together to provide a balance of speed and safety. If you use on-device AI, which has its advantages of fast response speed and strong privacy protection in the device, and cloud AI, which provides various functions based on massive data and high-performance computing, you can provide the optimal AI experience in various environments and conditions.”
And so, back in November, I suggested that “you can see how this new privacy battle is likely to play out… [and that] Samsung [needs] a response to Apple’s PCC, to provide a closer match. What we have seen now, though, appears more a renewed commitment to the hybrid AI alternative.”
But all that has suddenly been clouded by the furor this week around Apple’s enhanced visual search and its newly agreed $95 million settlement for allegedly eavesdropping on users through its Siri AI assistant. A raft of ominous headlines followed: “Apple’s New Photo Feature Quietly Violates ‘What Happens on Your iPhone, Stays on Your iPhone,” and “This sneaky iOS 18 setting shares your photos with Apple,” and “Apple to pay $95 million in Siri spying lawsuit.”
And suddenly those dividing lines weren’t quite so clear anymore. On photo search, what Apple is doing is designed to preserve user privacy while deploying AI to link photos to a central dataset of landmarks. But 99% of users won’t understand homomorphic encryption, differential privacy and OHTTP relays that hide IP addresses. Optically, it seems just like the hybrid-AI Samsung is promoting.
Apple’s real mistake has been a lack of transparency. Crypto expert Matthew Green complained that “it’s very frustrating when you learn about a service two days before New Years and you find that it’s already been enabled on your phone,” while tech analyst Michael Tsai warned that “not only is it not opt-in, but you can’t effectively opt out if it starts uploading metadata about your photos before you even use the search feature. It does this even if you’ve already opted out of uploading your photos to iCloud… I don’t think the company is living up to its ideals here.”
And on the Siri front, the allegations date back five years to a time when almost all voice assistants were being caught out for blurring the lines between on and off. This is just a case of awkward timing, putting Apple’s AI privacy back in the headlines for long-gone problems. I reached out to Apple for any response to the furor on its AI photo search—nothing so far.
But in combination, it’s very bad timing for the locked-down iPhone to seem less locked down that before. Samsung will herald its AI future at CES this week, and while the S25 will be more capable than any Galaxy before to process AI on-device, the reality is this is going to be a hybrid solution and the clear differences users had been steered towards are more blurry than before. The Samsung versus Apple AI stakes have just got more interesting, and 2025 is still less than a week old.
