Benzinga - by Rounak Jain, Benzinga Staff Writer.
Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) truly kickstarted the personal voice assistant frenzy when it launched Siri with the iPhone 4s, forcing rivals like Alphabet Inc.'s Google and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd. to launch their own solutions.
However, Apple acquired Siri more than a year before it integrated the voice assistant on the iPhone. Siri, which was initially launched as a third-party app in February 2010, was acquired by Apple two months later. It took Cupertino nearly a year and a half to integrate it into iOS.
While Siri was launched with a lot of fanfare, the hype around voice assistants has died down over the last few years. Although Google, Samsung, and even Amazon.com Inc. have consistently improved their solutions, Apple's Siri has remained on the back burner.
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Apple has since launched 14 iPhones, with some offering bigger upgrades than others. While Siri has also gained some new features over this time, its functionality remains limited. The initial novelty of talking to your phone and receiving a semi-human-like response has worn off.
With that said, here's what would have happened if you invested $1,000 in Apple stock when it acquired Siri 14 years ago.
Apple stock price from April 1, 2010, till today
Apple's stock, adjusted for stock splits and other corporate actions, was $8.42 on April 1, 2010.
Its stock price today is $189.98, which is an increase of 2,154% during this period.
Value of a $1,000 investment in Apple stock, and the QQQ ETF and S&P 500 index, respectively, from April 1, 2010, till today
If you had invested $1,000 in Apple stock on April 1, 2010, today, you would have $22,543.
Likewise, if you had invested $1,000 in Invesco QQQ ETF, the large-cap growth fund, you would have $9,508.
A similar $1,000 investment in an index fund, SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust, that replicates the S&P 500 would be worth $4,494.
Siri's Future, Turbocharged With AI
Apple is expected to announce significant improvements to Siri later this year when it launches the iPhone 16 in September. Reports suggest Siri could be turbocharged with AI, giving the voice assistant a much-needed boost in terms of intelligent features.A previous report has suggested that Apple will completely revamp Siri when it launches the iPhone 16 with iOS 18. Some features, like on-device AI processing, are said to be iPhone 16-exclusive, while older iPhones will switch to cloud-based processing.
While Tim Cook has not been as vocal about AI as his peers, Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Microsoft Corp.'s Satya Nadella, the Cupertino chief is reportedly inching closer to a deal with OpenAI to push out generative AI features to iPhones.
Separately, Apple is also working on its own suite of AI features as part of "Project Graymatter."
Beyond this, we should know more about Apple's AI efforts at the upcoming Worldwide Developers Conference, or WWDC, in June.
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