Former Apple engineer makes savage claim tech giant ‘copied’ Google with controversial new feature

A former Apple engineer has made a savage claim that the tech giant has ‘copied’ Google with its controversial new feature.

This comes after the firm’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) began earlier this week.

During the keynote speeches, a new iOS feature was announced by Apple known as Visual Intelligence.

Explaining how the new feature works, on the Apple website it says: “Use visual intelligence to quickly learn more about the places and objects around you. On models that have the Camera Control (shown below), just click and hold it to do things like look up details about a restaurant or business; have text translated, summarized, or read aloud; identify plants and animals; and more.

“On iPhone 16e, iPhone 15 Pro, and iPhone 15 Pro Max, you can access visual intelligence by customizing the Action button or Lock Screen, or opening Control Center.”

This news has caused a stir online, with many people taking to social media to share their reactions.

On Reddit, one user wrote: “So let me get this straight—Visual Intelligence is just ChatGPT + Google Images?

“I just updated to 18.4 Beta 2 on my 15 pro max and decided to try out Visual Intelligence… and I’m honestly a little surprised.

“From what I can tell, it lets you either: 1. Snap a picture and ask about it—which just sends it to ChatGPT. 2. Snap a picture and reverse image search it—which just uses Google Lens.

“Am I missing something, or is this just a repackaging of existing tools? You could already do both of these things easily with basic Shortcuts—I’ve had them set up for years. What exactly makes this special?”

Another replied: “Nah, it's not the same.. Apple has somehow managed to make it much slower than using Google or ChatGPT natively so good job Apple.”

And a third person added: “Apple Intelligence is basically a messed up version of ChatGPT. Literally. For phones that don’t have Apple Intelligence, ChatGPT does all that and even better (since Apple intelligence relies on ChatGPT anyways.) I swear I just turned this s*** off and kept using the app ChatGPT.”

Now, a former Apple engineer whose X, formerly Twitter, bio says that he built the ‘first offline Siri’, has weighed in on the matter.

In a post, Luca wrote: “So, after a full day. What do you guys think of #WWDC25? Impressed? Expected more? It sucked? What was your number one feature?

“For me, Apple ‘copying’ Google lens with Visual Intelligence.”