>But if Google’s right, there’s no quick fix. It won’t be enough to buy Siri’s creators again or partner with Yelp for another few years. If Apple needs strong AI and big-data services in the next decade to remain competitive, they need to have already been developing that talent and those assets, in-house, extensively, for years.

This is so true. It's not easy to out-accrue data over your competitors, especially if your competitor has multiple services used by millions of people everyday. This has an interesting side effect when it comes to hiring: The companies with "best" data have a better chance of hiring the best data talent because they can provide most challenging problems (for systems and data engineering people) and better equipment (There's no substitute for a vast amount of high-quality data for data scientists). This, in turn, means that best algorithms will come from data-rich companies.

What Marco is hinting at is that smartphones will increasingly become a conduit for data-intensive algorithms. If this is indeed the case, it means that data-rich companies can create deeper engagement and hence acquire more data, and the virtuous (or vicious?) loop will continue.