I think it's the right strategy for Apple.

They're not a model company. The risks of deploying something half-baked to their users is unacceptable. They're taking it slow and trying to do it in a way that doesn't damage/erode their brand.

Wait it out, let the best model(s) rise to the surface (and the hallucination problems to get sufficiently mitigated), and then either partner with a proprietary provider or deploy one of the open source models. Makes more sense than burning billions of dollars training a new foundation model