Apple's $1bn-a-year Google deal powers the home hub Europe can't use

John Ternus, Apple's chief executive since 1 September, opened his first keynote↗ by asking the audience to imagine designing an AI device from scratch: always-on connection, decent display, good cameras and microphones, long battery life ¹. Then he answered himself. The ideal device already exists, he said, and it is the iPhone ¹. The machine that is actually new stayed off stage ¹.

The home hub, codenamed J490 with a wall-mounted J491 beside it, is named in Apple's own macOS Tahoe 26.7 software↗, was planned as far back as 2024, sits in employees' homes now, and could be unveiled as soon as October ¹².

A keynote about a phone, while the hub sat finished

What held the hub back was never hardware: Apple delayed it repeatedly waiting for the assistant ². Siri AI shipped on 14 September with iOS 27, a beta behind a waitlist, English only ³. Apple rebuilt it with Google on a custom Gemini model of about 1.2 trillion parameters, paying about $1 billion a year under a deal reportedly worth up to $5 billion↗ ⁴. The first Ternus-era device arrives thinking with a competitor's brain ⁴.

The rent and the landlord

Google prices that model family like a landlord who wants every tenant. Its new flagship, Gemini 4 Argon, landed on 30 September at an introductory $2 per million input tokens and $10 per million output, against $4 and $20 for Anthropic's Claude Opus 5.5 and $10 and $50 for Claude Fable 5.1 ⁵⁶. Alphabet rose about 2% premarket on the launch; Jefferies carries a buy rating and a $445 target ⁵.

One assistant allowed, and Europe is the open question

Google Home opened to outside agents, Claude and OpenClaw among them, on 16 September, US subscribers first, and Europe is not included yet ⁷. Apple's hub permits one brain only ¹.

Siri AI does not run on iPhone, iPad or Apple Watch in the European Union, though EU users do get it on Mac and Vision Pro ³. The Commission says that absence is Apple's own choice↗, made after the company asked to be exempted from the Digital Markets Act rather than comply ⁸. A hub whose main feature is Siri has no proposition in any market where Siri AI does not run ¹; ship it in Europe without the assistant and it is a very expensive clock.

The other reading: the rent is cheap

The bull answer is arithmetic. Apple is the best-performing Magnificent Seven stock of 2026, up roughly 25%, on estimated capex under $15 billion while Alphabet guides to $195–205 billion ⁴. A billion a year for a frontier model is a rounding error billed to the rival doing the building. The risk is strategic: Gurman reads the iPhone speech as a chief executive playing his only hand ¹, and OpenAI's screenless, LoveFrom-designed puck, discussed at $300 to $400, is slated for 2027↗, aimed at the same kitchen counter ⁹.

What to watch

Three dated questions settle it: does the hub ship in October ²; does it ship in Europe, and with what inside ⁸; and what does the Gemini renewal cost when the reported $5 billion term runs out ⁴. No filing breaks out the $1 billion; it is reported, not disclosed ⁴. Until then, Apple is renting its rival's brain and hoping the rent never comes up.