Apple is fully committed to AI – at least Apple's version. “The next generation of iPhone was designed from the ground up for Apple Intelligence,” said Apple CEO Tim Cook before introducing the iPhone 16. Software chief Craig Federighi introduced Apple Intelligence as a “personal intelligence system” that is “at the heart of the iPhone 16 line.” After the event, Apple even published an entire press release dedicated to Apple Intelligence.
There's just one catch: When the iPhone 16 and 16 Pro first hit the market, they won't have any Apple Intelligence features.
Sure, the new A18 and A18 Pro chips in the iPhone 16 lineup each have a 16-core neural engine that Apple says is “optimized for large generative models,” so they'll likely handle Apple Intelligence features well. Yes, Apple has been testing upgrades to Apple Intelligence as part of an iOS 18.1 beta for developers, such as a new design for Siri and tools to improve your typing, remove objects from photos, and summarize notifications. But if you're not running that beta, you won't be able to test those features for a while.
Some Apple Intelligence features will be available soon
Some Apple Intelligence features will be coming soon, as Apple gave a vague October release window for iOS 18.1 as part of its iPhone 16 announcements. I should note, however, that the Apple Intelligence features are still described as beta and will initially only be available in US English. (Apple says it will release Apple Intelligence in Chinese, French, Japanese, and Spanish starting next year.) The company's arguably more powerful Apple Intelligence upgrades, like a tool for composing images, a feature for generating custom emojis, Siri improvements that allow it to understand your personal context, and integration with ChatGPT, will roll out on a very vague timeline “later this year and in the months after.”
There are some clues as to when: BloombergMark Gurman of reports that the image generation features will be introduced with iOS 18.2 in December, and Apple said at WWDC that ChatGPT integration will be introduced “later this year.” But despite Apple putting so much emphasis on its AI features, the company is pretty coy about when these features might actually come out. Apple did not respond to a request for comment.
But do you want to wait until that happens? If you considered Apple's AI features as your main reason to buy a new phone, you probably shouldn't. Maybe you should just wait until next year to upgrade – or at least until October.