Apple announced its new AI platform, Apple Intelligence, at its Worldwide Developers Conference. The platform promises to integrate AI into many Apple products to help users with everyday tasks. However, many of the key features won’t be available until 2025.
It is said, and honestly, it could be felt, that Apple rushed to develop Apple Intelligence after realizing it was falling behind competitors in AI. They had to swallow their pride and partner with Microsoft-backed OpenAI.
The company has included features like text summarization, notification prioritization, photo editing, and more, which, in all honesty, isn’t anything remotely new. Other devices like Google Pixel and Samsung Galaxys have had this since launch, which happened in October last year and January this year, respectively.
While these features sound good, at least to Apple enthusiasts, Apple is still in the development phase. The public beta will launch later this year, but some features have already been removed due to instability.
Apple acknowledged during its presentation that powerful new Siri features — like advanced app controls — won’t come until next year.
With many key features missing until next year, it may be difficult to convince users to upgrade to an incomplete product, and hence, this delay could hurt Apple’s iPhone 16 sales. Apple has already left its users, at least the iPhone 15 base and Plus variant, disappointed after revealing that on-device AI features won’t be available on these devices.
The rush to develop Apple Intelligence may have also impacted other features. Many non-AI updates announced at the conference were minor and underwhelming. The iPad software updates were particularly disappointing, considering the recent release of the powerful iPad Pro with an M4 chip.