Apple Intelligence Isn't Driving iPhone Upgrades

dannyyankou said:
I actually think the iPhone 17 Air will be a big hit. Just for the “new” factor of the design. I know it’ll have fewer features, but the original MacBook Air did too and it helped drive Mac growth.
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Totally agree with you here

I think a lot of folks are clamoring for something that's finally some sort of design departure from this era that started with the iPhone X
 
The 5G hype is great in the city/urban world. Out in the hinterlands, we happy to get any signal. Population centers get the cellular service love because of the high customer to square mile density vs rural square miles per customer which requires more expensive towers for fewer customers per tower.

Next time driving in rural areas, look at the cell towers and most could have three or four antennas. City towers have more antennas than you can count during the drive by.

Thus, there are many folks who have no need for whiz bang features like AI, they just need basic service for emergency and basic communications. Best relatively new feature (came on iPhone 14 Pro series) in my opinion is satellite emergency communication capability.

I am excited to think the Watch Ultra v3 may come with that basic satellite compatibility. The final link to the Dick Tracey watches in the comics of the 50s that showed great connectivity on the wrist.

At least Apple was smart enough to plan for the M1 series chips to have AI capability. So that fact informs the public that Apple has had AI in the minds of some of their engineers since before November 2020 when then first M1 computers were released. A quick thought shows that an iPhone has less internal volume than the MacBook Air or MacBook Pro. Thus Apple needed more engineering time as AI design crawled along to get those required supporting parts small enough to fit inside the existing iPhone cases.

I do wish that Apple had gotten Siri and the primitive AI more polished before saying it worked as the inadequacy of that system gives Apple a black eye. They will bull doze through this issue in time but it will still awhile before the "vaporware" truly becomes "software".
 
I wish they wouldn’t have called it Apple Intelligence just so we could use the term AI and actually know what somebody’s referring to on the forum here

It’s totally confusing as is
 
Is anyone honestly surprised? At this point it's been a huge selling point but the fact of the matter is that there hasn't been a single 'game-changer' feature to even come out with yet. We have notification summaries that have proved to be completely useless. Genmoji's? That don't even work cross-platform? Really? That's it?
 
macdaddy43 said:
Is anyone honestly surprised? At this point it's been a huge selling point but the fact of the matter is that there hasn't been a single 'game-changer' feature to even come out with yet. We have notification summaries that have proved to be completely useless.
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No they haven’t. I find them useful.
macdaddy43 said:
Genmoji's?
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Had a bunch of fun with them.
macdaddy43 said:
That don't even work cross-platform? Really? That's it?
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Cross platform? Would have never thought of it.
 
I7guy said:
AI integration will take time to ramp up as AI itself ramps up. I wouldn’t have bought the iPhone 16 for AI but the 16 is a solid upgrade for phones a few years old.
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Same here. Not shocked at all that Apple AI isn't driving iPhone upgrades.

I think very few people are purchasing an iPhone 16 based on AI. Mostly because likely very few non-technical people (Apple's main purchaser audience) know what AI is about, or its potential. And that Apple so far has just scratched the surface regarding its possibilities.

People are buying iPhone 16 phones for the same reason they purchased iPhone 15/14/13/12/11/10/etc phones.
 
Letbehonest said:
Let’s be honest—ever since Apple removed the SIM tray, sales have decreased. Who in America wants to be stuck with a phone that resellers can’t sell in other countries due to the inconvenience of eSIM? It’s a frustrating decision. Frankly, Apple made a poor move here, which explains why Android phones are gaining more traction and why many people are hesitant to upgrade from the iPhone 13. Whoever at Apple thought following Verizon’s idea of locking users in with eSIM was a good idea clearly didn’t think it through. It is not even about the design anymore. People would still buy if there is a sim tray. Biggest reseller was people buying it from US and resell the US model to china or other asian country. China does not like esim and other country dont even want esim. No one want to be lock in and be country by their carrier or government. APPLE IS STUPID.
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While I would still like to have a sim tray, the amount of people that personally sell their phone (in the US) is probably single digits. Most people trade them in to their carrier or hand them down to someone else. Resellers aren't really on anyones radar.
 
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Stiksi said:
I am tired of the nonsense and just want to focus on getting stuff done. Not teaching some server side app to write mediocre prose or draw garish pictures.
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AI makes me get stuff done, sometimes its the same time just more convenient, sometimes it's helping me to do it in half the time, sometimes it's a tenth of the time I would need to do it by hand. Maybe you just don't know what you can do with it. If you ask it to draw cheesy pictures well that's what you get.
 
I7guy said:
Have they ?

I think the phone is safer. Can’t remove the SIM card.

Many Android phones are cheaper than iPhones and that explains a lot to me.

E-sim will eventually be the way.
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I really like this guy. Get em i7!!!

dwsolberg said:
Remember when 5G was going to change the world? We all have it now, and it's now better than 4G for most people, but honestly didn't change much. I expect something similar from AI. It will eventually make a better Siri and provide better helpful information, but it won't really change much.

Frankly, it's been years since phones have made big improvements, which is why people don't upgrade as often.
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I think yeah ppl would love to see a huge hardware change (such as full screen, folding, no more camera bump etc.)

Ppl are right about mostly incremental changes year to year..this 16 though is a doozy (spatial pics, zoom, bigger screen etc)

I7guy said:
I don’t know what folks want. I know what I want. It sounds like the iPhone 18 is going to be the “it” phone.
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What’s so hot about 18 rumor-wise??

I’m not focused on anything rn. Just enjoying this 16PM. great full screen, decent battery, great zoom, Apple Intelligence is fun (mainly genmoji/playground, magic eraser, don’t use the other stuff), oh and spatial video/pics for future use!

platinumaqua said:
I leave 5G disabled most of the time. The couple of times I turn on 5G, I really can't notice any difference compared to 4G.
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Hmmm I think I heard somewhere that 5G = more secure…
 
I7guy said:
AI integration will take time to ramp up as AI itself ramps up. I wouldn’t have bought the iPhone 16 for AI but the 16 is a solid upgrade for phones a few years old.
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I didn’t upgrade to a 16 Pro Max because of AI, I just did it because I thought I might see a significant difference to the 13 Pro Max I had prior. Apart from the camera which is a noticeably better, it’s essentially the same phone experience in my view. That could be viewed as a positive for those wanting to keep iPhones for 4 or 5 years, but it does feel like I could have waited a year or two longer in hindsight. I have tried some of the AI features and they are quite neat, but yeah, not compelling for an upgrade alone.

My biggest complaint is the camera control button. There is just so much wrong with it and it shocked me when I first got the phone at launch tbh. It’s fiddly to use, slows the operation down where I couldn’t use it for urgent spontaneous photos, and the position is completely awkward. It feels a bit like a feature added to make the difference up between the 15 and 16 to me. One saving grace is the long press that works with the AI software to identify places and products etc. I rarely use the button though and all its uses could be done via onscreen commands, but it is what it is.
 
^^^ just use the cam. Button to launch then use on screen prompts to fiddle/capture. Bing bang boom. I find it very handy when used this way. Camera button = awesome!

Frees up action button for something else.

Go Sox!
 
airwalk331 said:
Let’s be honest- “Apple Intelligence” isn’t driving anything.
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I agree. It’s useless. Apparently it’s on my devices and I have yet to benefit from it even once. What is the point? If I need AI the. I go to ChatGPT or Grok. I could care less if my phone or Mac has Apple Intelligence and whenever I see an ad about it I have to laugh because no one I know even knows how to use it. And this is from a 3.5 trillion dollar company?
 
All I have to say is if this is what we get from a 3.8 trillion dollar company then we are in real trouble. I have yet to find one single thing useful about Apple Intelligence and to be honest I don’t even know it’s there. All the hype is really overblown and Apple missed the boat I feel.
 
It’s not apple intelligence, it’s AI in general. I like where apple intelligence is going. And both apple intelligence and AI will get better over time.
 
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