Apple insider details pricey iPhone Pro decision

Updated June 2nd: Article originally posted June 1st

Next week, Apple will hold its annual Worldwide Developers Conference where it will unveil some of the AI-based tools that will power the iPhone 16 family when it launches in September. Many of these tools are available on older iPhone models, but only the iPhone 15 Pro will be able to take full advantage of them.

Update: Sunday, June 2nd: Mark Gurman, writing for Bloomberg’s Power On newsletter, points out worrying details about Apple’s efforts to integrate AI into the iPhone 16 family and iOS 18 that won’t be ready by the launch of the new iPhones in September.

“Apple plans to announce some AI features in iOS 18 this fall, but the upgraded Siri features won’t arrive until next year. Still, it shows how broadly Apple is thinking about AI, and how deeply it wants to integrate the technology into its products.”

This is a glimpse into Apple’s thinking on the matter, but even if it releases a lavish amount of new AI features in January, the iPhone will cover the basics of what consumers consider AI. It will come some 15 months after Google debuted those features on the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro, 12 months after Samsung debuted its system on the Galaxy S24, 24+ and S24 Ultra, and nearly a year after the flurry of Android AI smartphones launched at CES 2024.

It’s entirely possible that manufacturers like Google, Samsung, OnePlus, and Honor will release second-generation AI-first smartphones before Apple ships its first generation phones, though that’s assuming you have a device that supports the new software — only the current iPhone 15 Pro will be able to take advantage of the full suite of AI tools.

The likely reason for this is the A17 Pro chipset found in the Pro models. This is Apple’s latest Axx mobile chipset; it’s worth noting that Apple botched the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus models with the then-year-old A16 chipset. The extra power of the A17 Pro’s Neural Engine, as well as its faster CPU and GPU cores, will be needed to run the on-device LLM and generative AI routines.

Still, the iPhone 16 Pro models will have the updated A18 Pro chipset, and if Apple makes the same decision as Qualcomm and Samsung, the A18 will have silicon designed specifically to support intensive AI routines. The iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max may have enough A17 power to match the A18, but the lower-specced standard models will likely be left behind.

There may be an option to offload some AI routines to the cloud, an approach that some Android manufacturers have taken to seek more extensive AI processing or to provide AI capabilities on lower-spec hardware. If this is the case, we expect Apple to focus on the privacy implications of AI in the cloud and how to mitigate this risk.

Apple would likely prefer that users consider another option: buying a new phone to upgrade to an AI-enabled phone.

AI means many things to many people, but one of the biggest benefits for the smartphone industry is that it will require new hardware to deliver better solutions. Apple will undoubtedly have its own twist on AI, which will likely focus on supporting users with summarization, better images, natural responses from Siri, and more accurate image processing. But the underlying drivers will be consistent with competitors. If you want the first AI smartphone, you’ll need to buy a new device.

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