While Apple has marketed Visual Intelligence as this amazing next step in the usefulness and practicality of an iPhone, it’s just a front for services you already had access to. Apple Intelligence does no heavy lifting here, at least for now. That may change whenever the revamped Siri and other AI features eventually roll out next year.
Apple Intelligence promised a lot but we’re still waiting. | Video credit — Apple
If one of the iPhone 16’s most marketed features is something anyone on any platform could have done, it gives me even less hope for the remaining features awaiting release. Especially after this past year where Apple has had one bad software update after another.
The average consumer currently has ChatGPT integration to look forward to whenever iOS 18.2 comes out. That will definitely make Apple Intelligence a little more enticing — and store demos easier for Apple employees — but it will hardly come close to what we’ve been promised. I suppose it remains to be seen if the new Siri and on-screen awareness will live up to the hype or just be old tools in a newer packaging.
Step your game up, Apple. Or iPhone 17 won’t be your most ambitious project as you claim.