If rumours and leaks – and recent history – are to be believed, the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro will launch in September. That’s the month Apple usually unveils its new flagship phones for the year, and after what we learned at the firm’s WWDC event in June, iOS 18 will also launch and bring several new features and tools.
But according to a new report from Bloomberg, Apple won’t be shipping the iPhone 16 with Apple Intelligence. Instead, it is said iOS 18 will initially not have the AI tools, with Apple opting to wait and add them with an iOS 18.1 software update sometime later in October.
The look and feel of iOS will change with iOS 18 as it becomes more like Android with custom app placement and colour options, but Apple previously made headlines by introducing its mobile artificial intelligence (AI) features to compete with Samsung and Google, which it calls Apple Intelligence.
These tools include AI-generated emoji from text prompts, a smarter Siri (hopefully) that can also dig into your apps – privately – and be far more helpful as an assistant, plus integration with ChatGPT to access AI on the web when you want to.
But it appears as though Apple wants to put in rigorous testing time before it pushes out iOS 18 to millions of iPhone and iPad users, to ensure that when most people upgrade, the features are ready.
“The stakes are higher than usual. In order to ensure a smooth consumer release of its big bet on AI, Apple needs support from developers to help iron out issues and test features on a wider scale,” Mark Gurman of Bloomberg reported.
“Concerns over the stability of Apple Intelligence features, in part, led the company to split the features from the initial launch of iOS 18 and iPadOS 18.”
That said, Apple has confirmed that of existing iPhone models, only the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max will gain Apple Intelligence features. We don’t yet know if all the new iPhone 16 models will be compatible, or if Apple will keep them restricted to the iPhone 16 Pro only.
The firm has suggested that the computing power required to run on-device AI processes is only present in the A17 Pro chip in the iPhone 15 Pro, and would not run to the company’s expectations even on the A16 found in the regular iPhone 15.
Though iPhone owners are currently able to test iOS 18 before its official launch by signing up to the iOS beta program, you still can’t test Apple Intelligence even if you have an iPhone 15 Pro or 15 Pro Max. Gurman suggests that will soon change, with an iOS 18.1 beta expected to be released soon from Apple.
All iPhones dating back to the iPhone XS and XR from 2018 will be upgradable to iOS 18 come its expected release in September. As well as visual changes, Apple is also adding RCS messaging compatibility for better texting with Android phones that allow high quality photos and videos as well as typing indicators – even though Android users will still be green bubbles when viewed on an iPhone or iPad.
