This is the thing. For people that upgrade every year, the feature rollout is almost a non-issue. But if you upgrade your phone on a 3-year cycle or more, the question every year is, “so…do I wait another year?”
Advertising features that don’t exist to change the answer to that question is arguably not just bad optics, but outright illegal.
Yeah. In this particular case, not only won’t that experience roll out until after the 16 Pro stops being “the new shiny,” but the timeline of “2026” could mean it doesn’t actually roll out until the iPhone 18 is available. I’m guessing that had the advertising been truthful, you’d probably have waited at least another year - or possibly two.
For me peronally, I just got an iPhone 16e. Not because it has Apple Intelligence, but because I had a 15, my fiancé had a 2020 iPhone SE, and she was in need of an upgrade. I’m not really an iPhone power user, but I do need a big screen - so I got the 16e and she got my 15. I tossed a magnet case on it, and I can still use all my accessories.
But if I’d purchased the 16e for the new Siri and they’d told me “oops, it might be another year and a half”, I’d be very, very cranky.
Intentional or not, overpromising on AI to sell iPhones feels like a failure of leadership to me, especially considering how far ahead Apple was with Siri 15 years ago and how much they have strayed from their legacy of “one more thing."
Writing tools have been the only useful aspect of this entire feature rollout for me. I work in biotechnology, where written communication is a cornerstone of the industry. Writing tools on my Mac have been particularly helpful for proofreading and cleaning up my writing.
My answers to that are privacy and security. Those (especially privacy) are by far the best features of the iPhone, and Apple’s stuff in general. They’re not perfect (especially with security), but nothing else that’s non-niche even comes close for privacy. The ecosystem is just gravy for me.
I’ve been surprised that I haven’t heard or read much about privacy and security being major factors in Apple’s struggles to keep up with Siri and AI. I assume they are.
Or, maybe Apple fans (and I’m included in this) just trust Apple in a way we don’t trust Google or Samsung. Because we think Apple is trustworthy, we give them credit & the benefit of the doubt with issues related to security and privacy.
Can you think of some specific security or privacy features Apple has that aren’t repeatable on Android? Ones that are actual features and not that come down to “I know Apple won’t or doesn’t do X with my data…?” Maybe I’m just not thinking of them.
If that’s right, it would explain why we aren’t reading about those as a factor.
Security was easy, though I suspect that the various Android phone makers have caught up: Back in the day Apple would release secruity updates and those updates were independant from the carriers. Apple also supported phones (and still does) for a long time, so you don’t have to upgrade your phone just to get the latest security fixes nearly as often as was the case (and likely still is across much of the space) in the Android world.
Apple’s security architecture and implementation of encryption are also noteworthy, and happened earlier on than for Android devices.
As far as privacy goes, Apple requires app developers to disclose how they collect and use data, and iOS apps never had the same “grant all permissions or the app won’t work” that was pervasive for Android apps.
Apple is a company that still makes most of its money selling hardware. They’ve made privacy a part of their value propostion. Google is a company that makes most of its money gathering your data, analyzing it, and using it to sell things to you or help others sell things to you. The difference is clear.
That’s true, but the key word is think. Since Apple only deals with consumer data it doesn’t have to deal with the regulations and requirements of businesses, organizations, and governments, that use the services of Amazon, Microsoft, and Google.
Thanks for taking the time to write this reply. It’s very helpful and what I was looking for.
I don’t disagree with this (I’m an Apple user) but it speaks more to the feelings & perceptions category than features. Who got there first for each of the features you list is often Apple (or a mixed bag) but I don’t see anything in that list I can’t get from Android today. (No chance I switch, but that’s not the point of my original claim.)
I was thinking of stuff like on-device computing, encryption, less data collection, and Apple claim that privacy is a “core value.” They seem to back it up with policies, which is what lead me to suggest those polices could give their competitors first-mover advantage.
These are two giant companies that have very few customers in common. Yesterday I learned that Google has been working on AI applications for the heathcare industry for several years and has several projects being tested, or in use today.
You are not wrong. I guess I count myself lucky to grow up in the advent of the internet when it all seemed fresh and full of possibility. Now it feels like we serve our devices instead of our devices serving us.
@zkarj – You asked us to come back in 12 months and see how much “still seems valid apart from the lateness of it.” So here we are. The personalized Siri features announced at WWDC 2024 have not shipped. It has been almost two years. Apple has now partnered with Google to try to make them work. Internal testers are reporting (leaking) that it’s still not shippable.
I think @webwalrus had it right a year ago: “It’s not about whether the features are good. It’s about whether they exist at all.” They still don’t. @jacobio and @Aaron_Antcliff gave concrete examples of upgrading to the iPhone 16s specifically for these features and wouldn’t have otherwise.
Your position was that this was a matter of timing and that the features were not absent, just late. At what point does “late” become “absent”? Two years seems like a reasonable threshold.
The irony is that AI has become a commodity in the meantime. Everyone I know pays $20-100/month for Claude or ChatGPT and doesn’t consider Apple a relevant player in AI at all. They use these tools on expensive Apple hardware. Apple arguably didn’t even need to promise these features to sell devices – they just needed to not lie about them.
Is Siri worse, or is the background against which we judge Siri significantly better? I cannot imagine going backward to Google without AI mode and the ability to process complex multipart requests.
In a world without nails, a wooden peg is cool tech. Siri was once, but now is just a brainless annoyance.
It is! When I ask Siri to play smooth jazz, and instead, I get Rapp songs, it’s truly brainless. Of course, some people would argue that requesting smooth jazz is equally brainless or at least in bad taste.
Siri has become a punchline. In the final scene of a recent episode of “The Rookie” two of the lead characters are exhausted and “Nolan” says something to “Bailey” like “we have time for a nap” then says “Siri, wake me in an hour” and they both fall asleep. At which point Siri responds with:
“I didn’t get that, will you try again?”.
I stopped using Siri, except when driving, over a year ago. And I try to avoid using it even then. I would be happy if Apple just allowed me to replace Siri with another digital assistant.
