Possibly, just possibly Apple has got their approach to AI right after all

Apple’s Glowtime iPhone event is a few hours away.

Yeah, I’m excited but I also have some overarching thoughts that I thought may be an interesting little distraction as we wait for the event.

If you were hoping that this year would be a super cycle year for iPhone – think again! Much was teased and promised at WWDC back in June, but most of the good stuff that we saw won’t ship with iPhone 16 when they start to arrive on our doorsteps in a couple of weeks.

iPhone 16 will ship with iOS 18 but we will have to probably wait until October for the 18.1 updates before we can start to play with the Summary & Writing tools, the Auto Transcription feature and Clean Up for Photos.

But here’s the rub, even when that update does land those features won’t be available in China and the EU – two massive markets for Apple.

Apple & Chat GPT

Do you remember how Apple told us about the Chat GPT integration and those other headline Apple Intelligence apps such as Image Playground and Genmoji? Well, those won’t be ready for us to use on our shiny new iPhone 16s until December with the iOS 18.2 release at the earliest.

As for the brand new, full-blown, re-branded ‘clever’ Siri, well that won’t be with us until 2025. The rollout of Apple Intelligence is starting to look a bit of a mess, isn’t it? Or is it…

All of this leads me to wonder if iPhone 16 could become a ‘miss’ year – I mean if Apple Intelligence isn’t ready then how will they position iPhone 16 to us?

Why would the majority of people want to change?

From a hardware point of view, there are precious few changes. The 16 and 16 Plus will get the Action Button that debuted last year on the Pro phones. There will be some new colours for those phones and a couple of tweaks and improvements to the cameras. Yeah, sure, the camera layout will be changed to allow you to take spatial photos and videos for your Vision Pro…what do you mean you haven’t got a Vision Pro yet? And you call yourself an Apple fan!

The Pros will get some sensor improvements for the cameras and the new Capture Button and will have slimmer bezels – the slimmest of any phone which in turn will give the Pro phones fractionally larger displays.

But essentially, that’s it! That’s all we’re getting this year – that is unless Apple has a blinder up its sleeve that they’ve managed to keep secret.

But possibly, just possibly Apple’s messy, late and staggered approach to AI might play in their favour. Hear me out…

Fashionably late

Artificial Intelligence started as a trickle, then rapidly gained press attention and mainstream use, but now, I am starting to sense a mini-revolt from the masses – or is that just me?

There seems to be a real concern about where we fit into this AI future – what will there be left for us to do? I’m not for a moment suggesting that AI isn’t here to stay but possibly its relentless march needs to be reassessed and just reigned in a bit.

I may not be typical, but AI doesn’t play a massive part in my day. If I’m uploading a short I’ll use CapCut for the captions and I use Photoshop’s AI tools to remove backgrounds for creating thumbnails – oh and Grammarly when I’m writing, but that’s about it.

I’m in a field where AI is all around me – I could use all sorts of tools like Gling, Claude and of course Chat GPT – but I don’t. I back myself to come up with titles, descriptions and content.

I’ll be interested to hear your thoughts on this though – am I the square pin or has everyone become a little wary of AI? Chatting with my daughter who’s 26 and works in marketing for a major music publisher in London says she and her colleagues are cautious about using AI – and also the effect it is already directly having on their industry.

Companies like Samsung and Google have been filling their phones to the rafters with every conceivable AI tool – tools that to my eyes seem a little frivolous and dare I say pointless & immature. So much of what I’ve seen falls into that category of it being used once and then swiftly forgotten about.

Google’s Add Me comes to mind. It made headlines, but the more reviews that came in the more negativity it received. Here’s the point – it turns out we kind of like to look at pictures that evoke memories – pictures that actually once happened.

Who’d of thought eh?

Timing is everything

Whether or not Apple’s delay in fully throwing its hat into the Artificial Intelligence ring was planned or was an embarrassing mess, who knows, but it may just play in their favour.

Apple may find themselves in the right place at the right time and can possibly read the room better – what if they give us the kind of AI that we want and more importantly the kind of AI that will help us and improve the quality of our days and lives?

As I said earlier, I understand that we can’t turn back the hands of time – AI is here to stay in one way or another. AI will play a part in all our futures but here’s hoping it can be used in a sensible, creative and useful fashion.

My guess is that Apple dropped a massive ball with the AI wagon, but in typical Apple fashion, they’ve managed to turn it around to their advantage.

We chose to buy iPhones over Android alternatives for a host of reasons – design, privacy and the ecosystem high among them. But also right up there is a more grown-up approach. iPhone users tend not to be as fussed about widgets and customising home screens – even though I know it’s coming with iOS 18.

I think iPhone users tend to use their phones more as tools than toys and to that end, the delay in AI for Apple users could mean we end up with a more measured and mature version of it.

I am as excited as the next person for today’s Glowtime event, but I can’t help but wonder if it may end up being one of those flat years. Outside of the iPhone 16 release, all we hear we’re getting are some new AirPods and Watches. If that’s the case it doesn’t sound like much of an event to get excited about, does it?

I have a sneaky suspicion that Apple may have a pretty special “and one more thing” moment ready to spring on us to add some real pep to the event.

And from where I’m sitting – they need it too!