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The iPhone 16 will launch without some of Apple’s flagship Intelligence features – which are perhaps the biggest reason for most to upgrade to the new models.

While Apple is taking an understandably cautious approach here, the company risks disappointing or confusing its customers…

Apple Intelligence is rolling out very slowly

Yesterday’s big news was, of course, the launch of the first iOS 18.1 developer beta, which provides access to the first set of Apple Intelligence features:

• Writing tools
• Some improvements to Siri, including maintaining context between requests
• Mail features including summaries and smart replies
• Natural language search in Photos and more
• Transcript summaries

But even for developers, Apple is taking it slow. Some of the features we expected to be included in the 18.1 beta were not, among them the AI ​​image generation tool Image Playground.

It should be noted that we don’t expect a public beta version of iOS 18.1 – for now, only developers can play with the AI. It’s likely that Apple will take this route, because even in official iOS releases, the company labels all AI features as “beta,” just as it did with the original launch of Siri. Releasing a beta version of a beta version is too confusing for public use.

With a lot of uncertainty

Officially, all Apple has said is that Apple Intelligence will launch in the “fall.” Considering the season starts on September 22nd and ends on December 20th, that doesn’t narrow things down too much!

There is also considerable uncertainty about what will and will not be included at launch. The really big changes will come with the full-fledged new Siri, with ChatGPT as a fallback. Bloomberg said this won’t even launch as a developer beta until 2025, but WSJ contradicted this yesterday, claiming that some of these features will appear by the end of this year.

Before the New Year’s ball drops, Siri will get ChatGPT integration and the ability to tap into your personal context. (Example: “When should I leave to pick up mom from the airport?”)

However, Joanna Stern said that “Siri’s ability to perform actions in third-party apps is coming next year.”

The iPhone 16 won’t have most AI features at launch

Apple Intelligence will be the biggest reason to upgrade to a new iPhone in a long time. Of the existing models, only the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max will let you use all the upcoming AI features – everyone else will have to buy a new phone.

Apple’s challenge will be how to communicate that — and encourage those upgrades — without creating a mess of confusion and frustration. If you buy your shiny new phone expecting Siri to finally get smart, and it doesn’t, then you risk putting a big dent in Apple’s brand image.

We don’t even know if the iPhone 16 will launch with any kind Apple Intelligence features. If it ships with iOS 18.0, and iOS 18.1 is needed even for the limited selection of AI features that developers got yesterday, then it could remain disappointingly unintelligent on day one.

It’s manageable. Apple can either pre-install iOS 18.1 on phones before they ship, or use the Presto system released earlier this year to update them in-store before they go on sale. Absolute worst case scenario, it makes the update available a week or more after, so buyers don’t need to wait long for at least some new smart AI solutions.

There is precedent for this

There’s a precedent for Apple selling shiny new iPhones without all the headline features.

Apple sold the iPhone 7 Plus primarily in portrait mode – which for the first time offered artificial background blur to simulate the shallow depth of field you can get on a DSLR. The phone went on sale on September 15, 2016, but portrait mode wasn’t available until the release of iOS 10.1 over a month later on October 24.

It was the same story in 2022, the iPhone 14 went on sale on September 16, but the basic Emergency SOS via satellite feature did not appear in the US until November 15, even later in other countries, and is still not available in most.

But this is a bigger deal

However, this is a bigger deal. iPhone owners are waiting for a a lot it will be a long time before Siri becomes a truly intelligent assistant, and for many Apple Intelligence will be synonymous with a smarter Siri.

If they’re told they’re getting Apple Intelligence on day one or not long after, but Siri remains nearly as dumb, it could be a very bad look for the company.

Apple will have to be very, very careful about how it communicates what iPhone owners will get and when they’ll get it.

Image: Michael Bauer/9to5Mac