A little less than a year ago, my wife’s birthday was approaching. I was searching for a special birthday gift that is thoughtful, impressive, and useful. While window shopping and walking through virtually most of the shopping malls and centres here in Oman (let alone abroad during my short travels) and driving through the city, I could not miss seeing the new Apple iPhone 16 promoted on almost every digital screen, huge billboards inside the buildings, and outside on the highways, and the social media feeds/ads, be it on YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat or Twitter (now known as X after Elon Musk took over the helm).
Practically everywhere I looked, I saw (and continue to actually see) the new smartphone with a bold and beautiful brand/promise/tagline, the “Apple Intelligence”. Simply, a promise from probably one of the most expensive smartphone manufacturers in the world (Apple) that the artificial intelligence (AI) will finally come to their iPhone in a way that only they could do.
Like anything I mostly do, I read, researched and consequently bought into the promise of the future (with a unique way of integrating AI into the already existing successfully touted smart mobile device). I jumped into the bandwagon, especially since I found this would be the perfect gift for my wife as an upgrade to her existing old model iPhone, but of course with the AI-powered feature apart from just the basic upgrade of the storage and memory space, the onboard camera quality and finally the processor speed. Fast forward to today, I must admit that I am quite disappointed, especially with the high price tag paid (approx. RO 580) for a promise (Apple Intelligence) that is yet to be materialised in practice (but is only available today as a concept and on paper since a year ago when it was introduced).
So what really happened? Like almost everyone else, I bought into the promise of the “Apple Intelligence”. Yet unlike everyone else, I realised today that it’s probably a gimmick. Apple made the new iPhone look like the smartest phone ever made in history, where AI would be utilised as a feature to simplify our daily tasks, manage our lives better, and even offer creative tools on top of what is already available today as consumer AI-related apps (such as ChatGPT, Gemini and the like). If you watch last year’s Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WDC 2024), you will see that an amazing experience was promised (i.e., the Apple intelligence); nevertheless, fast-forward today, that was only a concept, not even a practical real demo that you can feel and play with.
Apple, during the conference and later via the mass media, talked about how they will utilise AI across all your apps, predicting what you need, and even edit your writing like a personal assistant. All that sounded like the ideal smart device that is not only quite secure (as opposed to Android or Huawei, as it claims) but also blends better privacy, better design, and generative power, thanks to AI. In reality, the roll-out of features was very limited, and only a few of what has been promised were released (e.g., rewording, summarising and paraphrasing text), pretty much as what other generative AI apps can do (or even better too). Why did Apple do that? In my humble opinion, to remain or seem competitive in the market race for AI and also to ensure shareholders continue to gain profits from the mass sales that are done as a result. I am not happy, nor are many who realised the same.
In conclusion, the futuristic gift that I bought for my wife did not materialise to date (though she loves the phone being a loyal Apple customer). The excitement of the same continues to be a frustration instead. Most “Apple Intelligence” features that were promised and we saw remain a dream yet to be fulfilled. I hope Apple will soon react to this fiasco of selling an expensive promise (or device per se) with a real deed that puts a smile, productivity and a real future into the hands of consumers. Until we catch up again next week, let’s continue to be positive of the beautiful innovative future.
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