Most aren't upgrading to iPhone 16 because of Apple Intelligence. Should you?
Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP) asked iPhone owners during the year up to June 2024 why they were planning to upgrade to a new iPhone 16 model. The top reason given by 44% of the respondents was that their current iPhone was "obsolete." At Apple, a product is considered obsolete when it has been over seven years since the tech giant stopped distributing the device.
Which iPhone models will lose support with the release of iOS 18?
The iPhone models that are officially obsolete with the release of iOS 18 are the iPhone 8 series and the first-generation iPhone SE. In November, the iPhone X will also be considered "obsolete." The second most selected reason why an iPhone user decided to upgrade to an iPhone 16 model, picked by 29 % of respondents, is because their current iPhone was "lost/broken/stolen.
Apple's Clean Up AI feature makes a squirrel disappear without a trace of him appearing in the AI-edited image. |-Image credit-PhoneArena
If your off the cuff math skills remain good, you can see that 73% of iPhone owners upgrading to a new iPhone 16 model this year are doing so because of the situation they find themselves in with their current iPhone and NOT because of an amazing new feature that they must have. And this year you might have expected that many would be upgrading to an iPhone 16 model so that they can use Apple Intelligence.
Apple's AI initiative is currently available on only two iPhone models, the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max. Apparently, iPhones need to have no less than 8GB of RAM to run Apple Intelligence which will be supported by all four iPhone 16 models. Here's the thing though. If you are afraid of installing the iOS 18.1 Beta, you won't see Apple Intelligence on your iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Plus, iPhone 16 Pro, and iPhone 16 Pro Max until the stable version of iOS 18.1 is released in October.
I've had the Apple Intelligence Beta (Yes, it is considered a Beta) running on my iPhone 15 Pro Max which is running the iOS 18.1 Beta. While summarizing all notifications, emails, and websites is handy, is it really a tool that users will turn to? The Apple version of Google's Magic Eraser called Clean Up works great and very rarely does it leave an outline of the distracting item removed from the original picture.
Survey responses explain why iPhone users are upgrading to an iPhone 16 series model. | Image credit-CIPR
The Writing Tools are great at helping you come up with the appropriate tone and response to an email or text. More exciting will be some of the features that Apple has yet to let anyone see including ChatGPT integration for Siri which will hopefully end the annoying practice of Siri answering a query by throwing three websites at us and telling us to look through these sites for the correct answer.
Should you upgrade now in order to get Apple Intelligence?
Also on the way is Genmoji which will allow you to create a custom emoji by simply typing what you want. And the Image Playground will let you use AI to create custom images for apps like Messages, Notes, Keynote, Pages, and more.
Returning to the survey, 18% said they were upgrading because of a new feature. 6% will upgrade because of an incentive such as a great trade-in deal or sale price. 2% will upgrade to an iPhone 16 model because they want to switch to a different carrier. And showing that iPhone users aren't a bunch of "yes" men or women, only 1% will upgrade because they have a family member or friend who plans to do so.
Frankly, at this stage, I don't see Apple Intelligence drawing many iPhone users to upgrade. There will be some curious iPhone users who want to see for themselves what the hopla is all about. You might want to wait to see whether the changes upcoming to Siri are worth the price of buying an iPhone 16 model. If the changes to Siri that Apple showed off at WWDC come through, at that time it might be worth it to upgrade. For now, unless you have an iPhone 11 or older, you might want to hold off.
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