Apple Intelligence will arrive in October; will Apple delay the iPhone 16 series?

Bloomberg's Mark Gurman has good news for those considering the purchase of an iPhone 16 model next month. Even though Apple Intelligence won't be included in iOS 18.0, Gurman says that Apple won't delay the release of the new models so they could come out of the box with Apple Intelligence pre-installed. Apple did delay the iPhone's release back in 2011 when the iPhone 4S was pushed back from a June release until October to meet the availability of its two top features. You might know them as Siri and iCloud.

These days Apple traditionally unveils the latest iPhone iterations in September and releases them later the same month. With Apple Intelligence delayed until the release of iOS 18.1 due in October (a sample of AI features is available in the iOS 18.1 beta), the tech giant could have held back the release of the iPhone 16 line for a few weeks. Instead, Apple is doing what it did in 2016 when it released the iPhone 7 Plus in September and disseminated Portrait mode via a software update in October.

Even when iOS 18.1 lands in October, will those purchasing an iPhone 16 model be satisfied with the AI features coming on that update? After downloading Apple Intelligence on my iPhone 15 Pro Max, there are features that are interesting if not entirely useful. Changing the tone of your text message to be more professional using Writing Tools might not be as useful as the ability to do this with the email you're sending; it is fun to see AI make the changes to your text messages and email letters.

Summarizing an email you've received allows you to save time by quickly finding out in a few sentences what a specific email is trying to convey to you. It's a definite time saver and the summarize button can be found in the top right corner of emails you open from the native iOS Mail app. You can also summarize webpages on Safari which is another time-saving tool.

Another impressive AI feature, call recording and transcription, allows you to record a call and use the Notes app to see a written transcription of the conversation. Tap anywhere on the transcription to hear that part of the call. The feature does warn the other party with a spoken notification that you are recording it.

But even when iOS 18.1 does arrive, all Siri will receive is a refreshed UI that makes the outer edge of your iPhone glow, and a more conversational tone. AI updates to Siri that will allow you to ask the digital assistant to edit photos, or run through your personal data to find out when your mother is arriving at the airport, won't be out until 2025 along with many other AI tools such as ChatGPT, and the Genmoji custom emoji creator.

Will iPhone 16 buyers be satisfied by the AI features they receive in iOS 18.1? As I said, there are some useful features that many iPhone users will employ. The problem is that the full Apple Intelligence picture may not be in focus until the middle of 2025. By then, we will be talking about the many expected changes coming to the iPhone 17 line including the new iPhone 17 Slim.

It's hard to believe that we are about a month away from the unveiling of the iPhone 16 series. Gurman believes that the event might take place on September 10th. Thanks to a change made by Google to unveil the new Pixel 9 series on August 13th instead of in October is the date, it now appears that the iPhone 17 will be the last major global phone series of the season to be released. The season started with the Galaxy S24 line's January introduction.