Apple Intelligence delay unlikely to eclipse iPhone 16 launch

Apple Intelligence will likely miss the iPhone 16 series launch later this year, but this new iPhone lineup will unlikely delay its release date.

This year’s iPhone will bring a new chipset for a fast user experience. There will be a new camera and screen size improvement. The changes made in the hardware are directly related to iOS 18, especially the one with generative AI.

Announced at WWDC24, Apple Intelligence is a suite of features to ease operations across different operating systems including iOS, iPadOS, and macOS. iOS 18 in particular has new writing tools, generative image capabilities, a smart mail organizer, a more intelligent Siri voice assistant, and other key capabilities.

Unfortunately, Apple Intelligence may not mature on the due date alongside the iPhone 16. That includes advanced Siri and generative AI images.

Apple Intelligence (source – Apple)

Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman says that the iPhone 16 will maintain its schedule similar to last year. It will not depend on Apple Intelligence to gain sales momentum.

Instead, the new models will enroute with a new camera, design, and other core features. Gurman predicts that a possible launch date for new iPhones could be around September 10 but an official announcement may not come any time soon.

On the other hand, Apple Intelligence features will rollout as an upgrade with iOS 18.1 in October or the following month. Therefore, the company may presume these generative AI during the keynote but a rollout could delay up to a month. Even with that, Siri upgrade will have to wait a bit longer than others.

To prepare for this release, Apple has recently released iOS 18.1 developer beta 1 with Apple Intelligence preview. It’s expected that more features will be added to these beta builds in the coming month as we approach the launch date.