PSA: iPhone 16 series will ship without Apple Intelligence

At the iPhone 16 series launch event, Apple announced a lot of Apple Intelligence use cases but the company isn’t shipping them with these devices out of the box.

Apple Intelligence refers to Apple’s Artificial Intelligence features. These are designed to assist users in creating new content such as writing and images and understanding whatever is on the screen. However, this prowess is limited to iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max from previously launched devices.

It was originally announced at the WWDC24 event alongside iOS 18. However, it’s not part of the initial version.

Right after this software conference, Apple started iOS 18 beta testing without Apple Intelligence. It was later revealed that the AI features will come with iOS 18.1 with a separate beta.

Still, the AI suite is immature and there will be only some features coming with the new software update.

So, the iPhone 16 will run iOS 18.0 out of the box. Then, a separate software update will roll out in October with iOS 18.1 and Apple Intelligence. This rollout will also cover previous-generation devices. What’s more interesting is that iOS 18.1 will only bring a couple of what Apple has shown at the event.

Apple Intelligence will rollout for iPhone 16 series in October (Source – Apple)

It’s a trend now, big phone makers, especially Apple, promote some eye-catching stuff at the conference and label it as ‘coming soon’.

Advanced Siri is one of the key features announced within Apple Intelligence. And, it won’t be available for devices with iOS 18.1.

Generative AI image functions such as Image Playground and Genmoji won’t be available in this rollout either. It’s reported that these could be bundled in the iOS 18.2 software update later this year.

Aside from the U.S., if you are in Europe or any other non-English market, Apple Intelligence won’t ship to iPhone 16 series until next year.