iPhone 16 And Apple Intelligence Marketing
The iPhone 16 lineup could stand on its own, sporting the new A18 chip, bigger screens, thinner bezels, better cameras, longer battery life, attractive chassis colorways, and the new Camera Control button. Apple Intelligence could have been treated as more like a bonus, with Apple taking the angle of how cool it is that you’ll be getting some fun new AI-powered enhancements arriving every couple of months.
Instead, Apple has used Apple Intelligence as the underpinning of the phone’s marketing. On Apple.com, the strapline for both the iPhone 16 and 16 Pro is “Hello, Apple Intelligence”. No mention of anything else that is new about the phone. Somewhat comically, in the European Union and other countries where Apple Intelligence has no release date, there is no alternative copy. It’s just left as blank space. It’s quite literally Apple Intelligence or bust.
By relying on AI as a focal point, Apple provoked immediate critiques. Firstly, there are those who simply reject anything “AI”. It’s a touchy subject, with swirling concerns about privacy or intellectual property theft or dehumanisation of the creative arts. Apple isn’t necessarily breaching those topics with the implementation of its models, but it doesn’t really matter. They are painted with the same brush. This unforced error could have been avoided if Apple Intelligence was perceived as an add-on, rather than fundamental to the phone. That positioning would also more accurately reflect the truth. While Apple presents the iPhone 16 as “built from the ground up for Apple Intelligence”, when the first features ship as part of iOS 18.1, they are exposed in the software as an opt-in toggle the user has to actively enable.
Secondly, there’s the release timetable complaints. Although people will buy the phone throughout the next year, the iPhone 16 went on sale on September 20. Apple Intelligence is a piecemeal rollout with the first features launching in October. Naturally, all of the reviewers covering the phone under embargo couldn’t meaningfully cover the unreleased stuff. It also meant the bottom-line recommendations of their reviews were heavily caveated. Why bother buying a phone right now that is seen as incomplete?
Whereas, if Apple had been less aggressive with the Apple Intelligence push upfront, I think they could have substantially blunted both of these criticisms. Push the actual features of the hardware harder, now. Push Apple Intelligence when it actually arrives.
I also wonder if a third category of negative reaction is brewing. After all of the advertising and the hype, iOS 18.1 is going to drop … and users may be let down by what new stuff their phone can actually do. Apple Intelligence is nice, but it’s not blowaway. It’s taking features that people have mostly already seen done elsewhere, but integrated neatly into the apps and services that they actually use every day. It’s convenient and useful, but it’s not game-changing. The day one reactions of disappointment may also be exacerbated by the fact that the set of AI features coming in iOS 18.1 are not the coolest, flashiest ones of the promised suite. Genmoji will be a hit, but that’s not there. New Siri actions and app integrations have potential to be big, but that isn’t coming until 2025 — although some people will inevitably be confused by the prettiness of the new Siri edge-lit animations which are part of iOS 18.1.