- Apple’s fall iPhone event will be all about the AI.
- The iPhone will get a new capture button and a 48MP ultrawide camera.
- Apple will finally be punished for its tightwad RAM policy.
Apple’s annual iPhone event is coming around again, with one new big story in the mix—AI.
Every fall, Apple holds an early September event, and every fall, it announces new iPhone models. Usually, there are few surprises, although once in a while, there is something delightful and unexpected, like the Dynamic Island in the iPhone 14 Pro. This year, the rumors are as comprehensive as usual, and we’ll get to that in a moment. But there’s also the possibility of seeing how Apple has been forced to reshape its flagship moneymaker in the face of something even Apple seemed not to expect—the tsunami of AI expectation.
“The most beautiful feature, from my perspective, is the embedding of AI-focused attributes into Apple’s product line, and I mean even more of the iPhones and AirPods. In this case, the development of on-device machine learning makes me curious how Apple is going to improve its computational photography, health tracking, or voice assistant features even more for its users,” Zibtek founder and mobile software developer Cache Merrill told Lifewire via email.
iPhone 16
First up, the iPhone 16 itself. Expect both the Pro and regular models to look much like the current versions, unlike a redesigned iPhone 17 “slim,” which is hotly rumored for a 2025 launch. Physically, we expect the main difference to be a new capture button, which will exist alongside last year’s new action button. The capture button will be capacitive, like a teeny-tiny trackpad, and give haptic feedback when you press to ‘click’ on it.
This button actually sounds rad—you could use it to zoom in photo and video modes, to adjust other settings, and if Apple opens it up to non-photo apps, having a little analog-like slider could be amazing for all kinds of things. Scrolling pages, for instance, performing pitch bends in music apps, and so on.
Also expected is a boost to the ultra-wide camera, taking it to 48 megapixels like the current 1X camera. The wide camera has a great angle, but less-great image quality and low-light performance, so any improvement here is welcome. This change may only come to the Pro Max version.
AirPods 4
Right now, you can buy two kinds of regular AirPods, the AirPods 3, and the older AirPods 2, which, true to Tim Cook’s favorite move, have been kept around at a lower price. The AirPods 4 will replace both of these with two new models, which will look the same—somewhere between the current model and the AirPods Pro—but have different features. The higher-end version will get active noise canceling and transparency mode and a MagSafe charging case. The cheaper ones—perhaps AirPods SE—will just get the new look.
Apple Intelligence
And then there’s the AI. We don’t expect to see any other new feature announcements over what Apple told us at its WWDC conference unless they relate to new hardware or new camera features, but we’ll almost certainly hear about how the new iPhones have powerful new AI-capable silicone inside. Yes, the iPhone has had the Neural Engine for years, but this is how hype goes. There’s a new drum called “AI,” not machine learning, and everybody has to bang it.
This rush to AI will almost have some physical changes, too. Currently, the regular iPhone 15 runs on the previous year’s iPhone Pro chip. That may change, thanks to the extra power required to do all Apple’s on-device AI stuff.
But much more radical is that Apple may be forced to increase the base level of RAM across all its computers, phones included. The iPhone 15 has 6GB RAM, and Apple may increase that to 8GB or even more, thanks to the RAM-hungry nature of AI processing.
If Apple announces any new Macs, those too will need some extra RAM. Almost all current base-level Macs ship with just 8GB RAM, a figure that has remained unchanged for years, even while 16GB is the standard in the Windows PC world. This nickel-and-dime move has come back to bite Apple now that it needs more RAM for Apple Intelligence. Rather embarrassingly, even some of its MacBooks Pro cannot run AI features.
For folks who don’t want AI, this is still great news, as it may force Apple to finally make 16GB RAM the default. And speaking of folks who don’t want AI, we’re not the only ones looking forward to a backlash:
“I am actually looking most forward to seeing the general public’s reaction to the Apple Intelligence features. While Apple is obviously very excited about it, [t]he general public appears to not be on the same level when it comes to the excitement of AI integration in their devices,” Edward Tian, CEO of AI-detection site GPTZero, told Lifewire via email.
Thanks for letting us know!
News Summary:
- Apple's Best 'Glowtime' Reveal Might Be More RAM in Everything
- Check all news and articles from the latest Tech updates.
- Please Subscribe us at Google News.