Warm Winter Good Thing Award
Many of the rumors we've heard about the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro have one thing in common – they both have the potential to add or enhance AI capabilities.
Artificial intelligence, especially generative AI, has become an area of increasing concern in the tech world, including smartphones. The Google Pixel 8 has already advertised itself as a top-of-the-line AI experience in the pocket, and the rumored Samsung Galaxy S24 will also be heavily marketed for its AI capabilities when it launches next year, so Apple's next phone will try to do so on similar terms.
The iPhone 16 series is still the best time of the year to go, but with there already plenty of rumors about the phone, it's not hard to see that Apple might be ready to go all-in on artificial intelligence.
First, there have been recent rumors that Apple is working on adding a new microphone to the iPhone 16 series to help Siri understand your request. Siri itself is also said to be undergoing upgrades.
Apple apparently sees its digital assistant as the primary way iPhone users interact with its AI capabilities, and both Siri and AI departments for Apple employees are said to belong to the same broader team. We hope that you don't have to use the AI of the iPhone 16 only through voice commands, but this is an encouraging sign of Apple's development.
We should see Apple's iOS 18 software arrive next summer. At the moment, rumors about specific features are quiet, but people familiar with the matter believe that AI will be an important part of iOS 18 products.
What's more, while iOS 18 is likely to be on all the latest iPhones, it is expected to provide more in-device processing for the iPhone 16, while older models will have to rely on cloud processing. Not surprisingly, this will make the latest iPhone the best way to experience the AI-inspired style that Apple has added to its next-generation iPhone interface.
iPhone 16 should see the action buttons of iPhone 15 Pro added to all iPhone 16 models. This customizable button has multiple preset features to choose from, as well as the option to run shortcut automations.
We've observed that Apple isn't really taking full advantage of this button's potential at the moment, and the recent addition of real-time translation for action buttons has piqued our interest in other sophisticated AI-based features. With the Action button apparently appearing on all iPhone 16 models, perhaps we'll finally see it come into play, quickly rolling out new AI features.
Some of the news you may have missed is that Apple has just rolled out the MLX AI framework to developers, giving them access to tools to help build AI capabilities for Apple's silicon chips. This is designed specifically for Mac, but some penetration of the iPhone 16 seems inevitable.
While Apple's AI activities are a bit of a mystery, it reportedly spends $1 billion a year on AI research, including the so-called Applegpt chatbot. With such a huge investment, the company will almost certainly use the research findings on the latest version of its most popular product, the iPhone 16.
Running more powerful AI features requires more powerful devices, and luckily, we may see a lot of underlying changes to the iPhone 16 that will help with that.
Rumor has it that the iPhone will benefit from a larger battery, a more powerful A18 (or A17, depending on who you believe) or an A18 Pro chipset, more RAM, and the same faster type of RAM for all models.
All this should help the iPhone 16 complete ** smart tasks on the device, and Apple prefers to send data to be processed in the cloud. But for any AI function carried out in the cloud (possibly through a third-party app), this will be able to take advantage of the rumored Wi-Fi 7 compatibility, which will ensure that the new iPhone is compatible with the latest and fastest internet routers.