Apple Intelligence delays won’t affect iPhone 16 launch timeline: report
iPhone 16 is Apple’s next flagship smartphone series, which is expected to debut later this year. While no official information about the devices has been revealed yet, one of the key features coming to the iPhone 16 series has already been revealed – Apple Intelligence – the suite of artificial intelligence (AI) features for Apple devices. In recent weeks, rumors have been circulating that despite Apple releasing a handful of Apple Intelligence features in beta, they won’t be available on the iPhone 16 series at launch, leading to speculation that the next iPhone series could be delayed entirely. However, a new report suggests that this may not be the case.
Launch of the iPhone 16
In his power on newsletterBloomberg’s Mark Gurman claimed that despite Apple Intelligence features being delayed, the launch of the iPhone 16 series will not be delayed. Following the trend of previous years, the smartphones are expected to be launched at an Apple event in September.
Although Apple has often launched its new iPhone line in September with the latest updates to the operating system, there have also been times when the launch was delayed because the software still needed to be polished. An example of this is the launch of the iPhone 4S in October 2011, which was originally scheduled for introduction in June.
This development builds on another claim made by Gurman regarding the rollout of Apple Intelligence. According to Gurman, the iOS 18 update, which will likely be released publicly with the iPhone 16 series, will not include Apple’s AI suite. Instead, it could launch in October with the iOS 18.1 update. Even then, it might not include some of the headline features Apple showed off at its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) 2024 on June 10, such as the Image Playground that lets users generate AI images via prompts.
There’s even a possibility that some Apple Intelligence features could be delayed until 2025, Gurman said. This could include advanced AI integrations in Siri, Apple’s voice assistant for the iPhone, iPad and Mac. Speculation is that these features could start rolling out to developers in the iOS 18.4 beta update in January 2025, before being introduced to the public later that year.
