Will A $1000 iPhone Finally Be As Good As A $500 Android Phone When It Comes To AI?

After being relatively silent about its AI ambitions, Apple has started making some noise. From releasing papers about its large language models to exploring a potential partnership with Microsoft-backed OpenAI, Apple has started making some belated moves while its rivals have been pushing AI-powered features on their phones for several months now.

Apple’s rivals, Samsung and Google, have already included AI-powered features on their phones for a few months now, but their features are cloud-based – this means you need an active internet connection to use those features.

Essentially, this reduces the reliance on the phone itself, allowing companies to offload intensive processing requirements to more powerful servers dedicated to these features.

This puts Apple in a bad position as it potentially tries to position its upcoming iPhone 16 as one loaded with AI features – why should anyone buy a $1,000 iPhone when they access AI features on a $500 Android phone instead?

Let’s try and understand what’s going on here.

Apple’s AI journey so far

Before we understand if an AI-powered iPhone 16 would be worth the $1,000 price tag, it’s important to know how Apple’s stance on AI has evolved over the last year.

Earlier this month, during Apple’s second-quarter 2024 earnings call, Tim Cook once again spoke about the “exciting” developments the tech giant has in store. However, he dodged every question about Apple’s AI plans and only addressed the company’s philosophies with respect to this technology. 

The latest and possibly the most exciting development at Apple is its reported partnership with Microsoft-based OpenAI for the integration of ChatGPT into iPhones instead of Google’s Gemini.

In April, Apple discreetly introduced a new AI model named ReALM (Reference Resolution As Language Modeling), which theoretically surpasses OpenAI's GPT-4.

The upcoming iOS 18 update poised to unveil at Worldwide Developers Conference in June, is expected to be the most significant iPhone update yet, with a significant focus on AI. 

As per reports, Apple aims to bring the company up to speed with its rivals, so users can expect Siri improvements, AI-generated playlists for Apple Music, and smarter reply suggestions in Messages.

iPhone’s AI makeover: How will it be different?

One of the biggest advantages of Apple’s approach is its focus on making its AI models run on-device for relatively more tasks, compared to what we’ve seen so far from Google, Samsung, and even Nothing on the Android side of things.

The company has detailed this approach in one of its recently released research papers, signaling how it wants to differentiate its iPhones from Android phones, which rely on cloud-based servers.

Apple’s approach has three benefits: first, it should drastically speed up the time between a user’s actions and the results that the AI model returns.

The second benefit is that users won’t need an active internet connection to make use of these AI models. Not only does this conserve battery, but it also means the AI features will still be available in low or no-coverage areas.

Thirdly, users who care about privacy will prefer their data not to be sent to remote servers.

What should I buy: A $1000 iPhone or a $500 Android phone?

Some Android phones offer AI features right now – this includes the Google Pixel 8, Samsung Galaxy S24, and Nothing Phone 2. Not all of these AI features are essential to using a smartphone, but they add a layer of nice-to-have options available in your hands.

On the other hand, Apple’s exact AI strategy for the iPhone 16 will only be revealed come September, so you will have to wait until then to make your decision.

Apple is also expected to reveal more about its AI roadmap at the Worldwide Developers Conference, or WWDC, next month. Keep an eye out for that, and we will be here to bring you all the important bits of information that matter the most.

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