Apple made its highly anticipated announcement of the new iPhone line, a tradition that draws the attention of millions of tech enthusiasts and consumers alike. As expected, the centerpiece of this year’s product reveal was the incorporation of AI – branded as “Apple Intelligence” – into their flagship devices. Yet, the reaction from the consumer technology world has been muted, if not outright indifferent.
This tepid response led to an immediate and significant impact on Apple’s stock market performance, with the company losing over a hundred billion dollars in market value following the event. Even the Wired Gadget Lab podcast, usually abuzz with excitement over new tech releases, expressed no enthusiasm over the iPhone 16’s AI capabilities.
In fact, the only new feature that seemed to stir any buzz was the introduction of a new camera shutter button – a hardware tweak that seemingly outshined the much-hyped artificial intelligence features. The lukewarm reception leaves one major question: if a button generates more excitement than the inclusion of AI – arguably the most significant technological advancement in recent years – then what went wrong?
End of AI’s “Wonderment Phase”
One reason for the disappointment may lie in the fact that AI, as a concept, has already passed its “wonderment phase.” Tech blog The Media Copilot noted that a couple of years ago, innovations like ChatGPT, DALL-E, and other generative AI models were awe-inspiring. The ability to generate coherent text, stunning art, or even code through a simple text prompt was magical. It opened up new possibilities and shifted the way people viewed technology.
But the novelty of generative AI has worn off. The surprise and intrigue of seeing AI create text or images on command have faded, and now the world expects more tangible, practical, and integrated uses of this technology.
Now that AI has reached a certain level of maturity, consumers want to see it go beyond fun or superficial tasks. AI needs to prove it can make life easier and more productive in substantial, meaningful ways. The AI models powering these systems have become significantly more powerful and exponentially more expensive to develop.
Yet, despite this progress, Apple’s AI-driven features – like automatic photo editing, transcriptions, and email drafting – failed to capture the imagination of tech enthusiasts. These are tasks that many users feel are already adequately handled by third-party apps or existing features in their current devices.
AI Investment Bubble
Apple’s AI push aligns with broader trends in the tech industry. Giants like Google, NVidia, Microsoft, and OpenAI have doubled down on AI, investing heavily in the development of AI infrastructure. Their CEOs recently convened at the White House to discuss AI regulations and the future of AI technologies.
However, according to Forbes, the tech industry is still $500 billion short of making back the massive investments poured into AI hardware and software. While AI-related revenue is expected to hit $100 billion in 2024, that number pales in comparison to the capital injected into the technology’s development.
Apple, like its competitors, has to push AI features in its products, regardless of whether consumers are excited or not. The tech industry relies on consistent innovation to drive sales, and AI, for now, is seen as the latest frontier in that effort. Prior to AI, companies tried (and mostly failed) to generate excitement around virtual reality (VR) and the Metaverse.
Apple’s 2023 introduction of the Vision Pro headset – their foray into mixed reality – was heralded as a potential breakthrough, but this product was conspicuously absent from this year’s iPhone announcement. The Metaverse has yet to gain mainstream traction, leaving AI as the next logical path for tech giants to explore. The question is: will it succeed, or is AI just another overhyped trend that, like the Metaverse, might fail to resonate with consumers?
Consumer Disinterest in Apple’s AI Features
For most everyday users, the AI features that come with the new iPhone seem underwhelming. AI-driven photo editing, emoji customization, call transcriptions, and email composition are not groundbreaking advancements. While these features may add some convenience, they aren’t exactly game-changers that would make consumers rush to upgrade from their previous devices.
There’s also skepticism about how effective these new features will be. The iPhone’s Reduce mode, for instance, promises to filter out unnecessary distractions, but many wonder if it will truly work as advertised or just become another frustrating feature that people will end up turning off.
One of the more interesting AI features introduced is called Visual Intelligence. This allows users to point their camera at an object or location and receive real-time information without needing to manually search for it. For example, aiming the camera at a restaurant sign could bring up reviews, menus, and allow the user to make a reservation directly. While promising, this feature is not entirely new, as it bears a strong resemblance to Google’s Lens in their Pixel phones or ChatGPT’s recent integration of multimodal capabilities.
Visual Intelligence does provide a glimpse into the future of AI, where technology is more interactive and grounded in real-world environments. However, much like Google Lens, it may fail to break into the mainstream unless it offers a significantly better experience than what is already available.
Evolution of AI: From Hype to Practicality
It’s worth noting that AI, despite the current wave of consumer skepticism, has become essential in certain professional settings. AI technologies are widely used in industries ranging from healthcare to energy optimization. Advertising, another billion-dollar industry, is increasingly dependent on AI to deliver personalized content to users.
Professionals in various fields have also found AI tools to be beneficial. For example, 97% of software developers in a recent survey stated they use AI tools in their workflow. Journalists, musicians, filmmakers, and artists are using AI to streamline their creative processes, cutting down on time spent on mundane tasks like editing or data analysis.
However, this utility doesn’t necessarily translate to the average consumer. People aren’t necessarily ready to pay a premium for AI features that allow them to generate images of cartoon cats or summarize text. And as seen with previous AI search tools from companies like Microsoft and Google, AI’s reliability is still far from perfect, with many high-profile mistakes calling into question the technology’s readiness for widespread use. Apple’s implementation of AI appears to be a mishmash of existing functions that don’t fundamentally change the user experience. At least, not yet.
Apple’s AI Strategy: A Case of Premature Launch?
Perhaps the most surprising revelation from Apple’s announcement was that many of the touted AI features are not even available at launch. This raises an important question: why rush to announce something that’s not ready for prime time?
In the past, Apple has been known for only launching products and features when they were truly ready for consumer use. The iPhone and iPod were revolutionary not because they were the first of their kind, but because they were well-crafted and far superior to the competition. Apple built a reputation on delivering products that had a crystal-clear use case and a refined user experience.
This is why the current AI rollout feels off-brand for the company. The fact that Apple Intelligence is still not available for anyone to try suggests the technology may still need significant refinement. This raises further concerns about whether the feature will live up to its promise when it finally arrives – or if it will turn out to be an unremarkable addition that fails to move the needle.
Despite the tepid reception, there is still room for AI to grow into a truly transformative technology. Visual Intelligence and Reduce mode could evolve into more advanced forms of “context-aware computing” – a concept that has been in development since the 1990s but has yet to make its way into robust, consumer-ready products.
The potential for AI to change how we interact with the world around us is still immense. From personalized healthcare recommendations to enhancing real-time learning experiences, AI can be incredibly useful when applied correctly. However, the tech industry might need to slow down a bit and think more critically about how AI can be implemented in ways that are genuinely helpful and worth the investment.
The lack of consumer enthusiasm for Apple’s AI announcement should serve as a wake-up call, not just for Apple, but for the entire tech industry. AI still has the power to revolutionize our daily lives – but only if it is developed with a clear purpose, superior execution, and a focus on solving real-world problems. Otherwise, it risks joining the Metaverse as just another overhyped technology that failed to live up to its promise.
