Is Apple Playing Word Games? Is iPhone 16 AI Feature Just a Marketing Gimmick?

Is Apple Playing Word Games? Is iPhone 16 AI Feature Just a Marketing Gimmick?Apple has introduced "AppleIntelligence," an artificial intelligence feature, in the iPhone 16 series, promoting it as a major selling point. However, there are reports that this might be a marketing tactic rather than a genuine hardware upgrade

Is Apple Playing Word Games? Is iPhone 16 AI Feature Just a Marketing Gimmick?

Apple has introduced "AppleIntelligence," an artificial intelligence feature, in the iPhone 16 series, promoting it as a major selling point. However, there are reports that this might be a marketing tactic rather than a genuine hardware upgrade. While Apple claims the iPhone 16 is "built from the ground up for AppleIntelligence," the feature is actually able to run on last year's Pro models, and there are no significant hardware improvements in the newer iPhone.

Apple sets an 8GB RAM requirement to run AppleIntelligence, and other hardware specifications haven't seen notable enhancements. This implies that the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max are already capable of running AppleIntelligence. This fact has also been linked to the explanation for the decline in pre-orders for the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max, as many users may feel an upgrade is unnecessary.

Analyst Mark Gurman points out that Apple's focus on AppleIntelligence as a marketing highlight, instead of hardware upgrades, might be a way to mask potential shortcomings in the actual hardware. He believes if Apple thought the hardware upgrades were the selling point, they would focus on those features in their marketing. However, Apple has chosen to emphasize AppleIntelligence, a feature that might take weeks or even months to fully roll out and may not offer significantly better capabilities compared to competing AI systems.

This event reflects a change in Apple's marketing strategy. They are no longer emphasizing hardware performance as their main selling point, instead pushing AI features to the forefront. Whether this strategy will be successful remains to be seen. However, it is certain that Apple has engaged in a word game, showcasing AppleIntelligence as the key factor for users to buy the new iPhone, when in reality, it is not a real hardware upgrade.

Considering that the full potential of AppleIntelligence might take months to materialize, and its functionality is not superior to competitors' systems, many users might prefer to wait and see, waiting for the official launch of this feature and more detailed information about its capabilities. This strategy could also affect the sales of the iPhone 16 series, as many users might not see the need to upgrade to the new model.

Whether Apple can successfully position AppleIntelligence as a selling point and entice users to upgrade to the new iPhone remains to be seen. However, this incident highlights how, in a competitive market, Apple also needs to employ new marketing strategies to attract users.