Apple Forced Into Risky AI Gamble With iPhone 16 Pro

With demand for Apple’s iPhone slowing down, how will Tim Cook and his team lure consumers to its ecosystem? Data from analysts CIRP show that demand for the iPhone —specifically the current iPhone 15 model—is lower than that of the iPhone 14 in this quarter. This echoes the pattern of lower demand seen in Q1 2024.

The report also highlights one way Apple is hoping to turn around sales. But it’s a gamble that asks for patience from the fickle smartphone market.

Apple will be looking towards one key factor in the iPhone 15 family, which is already accelerating Android sales. Generative AI has transformed the view of what a smartphone can offer consumers, from editing photos and videos, through summarising and analysis of text and images, to assisting creativity.

Following the announcement of Apple’s AI plans at June’s Worldwide Developer Conference, shares in the company rose seven percent, primarily on the promise of increased iPhone sales. Because of the high demands generative AI places on hardware and Apple’s push to process as much user data on the user’s device as possible, Apple Intelligence will only run on one existing iPhone model—the iPhone 15 Pro Max.

Consumers without the most expensive iPhone on the market will need to buy the latest iPhone hardware to access the A18 Pro chip specifically designed to support generative AI routines.

Yet the AI that the iPhone is clearly lacking right now will not be available until the first quarter of 2025. Tim Cook and his team will be asking the Apple faithful to buy the smartphone on the promise of receiving the AI at some point in the future.

Meanwhile, all of those benefits are available on Android and have been since Google introduced the idea of an AI-first smartphone in October 2024 during the Pixel 8 launch. With Google’s Pixel 9 family due to be announced in August, Apple’s iPhone will be two generations behind Android’s AI efforts before it has even left the Cupertino stage.

Will consumers be happy to wait for Apple to catch up to the competition, or will they decide that the AI revolution cannot wait? If it’s the former, then Apple’s decision to “go long” should help revitalise sales of the iPhone. But if it’s the latter, the Android ecosystem may have just found Tim Cook’s Achilles heel.

Now read more about Apple’s iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro launch plans…