Each year, I’d get excited about Apple’s new devices and look for just one clean reason to upgrade. I didn’t find it. The promise of AI was intriguing, but Apple didn’t deliver. The iPhone camera kept getting better, but my photos look just fine already.
Apple did deliver one feature that would have made me upgrade: allowing an iPhone to record and quickly transcribe calls. But the company then rolled it out to all devices, meaning it offered little to push new iPhone sales. (Of course, Apple never bothered to tell users the transcription feature has a roughly 30-minute limit. For a guy who often does hour-long interviews, that’s a problem; I’m forced to stop a recording at the 25-minute mark and reactivate it. *Sigh*)
As for AI, I would love for the iPhone to actually be intelligent about all of the data swimming within its case. For example, as a reporter, I have apps for a large number of news organizations. On one election night, I got 16 alerts that a Senate race had been called. I don’t need 16; I just need one. If Apple Intelligence were really intelligent, it would understand that. It should also understand that when I’m driving to an appointment, I don’t need a calendar alert 15 minutes before my meeting when the phone should know — based on my destination and routing in Apple Maps — that I’m on the way.
