A Few Thoughts About iPhones, Apple Intelligence, and the Next Few Months (Premium)

Apple’s annual iPhone launch is its biggest event of the year, and I’m guessing many readers were underwhelmed by today’s entry. I get that, to some degree, and I felt it too. But when you consider that we’re long past the point when Apple or any other company can wow us with year-over-year smartphone upgrades anymore, it’s perhaps unfair to complain. And while the Apple Intelligence features it promises are on a slow boil, this coming year will at least be interesting because we know a lot of updates are in the works.

For me, the iPhone launch–called It’s Glowtime because everything Apple does has to have a silly name–was a mixed bag. But it’s a mixed bag with a big qualifier attached: I have spent an inordinate amount of money on Apple hardware and services this past year, and even more time navel-gazing over what this all means. But most of the upgrades it announced aren’t particularly compelling to me for that reason. And I have more money to spend, too. In addition to whatever iPhone 16 series I device I land on, I recently ordered a pair of HomePod Mini speakers to bring to Mexico, where I’ll add them to my Apple TV there.

The iPhone launch was also weird for me in some ways. After inadvertently expanding my exposure to Apple this past year, I had headed into last month’s earlier than usual Made by Google event not expecting much: Surely, my Pixel 8 Pro was good enough to let me skip this cycle. But I found myself more impressed by what Google announced than expected, and I ordered a Pixel 9 Pro XL, and am currently using it daily and preparing a review. Spoiler alert: It’s freaking great, and while much of that is familiar–the incredible computational photography features, the helpful, highly customized Pixel version of Android, and so on–this phone is good enough that I’m once again questioning everything. Which made the build-up to this iPhone launch a bit unsettling.

I will watch the Apple event recording again and pour over Apple’s website to gain a better understanding of where it’s at. But my day one knee-jerk reaction is that it didn’t have much compelling to announce in the way of hardware upgrades. And I’m curious now if this, tied to the Apple Intelligence “delays”–really, just slowness–will harm Apple in any way. That is, it’s already suffered from a year of flat sales and could have used a home run, similar to what Intel may have just achieved with Lunar Lake. But this launch felt like a solid single at best. Respectable, but not all that exciting. Almost the opposite of my experience with the Made by Google launch, with the caveat that leaks ruined both launches, and only Google still impressed.

In the end, pragmatism may win the day. I could skip this round, of course, but Apple explicitly made the point that it and its wireless carrier partners were offering terrific trade-in values and other incentives, a surprisingly bald-faced plea for attention that’s rare for the company. Heading into this, I vaguely wondered about saving some money by getting, say, an iPhone 16 Plus instead of a Pro Max, knowing I’d always have a Pixel handy for those rare moments I needed better zoom or whatever. But now I’m not so sure: Apple will give me $650 for trading in my iPhone 15 Pro Max, which would lower the cost of an iPhone 16 Plus (base model, with 128 GB of storage) from $899 to about $249. Or the cost of an iPhone 16 Pro Max (base model, with 256 GB of storage) from $1199 to about $549. Hm.

I will think that one over, but it’s fair to say that this “upgrade”–let’s ignore the ramifications of going from an iPhone Pro Max to a Plus for now–is minimal, no matter which I might choose. My current iPhone already supports Apple Intelligence, which isn’t even here yet. It’s not clear whether there’s a big difference between my iPhone’s A17 and the A18/A18 Pro I would move to. Camera control is … interesting. I had sort of crapped on Dynamic Island when Apple first announced it, but by the time I experienced it, there were many more apps and experiences, and I now think it’s a key iPhone advantage. But Camera control doesn’t suffer from those issues, it seems useful right now. The video updates are of zero interest. In short … I don’t know.

This may seem counterintuitive, and maybe it is broken thinking. But part of the appeal of upgrading is that my iPhone will never be worth more. What’s interesting about that $650 trade-in value is that it’s not based on how much storage my device has: Apple is providing that same trade-in value for any Phone 15 Pro Max, and I only have the base version. (Plus, I could probably get more from a third party.) This knowledge somewhat colors a lateral move to an iPhone Plus: Had I bought the equivalent iPhone last year, Apple would only offer me $430 on trade.

Anyway. I will keep working through that one. The other Apple announcements are easier to address.

Apple Watch is of no interest to me. I had forgotten to add this to What I Use: Berlin 2024 (Premium), but right before that trip, the band on my Fitbit Charge 5 snapped as they so often do, leaving me with a choice. I could use the Google Pixel Watch 2, which gets the same one day of battery life as Apple Watch, or just used the Samsung Galaxy Fit 3 I bought back in March despite it not being technically available in the U.S. Aside from it being tied to Samsung, the Fit 3 is actually perfect: It has a large, colorful display that’s easy to read and sports an astonishing range of faces, and it inexplicably gets one week or more of battery life. I went with the Fit 3, charged it before the trip to Berlin, and came home with 45 percent battery life one week later. Incredible. Plus it does what I want. My fitness tracking needs are light. Of more interest is at-a-glance access to the time, date, weather, and resting heart rate. And that’s what the face I chose gives me, plus the battery life. I can’t even read the battery display on the Charge 5.

The AirPods announcements were likewise of zero interest. I already own AirPods Pro 2, and they’re terrific–even the ANC is incredible, including on airplanes–but they’re also specific to the Apple ecosystem and borderline pointless with a PC or Android phone. So the AirPods 4, with or without ANC, are not compelling to me.

I also purchased a pair of Beats Studio Pro wireless headphones–in Deep Brown–recently, and they’re terrific. The ANC is great, they work equally well across Apple devices, PCs, and Android, including with device switching, they support Dolby Atmos spatial audio with head tracking, they include a normal 3.5 mm cable and a USB-C cable, the latter for both charging and lossless audio support, and there’s a built-in DAC. Oh, and they get almost 40 hours of battery life. Our flight home from Berlin was 8.5 hours in the air, and when we landed, I had over 75 percent battery life despite using them with ANC the entire time. The “new” AirPods Max, which are not new but now come with USB-C, are Apple ecosystem-specific, offer worse audio quality, and are plain ridiculous. No thank you.

And that’s all of it. My current iPhone 15 Pro Max, iPad Air M2, and MacBook Air M3 can all handle the coming Apple Intelligence features as they’re dripped out to the user base over time, so whatever I do or don’t do with a new iPhone, I’m broadly covered there. And to be clear, I am interested in what Apple’s doing, of course I am. But I also don’t see any of this as life altering. Useful. But not a seismic shift.

We’re heading to Mexico City in about three weeks with a short work-related trip on the way–I’m speaking about Windows and AI at TEC 2024 in Dallas, Texas on October 2–so the clock is ticking. And then we’ll be gone about six weeks, plus I assume I’ll be going to Chicago for Microsoft Ignite shortly after we come home. I know I’m heading out there with two HomePod Minis–or, I expect so, unless something horrible goes wrong–but I’m still not sure about the iPhone, and the Pixel really is fantastic. And Apple will announce new Macs I don’t care about, and new iPads I might have cared about had I not just purchased an expensive iPad Air, in October, while I’m gone.

Maybe I’m good. I don’t know. Preorders open Friday. I will think on this.