Apple launches iPhone 16 with AI features to roll out in coming months

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Apple unveiled the iPhone 16 on Monday, which chief executive Tim Cook said was the first of its smartphones to be “designed from the ground up” for artificial intelligence “and its breakthrough capabilities”.

The launch of the iPhone 16, which will go on sale on September 20 with pre-orders starting this Friday, comes as the tech giant attempts to establish itself as a player in artificial intelligence.

It is seeking to revive flagging iPhone sales with new generative AI features in its latest operating system, iOS18, which it hopes will breathe new life into its products and spur users to upgrade their phones.

Wall Street analysts expect sales of the company’s flagship product will get a boost next year thanks to the new features, which include an enhanced Siri voice assistant, photo editing features, writing aids and free access to ChatGPT through a partnership with OpenAI.

Investors were watching Monday’s event closely for confirmation of when the new features will arrive. Shares were down after the presentation ended.

The company said some features of its “Apple Intelligence” offering would launch next month in US English, and will be rolled out with “localised English” in the UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa in December. Chinese, Japanese, French and Spanish will be added “next year”.

The iPhone 16 will come in four models: the Pro, Pro Max, Plus, and a base model. The Pro and Pro Max have a larger screen size and a more advanced camera. The base model will cost $799, the Pro will cost $999 and the larger Pro Max has a price tag of $1,199.

The iPhone 16 features the new A18 chip, which will improve performance to handle the demands of running AI models locally on the device. The Financial Times on Saturday reported that the chip had been designed on Arm’s next-generation V9 architecture.

Sribalan Santhanam, vice-president of the company’s silicon engineering group, said the chip showed Apple jumping “two generations ahead”, with the A18 “up to 30 per cent faster” than the processors in the iPhone 15 and even challenging “high-end desktop PCs”.

An enhanced version of the A18 chip in the Pro models of the iPhone 16 will be “the fastest CPU in any smartphone”, he said.

Apple also said the Apple Watch Series 10 would be available from September 20. The company said the Series 10 had a bigger display, thinner design, faster battery charging and a new S10 chip for machine learning. It will come with a new sleep apnoea detection feature, with the company expecting approval from the US Food and Drug Administration “very soon”. Prices start at $399.

The company’s latest AirPods Pro 2 headphones will come with a new hearing aid, a “clinical grade” hearing test feature and hearing protection, pending FDA clearance.

“The iPhone 16 range is hugely important for Apple at a time when consumer demand for new smartphones is slowing,” said Leo Gebbie at CCS Insight. Apple Intelligence, he said, “will be central to the next decade of the iPhone”.

He added: “There is a growing feeling that smartphone updates have become a bit boring. Apple is not immune to this trend and is betting on software and AI to breathe new life into its most important product to reignite consumer interest and drive upgrade purchases.”