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Smartphone ownership is high • Reason to buy new? • Worth the expense? • Features now — or soon
Now that 9 of every 10 adults — including adults 50 and older — own a smartphone, top minds in the tech industry have been looking at ways to elevate the devices to the next level.
And they’ve been salivating over the potential of generative artificial intelligence (AI), a buzzy term that for all the hype is still imperfect and in its earliest days. Early AIs simply don’t get everything right.
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You need a new phone for most of the AI
Samsung ushered in AI-infused hardware back in January with the launch of the Galaxy S24.
Google followed up in August with its Pixel 9 smartphone series; it includes the mobile flavor of Google Gemini AI, which assumed most of the duties of Google Assistant and continues to improve with updates to Android.
Then on Monday, Apple, which had been knocked for lagging its rivals in generative AI, brought the third of the big smartphone players into the AI era with its launch of the iPhone 16 series.
The newest iPhones, available Sept. 20, were remade from the ground up with features built around an AI platform the company refers to as Apple Intelligence, Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook says. It’s part of the iOS 18 mobile operating system that can freshen up some older phones, but unless you have last year’s iPhone 15 Pro or 15 Pro Max, you’ll need one of the new devices to use Apple Intelligence.
Apple starts rolling out Apple Intelligence features in October with more promised in ensuing months.
While recent flagship smartphones have always relied on AI or machine learning to some degree, much of that techno-magic is invisible to the user. Apple Intelligence and Gemini mostly have to leverage the latest processors and chips.
New AI smartphones are expensive
You won’t need an AI bot to explain what this means: These handsets don’t come cheap.
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