iPhone 16 Pro Max Upgrade to IP 16 only because of Apple Intelligence, worth it?

[drugdoubles]

Just as we were in a period where every new A chip brought significant speed advances from ~2010-2018, I think we are now in a period where every A chip will bring significant NPU advances. As others have pointed out, Apple Intelligence is still not feature-complete from what we were shown at WWDC and a lot of the features that have rolled out are not working that well yet.

My suggestion would be to use ChatGPT / Gemini / Claude etc for now (even though their features won't be usable in the native Apple apps) and look towards the iPhone 17. I think it's highly likely that Apple will lock some new AI features behind the A19 chip, so if you're interested in upgrading primarily for AI I would wait and see what the iPhone 17 series brings.

Even NPU in desktop cpu does basically nothing now, all serious AI stuff must use gpu. What can we expect from a much smaller phone chip A19 to A whatever?

 

[racerhomie]

Just as we were in a period where every new A chip brought significant speed advances from ~2010-2018, I think we are now in a period where every A chip will bring significant NPU advances. As others have pointed out, Apple Intelligence is still not feature-complete from what we were shown at WWDC and a lot of the features that have rolled out are not working that well yet.

My suggestion would be to use ChatGPT / Gemini / Claude etc for now (even though their features won't be usable in the native Apple apps) and look towards the iPhone 17. I think it's highly likely that Apple will lock some new AI features behind the A19 chip, so if you're interested in upgrading primarily for AI I would wait and see what the iPhone 17 series brings.

Why wouldn’t their features work in the iOS apps they provide. ChatGPT app on iOS works more consistently and reliably than on the web.

 

[surferfb]

Why wouldn’t their features work in the iOS apps they provide. ChatGPT app on iOS works more consistently and reliably than on the web.

I think the point was not that the ChatGPT won't work will in their apps; but if any of ChatGPT's features work inside of Apple's apps (on device) then that might not work. Although I doubt Apple would have ChatGPT (or any other non-Apple AI provider) do things in Apple native apps.

 

[Ctrlos]

The 16 Pro has become Apple's weakest iPhone release in over a decade. They literally sold customers a beta phone with empty AI promises. I'm not holding my breath that the 17 Pro will be any better.

Apple Intelligence was never going to be a reason to upgrade but its inclusion brought the regular iPhone to within parity of the Pro models. Assuming a 2-3 year upgrade cycle for most users over and above the 14 you're getting Dynamic Island, USB-C and all encompassed utility such as better video-out, 2 extra buttons which can be configured to do whatever you want (camera control Halide launcher ftw), Wide-angle Macro and enough power to run the top-end games.

The regular 16 is the best value iPhone Apple have launched in years. This has probbaly contributed to the 16 Pro being considered a 'worse' upgrade because all your extra money is buying for most users is an extra 3x camera zoom and ProMotion.

 

[racerhomie]

I think the point was not that the ChatGPT won't work will in their apps; but if any of ChatGPT's features work inside of Apple's apps (on device) then that might not work. Although I doubt Apple would have ChatGPT (or any other non-Apple AI provider) do things in Apple native apps.

Yeah, exactly, Apple wouldn't allow that. But the LLM model OpenAI is using is so large I don't think it would work within the storage of iPhones. I think Apple's way is wise, do a few important language models on device, which requires a couple of gigabytes, then let different countries and their big AI companies deal with the rest of the problem. ChatGPT in the rest of the world, and Alibaba in China.

 

[bushman4]

Upgrading for Apple Intelligence at this point in time will not bring you enough to make it worth your while. A.I. is getting better however at a snails pace

 

[tbgb50]

If you are old enough - remember PC vaporware? Such is Apple Intelligence. I'd wait if I was interested at all, which I'm not.

 

[Cobalt Blizzard]

I upgraded from the base iPhone 15 model to the 16 Pro mainly because I wanted 120hz display and 5x camera.

Tried Apple Intelligence and so far the most useful for me is the Writing Tools. Everything else needs a few more years of polishing.

 

[naturalguy]

No, Apple Intelligence is a huge disappointment