On October 27th, the Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily reported that after much anticipation, Apple recently announced that its Apple Intelligence feature will be officially launched next week, on the same day as the release of iOS 18.1, which is October 28th local time.
According to technology journalist Mark Gurman, Apple Intelligence will introduce artificial intelligence features in iOS 18.1, including:
1) Writing Tool Suite: Optimize user text input to improve writing quality; 2) Clean Up in Photos: Automatically recognize and organize album files to optimize storage space; 3) Notification Summaries: Intelligent recognition generates APP notifications to help users obtain key information; 4) Siri Enhancements: Enable voice assistants to provide more accurate information.
In fact, the market had a certain understanding of the above features in previous test versions. In the upcoming iOS 18.2 version scheduled for release in December, Apple will also integrate Siri and ChatGPT. At that time, users will not only be able to use ChatGPT to carry out work tasks, but also have access to the following features:
Users can use the image generation tool Image Playground to freely select elements and generate images, with basic support for adding any prompt text.
The intelligent emoji package Genmoji enables users to generate user specific emojis through text descriptions and personal images, and use them in SMS chats.
By using the image processing tool Image Wand, users can generate a vivid color structure image with simple sketches.
Short term or unable to drive iPhone sales
Since the beginning of this year, Apple has suffered multiple setbacks in the domestic market. In the first quarter of 2024, iPhone sales in China decreased by 19%, showing the worst quarterly performance since 2020. In the second quarter, iPhone shipments fell out of the top five in the Chinese smartphone market for the first time. In this context, Wu Yiwen, Deputy Director of Research at TechInsights, believes that Apple Intelligence will become one of the new growth drivers for Apple in 2025.
However, the market generally holds a pessimistic attitude towards the short-term iPhone sales boom triggered by Apple Intelligence. On the one hand, Mark Gurman posted that some Apple employees believe the company is about two years behind in the development of artificial intelligence. Because internal research by Apple has shown that ChatGPT is about 25% more accurate than Apple's voice assistant Siri and can answer more questions.
Renowned analyst Guo Mingchi also expressed his pessimistic view, pointing out that from the fourth quarter of 2024 to the first half of 2025, a total of about 10 million iPhone 16 orders will be cut. Although some market participants are optimistic that Apple Intelligence will dramatically boost iPhone shipments in the short term, the fact that Apple is cutting orders at this time may mean that the chances of realizing this optimistic expectation are not high, at least in the short term. He stated that the significant growth in iPhone shipments may require more hardware innovation to be achieved.
On the other hand, it is still uncertain when Apple Intelligence will be able to enter the Chinese market. Canalys analyst Zhong Xiaolei said that although Apple's emphasis on AI privacy protection will increase the opportunity for Apple Intelligence to enter the Chinese market, the challenges related to cloud based technology may bring further obstacles.
In response to this, Apple CEO Tim Cook recently said, "We are working hard to push forward, and there is a very specific regulatory process behind it. We need to go through this process and hope to bring it to Chinese consumers as soon as possible
Under a pessimistic attitude, there are also optimistic expectations. Guo Mingchi also stated in his latest article that he believes Apple is the brand with the greatest opportunity to succeed in device AI, and he is also optimistic about the long-term trend that Apple Inteligence is expected to become a popular paid service.
According to a research report by Huafu Securities on October 20th, despite the negative impact caused by the delayed launch of Apple Intelligence, customers switching from iPhone 12/13 and previous models to AI supported iPhones will drive iPhone growth for a long time and are expected to continue to grow during the upcoming holiday sales peak season.
Caixin Securities pointed out in the September research report that in view of Apple Intelligence's entry into Chinese Mainland or the need for localization transformation, both data, models and data centers may need the cooperation of domestic enterprises, and domestic AI applications and computing industry chains are expected to benefit.