Author: Zhou Yuan/Wall Street News

The technological appeal of AI is unstoppable.

The Apple iPhone 16 series, which will be released in September (preliminary), is the reality that the hardware part is relatively backward compared to the Android camp, and the software system upgrade using AI as the underlying technology has become the biggest highlight of this generation of Apple phones. At the same time, iOS's nemesis, Android system development company Google, released the upcoming Pixel 9 series (August 13), and some AI features have also been revealed.

In the “traditional smartphone” era, Google, which developed the Android system, the biggest rival of iOS, had almost no presence, and few people would notice that Google also had a smartphone. In the age of AI, Google may have an opportunity to change this embarrassing perception of the market.

There is almost a consensus in the market that the iPhone 16 series will be Apple's first AI phone. Don't underestimate this. After all, the Samsung Galaxy S24 also had limited hardware improvements, but with the help of the “AI phone” label, sales of the Samsung S24 skyrocketed.

iPhone 16 series: the biggest highlight is AI

Although the Apple Intelligence strategy proposed by Apple at WWDC 2024 is nothing novel. The idea of using AI technology to restructure multi-terminal operating systems, including the iOS 18 system, actually replicates the first layer of “AI enables cross-system integration” and the second layer of “AI reconstructs the operating system” in China Honor's “AI four-layer architecture” technology framework.

However, due to Apple's appeal in consumer electronics brands, technological innovation, and product definitions, the global industry is unrivaled, so the technical route “looked upon” by Apple, and the final market acceptance was also unparalleled.

This can be seen from the fact that Apple's stock price fell 1.91% (total market value of 2960.5 billion US dollars) on the day it first released its “AI Strategy” at WWDC 2024 (6/10), but from the next day (6/11) to July 5, its stock price continued to increase by 16.89% (total market value of 3470.7 billion US dollars, second only to Microsoft's 3475 billion US dollars, which is the second-largest technology company in the world by market capitalization).

So, what AI features will the iPhone 16 series have? First, let's talk briefly about Apple's “face”, which is a very limited hardware upgrade.

In addition to the exclusive news from Wall Street — the Apple iPhone 16 series battery case was completely replaced with a small steel case from aluminum alloy (but the battery capacity remained the same, still only about 4600 mAh/40 W), the current Apple flagship also upgraded the imaging system — upgraded the 48 million pixel ultra-wide-angle lens, and upgraded the 3x vertical telephoto lens to a 5x periscope; the screen uses Samsung's new M14 panel, and the peak brightness was raised to 2000 nits; the starting memory was also standard with 8GB.

This kind of hardware upgrade, on a small scale, can completely be “beaten” by domestic Android peers who have taken it to the extreme. Therefore, AI has become the focus of the iPhone 16 market.

Apple's standard memory for this generation's flagship has been raised to 8GB across the board, which is also the result of AI considerations. Because Apple Intelligence requires the device's memory to start at 8GB.

The iPhone 16 standard version and Pro version, the A18 chip and the Pro Max A18 Pro chip are all TSMC's 3nm process. The only difference is the difference in advanced technical characteristics such as AI computing power and light tracking performance. As far as the C-side experience side is concerned, these differences are not clearly perceptible differences. Therefore, pricing is very “difficult”: hardware improvements are limited, and software application perception is not obvious.

However, judging from Apple's AI “innovation” in WWDC 2024, things like iOS supports generating summary of key points after voice transcription, Siri can call ChatGPT (associated with GPT-4O) for free, answer questions more naturally, read fuzzy expressions, understand multiple rounds of conversation, AI retouching, and AI video and image creation, etc., are not at all surprising.

According to John Giannandrea, Apple's senior vice president of machine learning and AI strategy, and Craig Federighi, Apple's senior vice president of software engineering, revealed that the big language model that Apple runs on the iPhone is about 3b. This is an obvious gap compared to the large end-side model that started with the same mobile 7B in China.

Of course, it's still hard to say what AI features the iPhone 16 series has, and whether it will have “amazing” performance.

Google is also promoting AI mobile technology

Also, take a look at Google. The upcoming Pixel 9 series includes AI applications that are not provided by the Android system, but from Google AI (compatible with Apple Intellignt?).

According to breaking news, the AI features of the Pixel 9 series mainly include Add Me, Screenshots, and Studio, which correspond to AI retouching, AI screenshot information search, and AI creation studios, respectively. As far as core functions are concerned, Google believes that the role of end-side AI should revolve around the application of C-side users in everyday scenarios, and probably not concentrate the main technical power at the level of “productivity tools” as claimed by domestic manufacturers.

Among them, Screenshots' AI application actually combines Google's original function — search. Screenshots searches, according to breaking information, are mainly searches for information related to historical screenshots, making it easy for users to quickly find target images in thousands (tens of thousands) of screenshots on the end side based on fuzzy memories.

Furthermore, Google, like Apple and Honor in China, are also promoting the integration of AI technology with the Android system. Honor calls it “reconstructing the underlying operating system with AI technology.” If Google incorporates AI technology into the Android system, then what is the difference between the Pixel 9 series and previous Google smartphones in terms of AI applications?

The industry speculates that if you use a Pixel 9 series phone, you can use AI functions on the end side (localization), while existing Google phones can only call AI on the cloud side due to chip performance and memory capacity limitations. The speed may be slow, and AI applications cannot be retrieved after disconnecting from the network.

If end-side AI applications are attractive enough to meet the immediate needs of user scenarios at high frequencies, then a wave of switching may occur.

At this point, Google's focus is very similar to Honor's platform-level AI feature in January of this year — Anygate: both focus technology research and development on users' everyday applications rather than “office productivity tools.”

For example, some AI applications in Google's Pixel 8 series: quick information screening function. Users can call Gemini at the touch of their mouths to query information in Google-related apps, and then directly call the corresponding app service.

Therefore, iOS and Android system development companies — Apple and Google, are close to the big test of the new technology application of AI phones, which they are hoping for; and whether their respective AI phones can inject new momentum into the shrinking stock market due to lack of innovation in new technology will soon be answered.

Seen from this perspective, Apple and Google are working together to launch a new technological journey after smartphones enter the AI era.