Top 3 things from the Apple iPhone 16 launch

Smart tech over show tech

A day after the dust has settled on Apple’s “biggest event of the year”, the stillness of the Steve Jobs Theatre makes it easier to reflect on what just happened. The euphoria of being ushered into the subterranean world of Steve Jobs’ vision to the frenzy of the hands-on area post keynote, day one at any Apple event is like being in an 8-yr old boy's body who is bouncing off the walls with a sugar rush.

Day two is when it all gets coherent and you can make more objective opinions on what’s hot or not. Amidst the ‘same same but different’ hardware, there were some key areas where Apple has made huge strides and as we may discover in 2025, not being the first could be the better strategy. At least when it comes to Apple Intelligence.

AI

The fact that Apple has literally remarketed a generic abbreviation and made it all their own also puts more responsibility on them to develop it wisely. In a bid to be the first ones off the block, the big tech companies have flooded our everyday apps with various flavours of AI that offers not just a wildly inconsistent experience but also leaves a lot of room for misuse. Apple will start rolling out Apple Intelligence with a relatively lightweight suite of features beginning next week as part of the iOS18 rollout. This includes mail summary, photo clean up, proofreading and rewriting and a more conversational Siri that won’t be a prose Nazi. The deeper integration with ChatGPT, Genmoji and Image Playground and screen awareness for assimilating information for third party apps will all be rolled out in a phased manner. This, along with support for more English languages and even regional ones is slated for 2025, allowing Apple enough time to assess the AI landscape. The decision to not dive head first is thus, a deliberate one in order to maintain the user experience that the brand prides itself on, It also allows the broader discussion on the morality of text-to-image generative AI to breathe a little and if necessary, they can course correct before a full blown attack.

Health

While still awaiting approval from FDA in the US, both the Sleep Apnea and Hearing Aid functionality that have been unlocked in the Apple Watch and AirPods Pro 2 are game changers for the tech industry. The very real possibility of being able to use everyday AirPods Pro to assist in hearing impairment is going to be a disruptor in the medical industry too. During a short demo of the Hearing Test that users will be able to take via a guided process on their iPhone, I was genuinely impressed at how frictionless and easy-to-understand the entire exercise was. It also eliminates social anxiety and even isolation in literally millions of people who suffer from some degree of hearing loss, but shy away from wearing medical-grade hearing aids. For obvious reasons that instantly highlights a level of handicap which may alter societal perception and inclusivity. The Hearing Test plays a series of tones at different frequencies in both ears and progresses with a simple yes/no confirmation from the user, eventually giving you a reading of the extent of hearing loss.

Sleep apnea similarly uses accelerometer and a mix of parameters gathered by the Apple Watch in Sleep mode to determine irregular breathing patterns during sleep to assess the seriousness. It will also ensure that there is a minimal chance of a false positive by averaging data accumulated over a month and only flagging off the condition if more than 15 nights are recorded with Sleep Apnea like traits.

Camera

While most of the spec sheet in a comparison chart might look too similar to the iPhone 15 Pro, the new phones improve crucially in areas such as ultrawide and telephoto. With a new 48MP sensor to supercharge this lens that does double duty, Apple’s stronghold on an overall camera system that is among the best should remain intact for the next year. Additionally, video gets a huge upgrade with 4K/120fps that lets you slow down action even after you’ve shot it. For a phone that has been the industry standard in terms of colour capture, stabilisation and processing speeds, this one feature catapults it beyond the reach of competition yet again. Throw in Audio Mix, a clever AI-driven feature that uses computational audio and an array of four studio-quality microphones to capture voices of on-screen subjects in different acoustical scenarios only aids in the creative process. Of course, none of this would be possible without the second gen 3nm SoC that Apple has dubbed the A18 Pro and although benchmarks may show results that tip in the favour of other silicon, there is no doubt that in real world conditions, Apple has been consistently superior in performance per watt outcomes.

Sure, the iPhone hardware could’ve looked different and the design couldn’t have been any more evolutionary. There is simply no excuse for the AirPods Max to continue without using the new-generation H2 chip that even the entry level AirPods 4 get now. Even in its 10th anniversary year, the Apple Watch wasn’t shown much love besides a nip and tuck and the less said about the Watch Ultra the better. The incremental hardware upgrades conceal seismic shifts in the software that virtually guarantee their success. Get ready for the same-old but all-new Apple.