Apple makes recently bought devices obsolete (again)

We all know Apple has a (slightly toxic) ecosystem that holds users hostage, making it damn near impossible to ever break free from their perfectly synced up products and features.

Last month, the tech giant announced the details of the latest addition to the Apple ecosystem.

And in the typical Apple fashion of calling things anything except for what they actually are, users can expect to see Apple Intelligence roll out in 2025.

However, the generative AI feature will only be available to the iPhone 15 Pro and Macs and iPads with M-series chips.

Eyeroll. 

Of course.

Why on earth would you be able to have a new feature on a product you bought less than a year ago?

Apple applies their branding principles where other competitors don’t. This creates a sense of exclusivity and superiority of their version of a product that’s available from other tech retailers. They also do the same with the features of their products (think about the 'lightning' port that’s really just USB-C).

The thing that’s annoying about this is that the older models of their products then become obsolete faster than they should. And this leaves people to believe that it’s all a scheme by Apple to constantly have to buy the newest version.

Greg Joswiak, Apple's marketing boss pushed back on this idea, claiming there’s a real need for improved hardware to run advanced AI systems. But whether we’re being gaslit or not, the reality is we’re always forced to upgrade if we want to experience the benefits of cutting edge features that Apple consistently introduces.

The dealbreaker will be what this Apple Intelligence has to offer. And whether it’s worth the ever-painful couple thousand you’re going to spend getting a new iPhone.

So, what say you, Apple?

At WWDC last month, Apple revealed some of the reasonably standard AI tools that come with Apple Intelligence. These are things like rewriting an email draft, summarising notifications, and creating custom emojis. They're also introducing a more conversational Siri, and GPT-4o access that lets Siri turn to OpenAI’s chatbot when it can’t handle what you ask it for.

Apple says its AI features will carry out actions between apps and can even reference one app to carry out an action in another. So, for example, you could ask it to play a podcast your partner sent to you.

Cool, but I’m still not convinced I’m spending a month’s pay cheque on a new phone.

While Apple is reasonably behind in the AI arms race, their point of difference here, as it so often is, is their privacy approach.

The company says many features will work on-device, where that’s possible. But when you ask for something more complicated, your device will make a call to shunt the request to the cloud automatically.

Apple says it’s using what it calls 'Private Cloud Compute.' The models that process more complicated requests are servers 'powered by Apple Silicon.' And the company says it will never store or be able to access your data on its servers.

Also, the company says that it will let independent experts inspect code running on its servers 'to verify privacy.'

Also cool, but I’m still not quite sure I’m forking out thousands for it.

And I probably won’t for a while. I’d like to see how functional it truly is when it rolls out next year, and potentially consider upgrading when I’m

1. Not broke, and

2. It’s not brand new and (likely) riddled with faults.

This is all fun and exciting stuff. But, unfortunately, if Apple Intelligence can’t find me a boyfriend, give me a BBL, do my laundry, or make me a million dollars, I’m not quite impressed.

-Sophie, Writer