It’s like clockwork, every year around the same time, Apple drops a new iPhone. Or a new “series” of iPhones should I say, because they come in all flavors nowadays, large, not so largge, pro, not pro, colorful, or not.
The temptation is huge: how could you accept to be left behind and not have the latest of the latest by Apple?
More often than not, there is no real technological advances that truly deserve your attention and your wallet. A couple more pixels on the camera, a new button, a better screen.
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But sometimes, something really new and enticing comes along. This was the case with the iPhone 16. But it wasn’t a physical feature, rather something new Apple was introducing for all – Apple Visual Intelligence.
Visual intelligence is an AI -powered feature that sort of works like Google Lens, but with AI. It is the first time such a tool is available on iOS.
Awesome. Except that in order to use Visual Intelligence, you need to buy the new iPhone 16. Yes, Apple, in all its dominant glamour, made one of the most exciting features in a decade only available to whomever buys a new phone.
The claim was that only the iPhone 16 had the necessary Camera Control button.
Well, six months later, it seems they have found a way to bring Visual Intelligence to earlier models. Not all of them, only the 15 Pro and 15 Pro max, but at least that is a sign of goodwill.
Of course, one could argue that six months was enough of a period of time to sell all the new iphone 16s Apple wanted to sell… or that we are now only six month from the next launch…
Yet, I personally welcome this news. Mostly because my SO just upgraded to the 16 and I found it immensely unfair that she would have access to something I did not. Now that I am thinking about it, this probably is an issue I should look into haha.
Anyway, the conclusion of all this is that with the release of iOS 18.4, more people will have access to Apple’s Visual Intelligence, without necessarily having to buy a new iPhone.
Yay!