In 2023, when the number of ChatGPT users exceeds one billion and completely changes the entire world, in fact, in the field of hardware, the overall hardware field is still in a lagging state: It will not be until the end of 2023 that mobile phone manufacturers will call out the concept of "AI mobile phones". Becoming more and more.
However, these updates are only through integrated software and are difficult to even involve at the system level. Not only is it difficult to convince professional users, but more importantly, it is difficult for a large number of ordinary users to feel the fundamental conceptual change.
It is precisely because the industry has been in this state for a long time in the past. As a giant manufacturer spanning the three major ecosystems of hardware/chip/software in the field of smartphones, Apple has always been considered by many to be one of the manufacturers that has the opportunity to completely change the status quo of this industry and has the ability to create a true "AI phone" .
In fact, at this press conference in the early morning of September 10, Apple did regard "AI" as an important selling point of this year's new hardware products, and even called the iPhone 16 "the first iPhone designed specifically for Apple intelligence." Such slogans.
Can the iPhone 16, together with the Apple Watch, AirPods and other products released at the same time, really lead the industry into the "AI era"?
1. Price: New iPhone starts at 5,999 yuan
Let’s talk about the key points first. This conference released a total of new iPhone 16/16 Plus, iPhone 16 Pro/Pro Max, AirPods 4 series and Apple Watch Series 10 series products. It also updated the new colors of Apple Watch Ultra 2 and AirPods Max. The following is the official pricing of this year’s full range of new products:
The iPhone 16 starts at ¥5999, the iPhone 16 Plus starts at ¥6999; the iPhone 16 Pro series starts at ¥7999, and the Pro Max version starts at ¥9999.
Both the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro series will be available for pre-order from 8pm on September 13th, and will be officially launched on September 20th. The official flagship store of Tmall Apple Store will launch the first in-stock pre-sale simultaneously at 8pm on September 13. The entire series supports 24 interest-free installments.
Apple Watch Series 10 is priced at ¥2999, and will be available for pre-sale from 9 a.m. on September 11, and will be officially launched on September 20; AirPods 4 standard version is priced at ¥999, and the active noise reduction version is priced at ¥1399; September 20 On sale today.
The black titanium version of Apple Watch Ultra 2 and the new color scheme of AirPods Max are priced the same as the previous versions, and will go on sale on September 20.
2. Hardware: regular updates, AI is the focus
As the "first AI iPhone", the iPhone 16's hardware naturally has many customizations around Apple intelligence: The first is the A18 bionic chip built using second-generation 3nm technology.
The A18 Bionic chip is equipped with a six-core CPU, five-core GPU, and a 16-core neural engine for faster artificial intelligence performance. Apple also said the A18 has a new memory subsystem that allows for faster data transfer speeds.
What really makes this chip "customized for Apple intelligence" is the 16-core neural engine, whose AI end-side computing power is more than twice that of the previous generation iPhone 15.
In addition to the Action Button button originally equipped on the iPhone 15 Pro series, which has been moved to the standard version of the iPhone 16 series, this time the iPhone 16 series has also added a new "camera button" to the entire series: integrating the two operations of [press + slide] mode, using sapphire glass as the basic material.
This button can not only achieve press feedback through the motor, but also distinguish between heavy presses and light presses, achieving a variety of operations similar to the shutter button of a SLR camera. However, with the help of the iPhone's intelligent and customizable attributes,
But as an AI Phone, the role of this dedicated button is naturally more than that: it corresponds to the consideration that after the camera is integrated with Apple intelligence, the mobile phone camera is an important sensor for multi-modal perception, and operation becomes more and more important. Users must There is an option to quickly launch the camera.
As for Apple intelligence, Apple said it will be pushed to the iPhone 16 series with the beta version released in October, offering a total of five color versions of dark blue, ultramarine, pink, white and black.
As for the iPhone 16 Pro, in addition to the black and white primary color titanium that appeared last year, a new color is added this year-desert color titanium.
The iPhone 15 Pro series is equipped with the A18 Pro chip, which is also equipped with a 16-core neural engine. At the same time, the memory bandwidth is increased by 17% compared to the previous generation to support the running speed of Apple intelligence.
In terms of imaging content, which is the main focus of the Pro series, both Pro and Pro Max phones this year are equipped with the same five-time telephoto camera. All iPhone 16 series support shooting space videos and new space photos.
On the 10th anniversary of Apple Watch, the Series 10 series, although there are no obvious changes in appearance, it is Apple’s first device equipped with a wide-angle OLED screen: in other words, the change is a wider viewing angle.
At the same time, the thickness is 10% thinner than the previous generation, and the weight is reduced by 20%. These data may not sound so impressive, but for the Apple Watch, which is already a very thin and light electronic device, each item is very obvious. Improvements: The same is true for the feedback received after using it for the first time on site.
Series 10 has major upgrades in health monitoring. New underwater sports features, including water depth and water temperature measurement, provide more accurate water sports data. In addition, the watch is also equipped with a sleep apnea detection function, which helps users monitor and improve sleep quality through sensors and machine learning algorithms.
As another new product for Apple entering the era of AI hardware: Apple Watch Series 10 is equipped with the S10 SiP chip with a built-in quad-core NPU, which can handle some Siri requests end-to-end. Neural network technology can also be implemented on the Apple Watch to suppress call noise and other functions, and a variety of end-side machine learning capabilities that have appeared in iOS have been transferred to the Apple Watch.
In addition, the Apple Watch Series can play audio content directly for the first time without the need for accessories such as AirPods. It also supports 80% charging in 30 minutes.
In addition, as the highlight of Apple Watch’s emphasis on AI functions this time, the “sleep apnea monitoring” function is launched on Apple Watch.
According to data disclosed by Apple at the press conference: About 80% of sleep apnea patients do not receive diagnosis and treatment because they do not know that they have this disease.
For Apple Watch to accomplish this, it needs to be supported by a large amount of clinical data. Sensors with built-in machine learning algorithms can detect whether users have apnea while sleeping - a health problem that is easily overlooked.
The Apple Watch Ultra 2, which was updated at the same time, actually only updated a black solid color model, which is made of recycled grade 5 titanium. The price remains unchanged.
Finally, there is the AirPods series. The entry-level product line welcomes the AirPods 4 series. In addition to being known as "the most comfortable AirPods to date", it also released an active noise reduction version with active noise reduction and transparency mode. It is no longer the high-end AirPods. The product line is patented.
Although there is no hardware update for the AirPods Pro product line this time, a major update to AirPods Pro 2 was announced at the press conference-the hearing protection function is online.
According to data from the press conference, there are currently more than 1.5 billion people with hearing loss in the world. But that number is even increasing, because hearing loss is often a slow process—so slow that it’s not even noticeable. Hearing protection is therefore crucial for consumer electronics.
When AirPod Pro 2 is updated later this year, it will be able to function as a clinical-grade over-the-counter hearing aid; in addition, AirPods Pro 2 also introduces a series of features including features designed to protect hearing and clinical-grade hearing testing. AirPods seem to really Becoming our “cyber prosthesis” step by step
Compared with the full-line software/hardware updates of the AirPods series, the AirPods Max series, which had the highest expectations for updates before the press conference, only quietly updated five new colors this time, and finally updated the mediocre USB-C charging interface. .
3. Software: AI plays the entire game
As the most mentioned word in this conference, the progress of Apple intelligence naturally attracted the most attention: in addition to the beta version released in October, the Chinese version is also on the first batch of five language adaptation lists besides English. Expect to see us next year.
In addition, in order to run multiple local models on the iPhone, Apple has inserted a more powerful NPU into the chips of the iPhone and Apple Watch this time. However, for models that require stronger computing power and cannot be put into the iPhone, Apple also released The corresponding Privacy cloud compute (PCC) function: This is actually a product of the private cloud computing concept. It aims to extend the security and privacy of private computing power to the cloud.
According to an official technical blog released by Apple after the press conference, during this process, PCC will ensure that the personal data uploaded by the user will not be accessed by anyone other than the user, even Apple itself.
After solving the problem of computing power, the focus comes to the question of " What can Apple intelligence do now?"
Judging from the information that has been disclosed so far, in addition to organizing your drafts into complete manuscripts, helping you directly generate articles suitable for a certain social platform style, and the Image playground function that generates images, the most competitive part of Apple intelligence is currently, It is also deeply bound to the existing iOS ecosystem.
For example, in the Photo Album App that comes with iOS, if you have an impression of a photo that you have taken before, but forget when and where you took it, you can directly describe the corresponding photo in the photo album, and the photo album will be able to use blur. Semantic ability to find photos or even videos that match the description.
In the Mail App, in addition to automatically displaying smart summaries of email content on the overview page. Email content with higher priority will also be pushed to the top; Siri, which is truly starting to become smart, can also teach you how to use the functions in your iPhone.
Although Apple is not the first to integrate these "intelligence" functions deeply into the existing iOS ecosystem, it is indeed the manufacturer with the greatest potential to present complete ecological solutions.
In addition to software, in terms of hardware, Apple has also initially demonstrated more possibilities for "AI phones": after equipping the iPhone 16 with a dedicated camera button, you only need to press the camera control button, and the iPhone can transform into a Rabbit R1-like device. , but its performance is much more powerful than that of a large multi-modal model terminal.
In the current demonstration, in addition to the application scenarios of this multi-modal large model, it can perform quick searches, scan notes to ask ChatGPT for help, and when you encounter an unfamiliar restaurant, just raise your phone to take a photo, and a review platform will appear. Introduction and rating of this restaurant.
According to the case demonstrated by Apple at the press conference, when you encounter a pet dog whose breed you don’t recognize on the road, you can hold up your iPhone, press the camera button directly, and ask Siri, “What breed is this dog?” ”.
With abundant end-side AI computing power, this capability will eventually penetrate into every corner of the ecosystem: for example, Apple also showed many small details about AI functions at the press conference.
With the "AI Mixing" function in the photo album, you can separate each channel in the video, manually select the intensity of each channel, and combine it to create the "movie-like" effect the creator wants. In the language memo, you can hum based on the original accompaniment audio, and AI noise reduction will automatically filter out the accompaniment sound, leaving you with the humming rhythm.
This way of recording inspiration anytime and anywhere often required a variety of professional equipment in the past; now all you need is an iPhone with built-in Apple intelligence.
4. Conclusion
Even if you don’t usually pay much attention to AI, it’s not difficult to see that this conference has set aside a considerable proportion of Apple intelligence-related functions in every hardware link.
As a "Technology Spring Festival Gala", this iPhone conference may indeed play a role in popularizing the concept of "AI mobile phones".
In addition to making more people aware of the changes brought about by this concept, Apple may also be able to truly launch an "AI hardware interconnection" for us through the combination of "customized hardware + high-performance end-side computing power + open software ecosystem". ” future.