All the way in which again in 2024 – I’m speaking an entire six-ish days in the past on the time of writing – freelance tech journalist Gareth Beavis wrote an article for TechRadar detailing why he feels the rumored iPhone SE 4 might break new floor for Apple. Mr Hall’s thesis was that Apple might use a next-generation funds iPhone as a technique to get Apple Intelligence AI instruments to a wider market.
It’s a sound concept and one which I agree with. Yet as I stomped throughout the frost-covered floor of a frozen London park, letting my thoughts chew over the state of the smartphone market, I got here up with the concept of the iPhone SE 4 being an anti-artificial intelligence cellphone.
Now, machine studying is nearly inescapable in telephones, given many use good algorithms to steadiness battery life and course of pictures. However, the rise of so-called AI telephones is a fairly new facet of the cell world, arguably spearheaded by the Google Pixel 8.
We now have telephones with intelligent instruments to rewrite emails for you in a desired tone, show you how to reshape {a photograph} into virtually a brand new picture altogether, take notes, and do all types of different good issues. Some of those instruments are very helpful, however in my time with the iPhone 16 Pro Max – a cellphone I very very like – I’ve not discovered Apple’s tackle generative AI use significantly nice or compelling. And I’m not alone, as my colleague Philip Berne feels the identical.
There’s additionally the fear of privateness, smartphones already suck up an entire load of private knowledge if you happen to permit them to; add AI into the combo and also you’ve obtained a tool that may virtually really feel prefer it’s monitoring you. However, like Thanos within the MCU, generative AI in telephones is inevitable, not less than in flagships, such because the hotly tipped Samsung Galaxy S25 collection that I count on will come full of AI instruments. And if these instruments are helpful and intuitive, I’m all for them.
Equally, it’s obtained me pondering there’s a chance for telephones, significantly funds fashions, to shun the AI smarts and embrace pure tool-like performance with privateness enshrined at their core. Add within the intuitiveness and ecosystem of iOS and Apple’s propensity to tout privateness, and your thoughts’s eye might image a next-gen iPhone SE. At least that’s what mine did once I was a’wandering.
An anti-AI cellphone
With an elevated want to digitally detox and restrict cellphone display screen time to close off and extract oneself from the fixed ding of notifications and the inflow of on-line content material, I believe there could possibly be an actual refreshed marketplace for telephones that keep away from all the flamboyant AI bits and easily work as a cellphone, digicam, net browser and informal video games machine (it’s odd getting nostalgic for the telephones of the 2010s however right here we’re).
Add in a cellphone that comes out of the field with an entire host of privacy-centric settings switched on, and you might be a tool that appeals to individuals who don’t wish to bark at a cellphone to make a Van Gogh-style portray out of their canine or create a brand new emoji by smashing two different ones collectively.
I might totally see Apple taking this method with the iPhone SE 4 whether it is certainly within the works. Yet I believe Cupertino will most likely use the following SE as an entry-level route into Apple Intelligence, because it looks as if the tech world is embracing AI, whether or not we prefer it or not.
My hope is that if Apple does lean into this, then it makes certain Apple Intelligence is totally loaded and able to ship correctly helpful AI instruments fairly than drip feed options the way in which it did with the iPhone 16.
