The entire landscape of phone owners is being bifurcated into those with access to on-device generative AI and those without. My iPhone 14 Pro and I are on the wrong end of that dividing line. My device is cut off from the latest features by two years, a mere 2 GB of RAM, and the device’s smaller neural processor. Now that the Samsung Galaxy S25 lineup is on the horizon, and the $1,300 S25 Ultra looks so much like an iPhone, I’m reminded how much owners of older devices will miss out, not just on newfangled AI, but everything else.
In my job, I get to use more of the latest phones than most people, but those devices are all siloed to my work. My life and schedule depend on my iPhone 14 Pro. Two years ago, I switched from Android to the iPhone, Apple’s flagship phone. Since then, the mobile landscape has changed drastically. The difference is seen not so much in landmark hardware features but in software compatibility. The iPhone 15 Pro was the first device supposed to receive promised support for AI features, and now the iPhone 16 lineup should all be getting access to Apple Intelligence. According to Bloomberg’s prolific Apple rumormonger Mark Gurman, most of Apple’s AI features should arrive by April.
Apple fans will have to wait months for promised AI features, but Samsung beat Apple to on-device AI assistants with its Galaxy S25 series. The AI encompasses a confusing mix of both on- and off-device AI features. Like Apple, the Korean tech giant also promised users’ data would be kept secure on its SOC behind its own Knox security, while all data sent to the cloud would be end-to-end encrypted.
It’s clear Samsung wants the iPhone crowd to consider the switch. The Galaxy S25 lineup looks like iPhones with flat, titanium sides and sloped corners. I’ll admit that the phone had me in its throes when holding the new device with its light frame and intriguing on-device AI features. It was entirely familiar, not just because I used the $1,300 Galaxy S24 Ultra for work. There was a pang of betrayal plus a mix of envy and wrath. I felt like Gollum clutching the One Ring for the first time as I glared at passing tech reporters with wild, spiteful eyes.
But then, I had to remind myself that AI has yet to deliver its promise. I only experienced a short demo with the Gemini-based “agentic” cross-app AI. I will have to trust the AI to take my information from an email and accurately transcribe it into a calendar event. Even if it works nine times out of 10, how can I truly trust it if the AI turns around and screws up my schedule? If I spend most of my time checking the AI’s work, that’s time I could have just spent doing the task myself.
So, what am I truly missing? I find the Android versus IOS debate largely nebulous, though, on the whole, Android already has features iOS is still catching up to. None of those missing capabilities make or break my enjoyment of my phone, in any case. To hone in on the feelings of both me and plenty of past-gen iPhone buyers, the thought that we spent $1,000 on a new phone only to be left behind stings.
It’s worse because Apple is normally better than most at supplying software support for older devices. According to Apple, all Macs sporting an M-series processor will get AI. That means a four-year-old MacBook will connect to get Apple Intelligence features. It’s different for phones, despite most of Apple’s excuses centering around the latest A16 and A17 Bionic CPUs and their AI processing capabilities. The iPhone 15 Pro had 8 GB of RAM. The iPhone 14 Pro had 6 GB. Because of that limited memory, every generation of iPhone will leave me and many other iPhone buyers further behind unless we upgrade.
Every phone maker would prefer we buy a new phone every year, but I don’t believe in changing my tech like a pair of pants. And the weird thing is we still don’t know if they’re features we want. Generative AI is so unreliable that Apple has already pulled its beta for notifications summaries. So why should we care? While older devices may get new UI improvements and a few crumb features, Apple’s new focus is on providing AI that can work across apps.
Samsung’s recent Galaxy Unpacked is an example of what to expect. Apple’s next software release will be wholly centered on AI. We will need to wait at least a month for a full release of Apple Intelligence, enhanced Siri beta, and more. Do we expect Apple’s next WWDC to be anything but an AI extravaganza?
Samsung has been better about providing some AI capabilities to older devices, but the Galaxy S23 lineup and even the S24 will be limited compared to the S25. There’s a reason Samsung gave the S25, S25+, and S25 Ultra 12 GB of RAM. It’s clear that agentic AI is memory intensive, and we still have yet to see it in full glory with either Samsung’s or Apple’s devices.
Even if you don’t care about or want AI, you still lose. The techno-feudalism of today’s Android versus iOS debate isn’t helped by owners being further divided between the AI haves and the AI have-nots.
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