A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Apple has unveiled a new generation of its flagship product, the iPhone.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Yeah. The company is working to integrate generative AI - artificial intelligence - into the phones, even as iPhone sales have slumped.
MARTÍNEZ: Joining us with more on the launch is Allison Johnson. She covers smartphones for The Verge. So, Allison, this is the 16th generation of the iPhone, which will have a built-in artificial intelligence. They call it Apple Intelligence. So what sort of capabilities are included?
ALLISON JOHNSON: Yeah. So Apple Intelligence is across the whole line - the regular 16, the 16 Pro models - and it's going to be all kinds of things. The stuff we've previewed right now is pretty, I would say, familiar to anyone who has used, like, ChatGPT or other tools that are out there right now. So it'll help you write emails that sound more professional or more casual. It'll summarize notifications that are coming in. And Siri gets kind of an overhaul, with a new glowing border around the screen and better understanding of kind of, like, the context and natural language. So - and there's a lot of things that were sort of promised are coming much later, but these are the first things that Apple showed us today and earlier this year at their developer conference.
MARTÍNEZ: What about helping us identify things with the camera? Will AI be able to do that?
JOHNSON: Yeah, yeah. There are these visual tools. You'll be able to open up your camera. There's a new camera capture button that they want you to use to be able to do that really quickly. Take a picture of a restaurant, and it'll sort of analyze the photo, know that it's a restaurant and know that it should go. look it up for you on Google or Yelp. It's really interesting to see Apple sort of pivoting the phone as, like, a tool for these AI inputs.
MARTÍNEZ: Now, Apple has been criticized a bit for maybe being behind other companies' phones. So now where does Apple stand in relation to its competitors - like, say, Google and Samsung - when it comes to AI?
JOHNSON: Yeah, Google and Samsung both have - you know, they launched their phones earlier this year. And they've got all kinds of AI features, a lot of similar things, the visual, the writing tools. You know, they've shipped them. They're out there. So in that way, Apple is playing a little bit of catch-up, but I would say that nothing has been, like, a showstopper yet. And I think all these companies are striving for something that's going to really, like, drive upgrade cycles and get people really excited about AI bringing change into their lives and making things easier. That's something that nobody's really cracked yet, and Apple's kind of in the same position as everyone else.
MARTÍNEZ: Say Apple does crack it with this AI that they're putting into the phones. I mean, could that change how people use this kind of technology?
JOHNSON: I think it could, yeah. I think there's a real possibility for AI and how we use our phones. We're just so used to - you know, they're little boxes with all these little apps that we tap on, and we jump between things. And when you think about it, you know, talking to a Siri or a Google Assistant with natural language is just a much more intuitive and, like, accessible way to use your device. And that's sort of what we're being promised in the long term. It's not here yet, but it's something, I think, worth looking out for.
MARTÍNEZ: Allison Johnson, tech reporter with The Verge. Allison, thanks.
JOHNSON: Thanks for having me.
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