Less than a year after introducing the potential of artificial intelligence, Apple brings the feature to its most affordable iPhone.
On Wednesday, the company introduced an iPhone that will cost $ 599 and will have an AI system calling Apple Intelligence. The device brings AI features, such as notification summaries and writing recommendations in English to the company’s iPhone model at a lower price, as it prepares to extend these features to other languages in the coming months, including Chinese, Portuguese and identified English for India.
The new phone, which Apple calls the iPhone 16e, does not have a home button or Touch ID, which has been gradually removed. Instead, the phone is unlocked with a face recognition system, Face ID, which is available on most iPhones since 2017.
The iPhone 16E is the first update on the company’s lower smartphone line by 2022, replacing The SE iPhone. The cheapest phones have helped Apple get its signature product in the prices sensitive pockets, who often trade for more expensive models the next time they buy a phone.
Apple introduces the new iPhone at a critical juncture. The company’s iPhone firm is falling, with sales dropping by 2 % from the top of the $ 205.5 billion in 2022. Tim Cook, Managing Director of Apple, has upgraded some of the iPhone matches to limited availability of Apple Intelligence, which was announced months before it is available and only offered to the latest models of the company in English -speaking Markets such as the United States. In a call with analysts last month, Mr Cook said the new AI has led the sales of iPhone to markets where they were available.
However, surveys have found that AI was not an important reason why people are buying new phones, said Jeff Fieldhack, research manager at Counterpoint Research, a market research company. “People buy phones for the same reasons they always have: The battery is not recharging or the phone is getting old and does not work,” he said.
Apple’s business is also to benefit from increasing the price of its introductory model. The iPhone 16E is 40 percent more expensive than the latest iPhone SE, which costs $ 429. The increase means that Apple will raise more $ 170 on each of the iPhones with lower prices it sells. This will increase the total sales at a time when the number of phones it sells was relatively stable to about 230 million phones a year.
The highest price comes after President Trump imposed 10 percent invoice on all imports from China. Apple is making the majority of its iPhones in China, but its decision to raise prices on the iPhone of the lowest price is probably irrelevant, said Richard Kramer, a partner of Arete Research, a stock investigation company.
“These decisions are made months before action,” Mr Kramer said. “This is the principle of apple lifting prices throughout the spectrum at a time when the increase in volume is quite virtue.”
Extension of Apple Intelligence’s availability is critical for the company’s efforts to prevent opponents and expand sales abroad. In China, Apple’s second most important market, the company’s share of smartphone sales decreased by 2.4 percentage points last year to 15.5 %, as opponents such as Huawei gained ground, according to Counterpoint.
In India, one of the fastest growing smartphone markets in the world, the iPhone 15 was the best -selling smartphone in the last three months of last year, Counterpoint said. The popularity of the device has helped Apple increase its market share in India by two percentage points to 11 %.
With the iPhone 16E, Apple introduces the first modem chip designed with customized C1. The chip provides 5G connectivity and replaces the modem chips provided by Qualcomm. Apple has developed the chip since 2019, when it has installed a lawsuit against Qualcomm on Chipmaker’s licensing fees and bought Intel’s modem business.
Ben Bajarin, chief executive of Creative Strategies, a technological research company, said the new chip modem would not have all the features of Qualcomm modem, but would allow Apple to test the item before incorporating it into future iPhone versions. Finally, he said, Apple’s custom modem will improve iPhones battery performance and will be wireless to other Apple products.
“Will he come to an iPad? Will it come to Mac? How far can they get that? “Mr. Bajarin said.
Apple introduced the iPhone 16E with fewer fanfare than usual. The company published a 13 -minute movie on its website with Mr. Cook describing the new phone. When he introduced the iPhone SE in 2022, he held a one -hour event at his headquarters in California, California.
