Apple spent two years promising that Apple Intelligence would change how we use our iPhones, and the company finally delivered this week's most anticipated feature: a slightly smarter notification summary.
Congratulations to everyone who bought a $1,200 phone for the privilege of watching Siri struggle to paraphrase a text from your mom.
The bigger headline is what's still missing.
The revamped Siri that Apple demoed with all the confidence of a guy who definitely read the terms and conditions is reportedly delayed into next year.
Meanwhile, features like Genmoji are out here letting grown adults turn themselves into cartoon stickers, which is technically artificial intelligence and also technically what a $4 app did in 2019.
Here's the pattern, and it's becoming a bit of a problem.
Apple announces ambitious AI features at a splashy keynote, ships a watered-down version months later, and then quietly pushes the impressive stuff to "later this year" until later this year becomes next year.
It's the software equivalent of telling your landlord the check is in the mail.
To be fair, some of what's actually shipped is fine.
Notification summaries genuinely help when you're drowning in group chats, and the writing tools do a decent job of making your angry email sound professionally annoyed instead of just angry.
Clean Up in Photos works about as well as Google's version did three years ago, which Apple would prefer you not think about too hard.
The real issue is that Apple is charging flagship prices for a phone that's mostly running last year's playbook with a new coat of AI paint.
If you're on an older iPhone, there is almost no reason to upgrade right now.
Wait for the features that were supposed to justify this whole thing.
And before the comments section lights up: yes, Apple is being careful with AI, and careful isn't the worst instinct when your assistant can now read your messages.
But careful and slow aren't the same thing, and Apple keeps selling the second one as the first.
Apple Intelligence is real, it's just not finished, and you're paying full price to beta test it.
Final Thoughts
Don't buy it for the AI, because the AI isn't really here yet.