Kuo: Apple Knows Apple Intelligence is ‘Underwhelming’ and Won’t Drive iPhone Upgrades

The Apple Intelligence features that Apple introduced with iOS 18 are not pushing people to upgrade their iPhones, Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo reiterated today. Apple’s recent Siri failures are also going to have an impact on 2025 iPhone shipments, which the market is beginning to realize.

As early as last July, Kuo said expectations that ‌Apple Intelligence‌ could drive ‌iPhone‌ upgrades were likely “too optimistic,” and in January, he was even more explicit and said that the appeal of ‌Apple Intelligence‌ had “significantly declined” because of the delay between when Apple showed off ‌Apple Intelligence‌ features in June and when they launched starting in October.

Kuo is maintaining his cautious view in light of Apple’s Siri debacle, which has seen the company delay heavily advertised ‌Apple Intelligence‌ ‌Siri‌ features that it initially said would come in ‌iOS 18‌.

According to Kuo, Apple is already aware of ‌Apple Intelligence‌’s “underwhelming performance,” and has provided suppliers with conservative ‌iPhone‌ shipment forecasts as a result.

Lately, the market consensus has shifted to a more cautious stance on iPhone shipments and Apple Intelligence (Siri), which supports my earlier predictions. Moreover, it’s clear that when Apple shared conservative shipment forecasts with its key suppliers early this year, they had already factored in Apple Intelligence’s underwhelming performance.

The negative public sentiment that Apple is facing due to the ‌Apple Intelligence‌ ‌Siri‌ delay could further impact sales of the iPhone 16 and iPhone 17 models in the coming months. Apple last week said that ‌Siri‌ personal context and App Intents are being pushed back until the “coming year,” and it doesn’t seem like the company expected such a critical reaction from the tech community and its customers.

Longtime Apple reporter John Gruber, for example, recently published an in-depth report calling out Apple’s ‌Siri‌ shortcomings, and his commentary has resonated with many who have the same feelings about Apple’s longtime struggle with ‌Siri‌ improvements.

Many others have also spoken up on the very public demonstrations of ‌Apple Intelligence‌ ‌Siri‌ features that Apple provided over the course of the last year and the subsequent delay that has shaken public confidence in the company’s ability to deliver AI features that can compete with OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, and others.

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