On Sept. 16, Apple released their new update, with a new iPhone, watch, and airpod models available for purchase starting Friday, Sept. 20th.
Apple describes the new iPhone 16 as “new display technology,” with a more durable build, a better camera, longer battery life and a heavy integration of AI technology with “groundbreaking privacy.”
New AI technology now allows AI to access editing of photos, text, and other detailed information through Siri, all features advertised to enhance the user experience.
Reactions geared towards the new update seem doubtful, as students find the yearly updates to be nothing out of the ordinary.
Esteban Vargas, a freshman majoring in biomedical engineering, said he feels that the new iPhones are redundant. “There’s a new version coming out, like every year,” Vargas said.
Eliza Torres, a freshman studying industrial and systems engineering, seemed to share the same concern.
“I’ve seen the new products aren’t really that different anymore. Aside from adding a couple new features, it’s really not worth paying to just get a whole new product when it’s barely different,” she said.
Along with the students finding Apple’s yearly updates to be less and less impressive, Jonathan May, a research associate professor of computer science at the CS department in the Viterbi School described the reactions of attendees at a recent meeting with political leaders as being “underwhelmed with what was coming out.”
The doubtful reactions with the release itself were followed by hesitant reactions towards the new AI technology and Apple’s promise of groundbreaking privacy. These new capabilities of AI technology, such as the ability to remove objects from images and booking a flight entirely through Siri, highlight concerns of privacy in potential users of the product.
Natalia Hernandez, an electrical and computer engineering major, said she’s worried about her security.
“How is it going to be trained, and will it be continuously trained with our personal data, such as phones and text messages? That’s a major security concern I think a lot of people have,” Hernandez said.
She doubts that Apple would give users the privacy that they want.
Professor May further described the lack of confirmation when it comes to promising privacy for users: “The data leaves the phone a lot, right? And once it leaves the phone, even if it’s going somewhere secure, [it] could get leaked, right?”
He further described how humans tend to be fairly willing to give up their privacy without realizing it and processing the consequences.
As AI becomes more prevalent and an easily accessible part of an individual’s everyday lives, which raises concerns about AI’s heavy integration in one’s general day-to-day life.
“I think AI can do a lot, but I think people aren’t using it in the way they should be,” Hernandez said. “AI should not be trying to replace jobs … it should mostly just be making things more convenient.”
Torres shared a similar sentiment as she described how AI should be used to help others, like people with disabilities with tasks they are unable to do at home or work, such as opening the light or similar simple tasks.
May described how AI technology has the potential of diminishing human interaction, which has the opposite effect on society as it should. “I would ideally like to generate…systems that help people be better humans…to work on the things they want to do,” he said.
Overall, Apple users were unimpressed with Apple’s new release.
So I don’t think that Apple’s, the technology that they were showing, is necessarily so groundbreaking or is unlike anything that we’ve seen before,” May said. “But what it is, is it’s democratized, and relatively democratized in terms of availability.”
Hernandez ended her interview with her final remark about Apple: “Instead of trying to keep up with trends, I think Apple should really look into developing something new. It’s about time.”