iPhone 16 is Apple’s next flagship smartphone series, that is expected to debut later this year. While no official information about the handsets has been revealed, one of the headlining features on the iPhone 16 series is already known – Apple Intelligence – the suite of artificial intelligence (AI) features for Apple devices. In recent weeks, rumours have swirled around that despite Apple releasing a handful of Apple Intelligence features in beta, it will not be available on the iPhone 16 series at launch, leading to speculation if the next iPhone series could be delayed entirely. However, a new report suggests that will not be the case.

iPhone 16 Launch

In his Power On newsletter, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman claimed that despite Apple Intelligence features facing a delay, the iPhone 16 series launch will not be postponed. As per the trend of previous years, the smartphones are expected to launch at an Apple event in September.

While Apple has a track record of launching its new iPhone lineup along with the latest operating system (OS) updates in September, there have been times when the launch has been delayed due to the software needing to get polishing touches, namely the debut of iPhone 4S in October 2011, which was initially intended for a June introduction.

This development builds upon another claim by Gurman regarding the rollout of Apple Intelligence. As per Gurman, the iOS 18 update, which will likely be publicly released with the iPhone 16 series, will not include Apple’s AI suite. Instead, it could launch in October with the iOS 18.1 update. Even then, it may not carry some of the most notable features which Apple showcased at its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) 2024 on June 10, such as the Image Playground which lets users generate AI images via prompts.

There is even a possibility of some Apple Intelligence features being delayed till 2025, as per Gurman. This may include advanced AI integrations in Siri – Apple’s voice assistant for the iPhone, iPad and Mac. It is speculated that these features could be rolled out to developers in January 2025 with the iOS 18.4 beta update, before being introduced to the public later that year.