AI is now what makes a phone feel smart. In side-by-side tests, Google’s latest Pixel handled everyday tasks the iPhone still can’t.
Last fall, Apple ran an ad touting the iPhone’s personalized artificial intelligence. Actor Bella Ramsey asked Siri, “What is the name of the guy I had a meeting with a couple of months ago at Cafe Grenel?” The problem was the Apple Intelligence software in the iPhone couldn’t actually do that. Apple, under pressure, pulled the ad.
A year later, there’s a new phone that can answer that exact question: The Google Pixel 10. The iPhone 17, unveiled on Tuesday, still cannot.
Apple is touting the new iPhone’s speed, durability and camera, like it has for nearly two decades. It now comes in orange. But the defining technology of this era is AI — and the new iPhone 17 already feels about two years old.
Everything I’ve read about the Google Pixel 10’s AI is that it’s overhyped.
In fact, to the query “is the Pixel 10’s AI overhyped?”, Google’s AI responds:
Yes, the Pixel 10’s AI appears to be overhyped , with many early reviews highlighting inconsistent and underperforming features like Magic Q. While features like improved Pro Res Zoom, Camera Coach, and on-device Gemini Nano offer potential benefits for photography and privacy, they are often inconsistent or require significant improvements. Some users find the AI features to be a gimmick, offering little real-world benefit and taking focus away from hardware innovation.
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Overall Sentiment:
While Google is pushing the Pixel 10’s AI capabilities heavily, the reality is that many AI features are either inconsistent, not yet useful enough for daily use, or simply not innovative enough to warrant the hype, according to reviews on platforms like Reddit and NYT. The Pixel 10 may still be helpful in certain situations, but the AI is far from the revolutionary leap some have come to expect, notes Android Police.
I’m not defending Apple’s slow and gradual hardware evolution, even though I’m sufficiently impressed to pull the trigger on an upgrade now, after skipping the past few cycles. I’m just continuing my doubts about the state of AI generally. Yes, I sometimes hang my doubts too strongly on the failure to achieve Turing-test-level, artificial general intelligence, but I do understand what artificial generative intelligence is. I’m just not blown away by it. (For example, AI is touted as making it easy to remove background figures from photos. We used to use a tool called Photoshop to do that, and while “AI” makes it easier, is it really worth the hype?)
Well, that has moved way ahead already, so much that I haven’t bothered to update Photoshop for quite a while now, and it even works well on my iPhone 15, In Photos, it’s called Cleanup, it isn’t maybe as precise as one might do, but for most edits, it’s fine. There re some 70K photos in my Photo library, from trips to family events to old photos, scans, whatever.. I had fun going back into sone trip pics, removing other tourists unrelated to our group or the subject, a few clicks, gone! I’m sure it will also improve over time…
I don’t bother looking at the other ‘smart’ phones, no more than I follow Whdoze things, other than sometimes following a few threads here on folks having problems, I guess the tech part of me still likes to look.. Generally it’s like being a loony-loo on the highway, just glad it wasn’t me!
