The new iPhone 17 already feels two years old
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.
washingtonpost.com
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.
For a few weeks I’ve been testing two phones: an iPhone running the iOS 26 software that comes with the iPhone 17, and the Google Pixel 10 that debuted in August. Side by side, it’s clear the Pixel’s AI can do things I wish the new iPhone could.
I don’t expect this will change many people’s immediate buying decisions. For one, the companies make switching hard. Still, the takeaway from my test is that AI is starting to make a real impact on what makes a phone smart and useful — and the advantage is Google’s.
Of course any smartphone can run AI apps like ChatGPT or Google’s Gemini. Both the iPhone and the Pixel have chips designed for AI, and boast AI functions like live translation and drafting emails. Yet many AI features have turned out to be parlor tricks or half-baked. Apple Intelligence can, uniquely, summarize notifications and messages — but I don’t find them very useful or even correct.
Three years after ChatGPT made it possible to have a natural conversation with a computer, it makes sense that we should be able to interact more naturally with our phones, too.
Here are three ways AI is changing how phones work — and where both Google and Apple are with delivering it.
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