The iPhone 17 launch event has finally arrived. It lands at a pivotal moment, with Apple in an increasingly awkward spot. The tech world expected revolutionary AI that would change how we use our devices. Reality, so far, has not matched those bold promises. That gap, hype versus delivery, is the credibility test Apple has to pass on stage today.
Why Apple Intelligence promises became a credibility crisis
How did we get here? Apple Intelligence was pitched as a transformative leap for Siri and other services at WWDC last year, supposed to launch in early 2025. The demos were slick, with a smarter Siri handling complex, conversational questions across apps. Apple framed it as their answer to Google's Gemini and OpenAI's ChatGPT.
Then the cracks showed. Many promised features are nowhere to be found, and the company has since admitted that its AI rollout is facing delays, but that admission came after customers had already made their purchases. The most visible stumble was the September 2024 ad featuring Bella Ramsey demonstrating Siri's supposedly new superpowers. When those features slipped, Apple quietly pulled that ad from YouTube. Trust, once dented, is hard to buff out.
This pattern, overpromise then walk-back, created something rare for Apple, a real trust deficit with its own fans. The WWDC sizzle reel and the current reality are not just a timing mismatch, they reveal a misread of Apple's AI readiness and how it wanted to position itself against rivals.
How AI delays translated into sales hesitation
That credibility hit shows up in buying behavior, not just in comment sections. Apple Intelligence isn't compelling enough to push users to replace their older iPhones. Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo says Apple's internal evaluations also reflect a recognition of Apple Intelligence's underwhelming performance, which means the company knew the pitch was soft.
More to the point, Kuo claims the company baked the AI's "underwhelming performance" into conservative shipment forecasts shared with suppliers earlier this year. Even so, marketing leaned on the promise. The result? The iPhone 16 series launched last fall leaning heavily on Apple Intelligence as a selling point, but with the full suite still incomplete, its appeal may be waning. If your headline feature does not actually change daily life, people stick with the phone already in their pocket.
Apple's strategic pivot to tangible hardware improvements
That context sets up today's shift. Instead of doubling down on tomorrow's AI, Apple looks ready to showcase the stuff you can feel the second you unbox it. Rumors point to some significant upgrades for the base model 17, like the long-awaited addition of a ProMotion screen. The standard iPhone finally getting a 120 Hz display is a clear, immediate upgrade.
Design tweaks push the same idea, ship what you can show. The camera bump will stretch out, we'll get a vibrant orange color option, and the Plus model will slim down into a strikingly thin iPhone Air. That Air variant is a statement piece. The iPhone 17 Air will have an ultrathin body (5.5 millimeters), a 6.6-inch screen size, a standard USB-C port, and ProMotion support.
Under the hood, Apple is promising progress it can deliver. iPhone 17 Pro models are expected to use Apple's next-generation A19 Pro chip, manufactured with TSMC's newer third-generation 3nm process. Connectivity and cameras are getting love too. All four iPhone 17 models are rumored to get a Wi-Fi 7 chip designed by Apple rather than Broadcom, and all models are said to feature an upgraded 24-megapixel front-facing camera.
The new reality of Apple's AI messaging
Hard lessons, new tone. The scope of the delays is not small. Apple's most ambitious AI features may not see the light of day until at least 2026. On top of that, Bloomberg reports that the delays are much more serious and may require scrapping certain elements and starting over.
This points to deeper architectural problems, not a few bugs to squash. The Siri update would be released with iOS 18.4 in April 2025, but its roll-out has been delayed indefinitely. Apple's representative Jacqueline Roy put it plainly, "It's going to take us longer than we thought to deliver on these features, and we anticipate rolling them out in the coming year".
That honesty, even late, is a reset. Expect the stage time to focus on what iOS 18 actually ships now, with firmer and humbler timelines for everything else.
Building the foundation for future AI success
Even with the software drag, the iPhone 17 hardware hints at the long game. Apple's upcoming iPhone 17 is shaping up to be one of the company's most AI-focused devices to date, with the iPhone 17 Pro expected to include 12GB of RAM specifically to support more advanced AI functions. That is an infrastructure bet.
The A19 story fits that pattern. Built on TSMC's enhanced 3nm+ process, this chip isn't just a step forward in performance, it's a leap toward on-device AI processing that could redefine how iPhones handle everything from photography to Siri commands. The compute is arriving first, the software can catch up later.
So where does that leave Apple against Google and OpenAI? This situation raises broader questions about Apple's strategy in the rapidly evolving AI landscape. Still, the company looks intent on rebuilding trust the old-fashioned way, ship features that work on day one, keep stacking the silicon for what comes next.
Bottom line, today's "awe dropping" event probably will not deliver the AI revolution once teased. It can deliver something just as valuable, Apple earning back confidence with concrete improvements while quietly laying the groundwork for AI that actually works when it arrives. A shift from promise-heavy hype to capability-first execution might be exactly how Apple steadies the narrative and keeps its hardware lead.
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