I Switched to a Pixel 9, Here’s What the iPhone 16 Needs to Do to Win Me Back and It’s Not What You Think
Apple is set to launch the all-new iPhone 16 during its “Glowtime” event on September 9th, and I’m wondering what it can do to win me back. When the Google Pixel 9 lineup released, I jumped on a Google Pixel 9 Pro. Being an iPhone user my entire life, I was nervous about dipping my toe in the Android waters, but I can report the temperatures are sweet, so come on in! Full disclaimer: my previous iPhone was pretty old so it was high time for an upgrade, meaning the bar was set pretty low, but thankfully the Pixel 9 Pro easily met that and then some.
To be honest, after reading our Pixel 9 Pro review I was just curious to see what a Google Pixel phone would be like, and it quickly became apparent that in day-to-day use, there is very little that separates a Google Pixel 9 from a new iPhone. Sure, they use different hardware, the haptic feedback is slightly different, and they have different camera specs, but in day-to-day use, it’s the experience of using the phone that matters most. Once you understand that you’re using the Play Store to download apps, not the App Store, life goes on as an ex-iPhone user. Pixel phones have facial recognition for unlocking the phone, so nothing changes there for an iPhone user, but they also have fingerprint recognition if we want more security for payments.
All the apps I used on my iPhone, like Facebook, Threads, X, Instagram, Slack, Gmail, YouTube, etc. are available on the Pixel 9 Pro, and they all work exactly the same. The basic gestures for using the phone are similar enough, and my AirPods Pro work just fine with an Android phone. I can even keep my Apple Music subscription, and Google Pay works just like Apple Pay in stores. Even my banking apps look and feel the same.
Apple Intelligence vs. Gemini
There is one area where Google and Apple have a chance to differentiate themselves, however, and that’s with artificial intelligence. Google beat Apple to the punch by being the first to market with its AI assistant, called Gemini, but right now I’d describe Gemini’s execution as somewhat clunky.
You can tell your Pixel 9 to use Gemini instead of Google Assistant, but there are still a few things Gemini can’t do, so it turns to Google Assistant for help. Sometimes it feels like they’re fighting each other for ownership of the phone.
When I say “Hey Google, launch Gemini,” Google Assistant tells me it can’t find Gemini on the phone, and then starts telling me about the Project Gemini space missions! The only way to get to Gemini Live (the part where you talk to your phone and it talks back like a human) is to launch Gemini and then press the Gemini Live button on the phone. It feels counterintuitive to have to touch the phone to get to the part where you talk to the phone… But the lack of deep integration goes further — for example, you can’t start timers from Gemini Live right now, and many of the features Google showed off at the launch event, like searching your Gmail inbox with Gemini Live, require extensions that haven’t launched yet. In short, a lot of Gemini Live is “coming soon.” Plus, you’ll have to pay for it. You get a free trial for a year with a new Pixel 9 phone, but after that year it’ll cost you $20 a month (£18.99, AU$30) to become a Gemini Advanced subscriber via a Google One AI Premium subscription, which does come with some nice perks, like 2TB of storage.
It appears that Apple has an opportunity to use Apple Intelligence to improve Gemini when it launches the iPhone 16 lineup. Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear that Apple is going to knock Gemini out of the park with Apple Intelligence. At launch, it appears that the iPhone 16 lineup, which ships with iOS 18, will not have any Apple Intelligence features at all. We’ll have to wait until iOS 18.1 arrives when it launches in October (hopefully), and then we’ll have to wait until early 2025 for the full Siri 2.0 experience.
In the past, I would compare phones in two ways, first based on specs like processor, memory and camera, but then I would look at the operating system and apps and how they would fit into my current workflow. These days, I’ve found that the lines between iOS and Android operating systems have blurred to the point where they’re almost interchangeable, so now it’s up to me to see who can master AI. There is one exception to the specs comparison though, and that’s RAM. RAM is critical to how well AI performs on a smartphone, so I’m eager to see how much RAM Apple packs into the iPhone 16 lineup on September 9th and see if Apple can win me back.