The publication these days that Apple could charge for Apple Intelligence has caused a lot of stir. Mark Gurman brings some sanity to the matter, ensuring that being a very real possibility, we are still a long time away from that happening, at least 3 years.
Apple Intelligence is still in Beta, and will remain so even when the new iPhone 16 is launched. It will not be available at launch in many countries, including those in the European Union and China, and we will have to wait until well into 2025 so that we can all make use of most of the Apple Intelligence functionalities that we were able to see at the last WWDC 2024. How can anyone suggest that Apple can charge for Apple Intelligence... still? In Cupertino right now they are worried about ensuring that iPhones do not fall behind in the AI race. They arrived late, and it cannot even be said that they have already fired the starting signal, but hey, at least we have seen their intentions. And even if we look a year ahead and assume that at that point everything is already rolling, the functionalities they offer us are nothing out of this world. Make no mistake, they are very good, some are even fun (like creating your own emoji) but They are quite basic, charging for that is impossible.
However, by 2027, with new devices and the way Artificial Intelligence is advancing, there may already be advanced functions that we can perform on our smartphones and Macs, and Apple may be thinking about charging for those. Nothing new for Apple users, who already pay if we want more than the ridiculous 5GB of iCloud, or if we want Apple Music or any of the other services that Apple offers. Why not include Apple Intelligence+ in iCloud+? A pack in which we have included all Apple services along with its cloud storage, and also the most advanced functions of Apple Intelligence. I see it very clearly, but we are still far from reaching that point. Let's wait until we can use Apple Intelligence outright, and then we'll worry about Apple Intelligence+.