This article may contain personal views and opinion from the author. AI was cool when ChatGPT was first introduced. It's still cool, but not brag-worthy cool. For some reason, Google wants to milk this trend as long as it can, but it's getting a little off-putting now. That's why I am glad that the iPhone 17 will be a hardware-centric upgrade.
While Google should be commended for rapidly shipping innovative AI features, it's also important to remember that most people don't buy a new phone for AI features alone.
The Pixel 10's Magic Cue feature fetches important information for you, such as the address of a venue you are discussing in a chat. It can also read out translations now, attempting to make a phone conversation between two people who speak different languages smoother.
It's an underwhelming update, even taking a step backward in some core features. The iPhone 17 will take a completely different approach, in a snub to the Pixel 10.
The iPhone 17 Pro is likely to offer a 48MP telephoto camera with up to 8x optical zoom. The Pixel 10 Pro maxes out at 5x optical zoom, which, in all fairness, is probably enough for most users.
The Pixel 10 Pro uses AI for clearer photos when you zoom past 30x. It allows you to reach up to 100x, using AI to imagine the details not captured by the camera. While this seems to work fine with predictable subjects, the feature trips up when faced with something it can't recognise.
The iPhone 17 Pro, on the other hand, will come with a telephoto camera with up to 8x zoom. The use of a moving lens will likely enable continuous optical zoom, with two distinct zoom ranges supported.
Apple's approach seems more practical. The iPhone 17 Pro may not let you zoom all the way to 100x; its hardware-based approach will ensure higher-quality, more authentic-looking images.
I think it's okay if your phone doesn't have the latest and greatest AI features built in, as you can almost always find apps for that. What cannot be enhanced, though, is your device's performance.
iPhones have always been one of the fastest phones around. The iPhone 17 Pro will not only come with a faster chip, but it will also have a vapor chamber system for the first time to ensure that performance isn't dialed back to keep the internal components from getting hot.
This implies that the performance disparity between the iPhone and Google Pixel is only going to increase. And while the Pixel 10 may feel fast enough for now, it may start struggling three or four years down the road.