Apple won’t be as generous as Samsung, but iOS 18 might stop me from switching from iPhone to Galaxy

I’ve talked about this in a different recent article, but Circle to Search is a feature that makes searching for anything on the internet so much faster. Being able to circle around anything on my screen and have Google search for it and give me results in several different categories is a superpower.

To perform the same task on my iPhone requires 6-7 steps, which involve taking a screenshot, loading the Google app with Google Lens to perform the search, and then going to my Photos app to delete the screenshot.

Meanwhile, Summarize lets me… summarize web pages, which is another major way to save time from having to read an article as long as this one. Getting a paragraph, or a few bullet points to get the most important information out of a 1,000-2,000 word story is a feature the iPhone must have.

Another awesome AI-powered feature is the Galaxy S24 Ultra’s ability to automatically translate conversations in messaging apps like WhatsApp. I’m not somebody who would use this feature every day but I’d imagine there are people and small businesses who communicate with foreign customers/parties on a daily basis, and would be thrilled to be able to communicate with them like they are communicating with somebody in their native language.

“AI” used to be a gimmick, but the Pixel 8 and Galaxy S24’s AI features are a real reason to switch from iPhone to Android

Believe it or not, I miss AI-powered features like Circle to Search, Summarize, and Magic Eraser (used to remove objects from photos) pretty much every single day I’m using my iPhone, because that’s how useful they are on a daily basis.



Frankly, had it been easier for me to move my voice memos and notes to the Pixel or Galaxy, I probably would’ve switched to the Pixel 8 Pro from my iPhone 13 mini.

And that’s despite the fact that I find the iPhone 15 Pro Max (which I also have access to) to be a better phone than the Pixel 8 Pro. And that says a lot about how much I value the Pixel’s AI capabilities.

In fact, in my opinion, the latest AI developments on Android are the biggest reason to switch from iPhone in recent times. Perhaps the last time a phone made me really tempted to switch was the 2019 Huawei P30 Pro, which I ended up buying and using for nearly two years. The reason back then was Huawei’s incredible camera system, which made the iPhone look bad.

Are the best Pixel 8 and Galaxy S24 AI features coming to the iPhone with iOS 18?

Finally, you’re probably wondering the same thing I really want to know, which is whether these incredible AI features might be coming to iPhone…

We’re working with (fresh) leaks here, which means nothing is confirmed yet. That being said, there’s now hope some (if not all) of the most useful AI features found in phones like the Pixel 8 and Galaxy S24 might very well get their iPhone equivalent thanks to iOS 18.

Leak says iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 will bring Summarize and Magic Eraser equivalent features to the iPhone and iPad

• Leaked by AppleInsider, “Greymatter Catch Up” (probably not the actual name of the feature) is going to be a new “notification summary feature” that will give you summaries for missed notifications, web pages, notes, and documents, which sounds a more powerful version of Google’s “Summarize” feature that I love using. Siri and specifically the Notes app are said to receive similar text summarization capabilities, as well as an audio-to-text transcription

• Leaked image suggests Apple will finally introduce its own version of the “Magic Eraser” in the Photos app across iOS 18, iPadOS 18 and macOS 15. The feature is dubbed as “Clean Up”

• “Generative Playground”, on the other hand, should allow you to generate images and edit photos with the help of AI

Don’t expect Apple to be as generous as Samsung when it comes updating old iPhones with new AI features; some new iOS 18 AI features might require at least 8GB of RAM

One thing to keep in mind is that it’d be a miracle if all the new “AI” features Apple is preparing end up coming to every single older iPhone model - even if it supports iOS 18.

Unlike Samsung, which was super generous to update the Galaxy S23 and S22 series with the same AI features as the Galaxy S24, Apple is infamous for keeping cool new features exclusive to new iPhones. For example, you can expect that the upcoming iPhone 16 Pro will get AI features that no other iPhone will.

Rumor has it that even the vanilla iPhone 16 series won’t have the same amount of AI tricks as their Pro counterparts (the two won’t be powered by the same processor), which makes it highly unlikely that my iPhone 13 will get those features.

Meanwhile, Mark Gurman recently said that the most powerful new AI features coming to iOS 18 might require the A17 Pro chip to work, meaning iPhone 15 Pro might get some AI features iPhone 15 won’t.

My educated guess is that the real reason for that might be the fact that iPhone 15 has only 6GB of RAM vs 8GB on the Pro model. For example, Microsoft’s latest AI features on Windows require a minimum of 16GB of RAM to work.