Apple gives SA ‘wave one’
status for iPhone 16

For the first time, South Africa will be included among the countries where the latest iPhone will be available in stores at the same time as its release in the United States.

The Core group announced on Monday night that South Africa had been confirmed as one of the “wave one” markets where the new iPhone 16 range will be on sale on the same day as the USA and other major markets. 

“This milestone puts South African consumers at the forefront of tech innovation, ensuring they are among the first to experience the world’s most anticipated smartphone release,” Core said in a statement.

The iPhone 16 range will officially be available from 20 September 2024, with pre-orders opening on 13 September. 

The range is led by the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max, featuring Apple Intelligence, larger display sizes, and the A18 Pro chip.

“With Apple Intelligence, powerful Apple-built generative models come to iPhone in the easy-to-use personal intelligence system that understands personal context to deliver intelligence that is helpful and relevant while protecting user privacy,” said Apple in a statement on Monday. “Camera Control unlocks a fast, intuitive way to tap into visual intelligence and easily interact with the advanced camera system.”

The devices feature a new 48MP Fusion camera with a faster quad-pixel sensor that enables 4K120 fps video recording in Dolby Vision, a new 48MP ultra-wide camera for higher-resolution photography, including macro; a 5x Telephoto camera on both Pro models; and studio-quality mics to record more true-to-life audio. 

Predictably, Apple declared that “iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max are the most advanced iPhone models we’ve ever made”. Equally predictably, we remind them that it better be the most advanced yet, otherwise there would be no point launching them.

Greg Joswiak, Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide marketing, did elaborate: “Customers who are looking for the best possible iPhone will be able to take advantage of this huge step forward, whether they’re applying edits to a photo without lifting a finger, rewriting meeting notes for a more professional tone, or using the advanced camera system to capture their next masterpiece in 4K120 fps in Dolby Vision — all while enjoying extraordinary battery life.”

The base-level iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus also introduce Camera Control, a 48MP Fusion camera with a 2x Telephoto option, as well as an A18 chip.

Apple Intelligence

Apple provided the following information on Apple Intelligence, while pointing out that the features will only roll out from October:

Apple Intelligence on the iPhone 16 lineup harnesses the power of Apple silicon and Apple-built generative models to understand and create language and images, take action across apps, and draw from personal context to simplify and accelerate everyday tasks. Apple Intelligence maintains the privacy and security of user data with Private Cloud Compute. 

This groundbreaking approach provides the ability to flex and scale computational capacity between on-device processing and larger, server-based models that run on dedicated Apple silicon servers — an extraordinary step forward for privacy in artificial intelligence. Apple Intelligence will be available as a free software update, with the first set of features rolling out next month in U.S. English for most regions around the world.

With systemwide Writing Tools, users can adjust notes or emails to be more friendly, more concise, or add a more professional tone to their writing; check for grammar, word choice, and sentence structure; and summarise selected text to make it more digestible. In the Notes and Phone apps, users can also record, transcribe, and summarise audio. When a recording is initiated while on a call in the Phone app, participants are automatically notified, and once the call ends, Apple Intelligence generates a summary to recall key points.

With systemwide Writing Tools, available with the first set of Apple Intelligence features, users can rewrite, proofread, and summarise text nearly everywhere they write.

Apple Intelligence helps users prioritise with summarised notifications, along with Priority Messages in Mail, a feature that understands the content of emails and surfaces time-sensitive messages. Across a user’s inbox, summaries convey the most important information of each email instead of previewing the first few lines.

Siri becomes more deeply integrated into the system experience and gets a brand-new design with an elegant glowing light that wraps around the edge of the screen when active. With richer language-understanding capabilities, communicating with Siri is more natural and flexible. Siri follows along when users stumble over their words, and maintains context from one request to the next. Users can type to Siri at any time, and switch fluidly between text and voice as they accelerate everyday tasks. Siri also now has extensive product knowledge to answer thousands of questions about features on iPhone and other Apple devices.

Redesigned Siri (as supplied by Apple)

A redesigned Siri experience, coming with the first set of Apple Intelligence features, makes communicating with Siri more natural and flexible.

Additional Apple Intelligence features will roll out later this year and in the months following, including Image Playground, which allows users to create playful images in moments. Emoji will be taken to an entirely new level with the ability to create original Genmoji by simply typing a description, or by selecting a photo of a friend or family member.

Siri will be able to draw on a user’s personal context to deliver intelligence that is tailored to them. It will also gain onscreen awareness to understand and take action with users’ content, as well as take hundreds of new actions in and across Apple and third-party apps. And while using iOS 18 features like Siri and Writing Tools, users will be able to easily access ChatGPT from OpenAI.

Contract Price Freeze

The iStore in South Africa is debuting a programme called Contract Price Freeze, it says, to help South Africans beat inflation. For the first time, iPhone users can upgrade to the latest iPhone 16 range while keeping their monthly contract price the same as their existing plan. 

“In a time when rising costs have made upgrading to the latest technology increasingly expensive, iStore is offering a financial lifeline ,” says the store. “Trade in your iPhone and freeze your current contract price, or even pay less than what you have for the last two to three years.”

It provided the following details:

“Up to R22 000 cash back when you trade in – As Apple’s only Premium Partner in Africa, iStore is also setting a new standard for trade-in values, offering up to R22,000 cash back when you trade in your old device. Whether customers opt to use the trade-in value towards their new iPhone 16 or choose to have the cash deposited directly into their bank account, iStore is leading the market with flexible, customer-centric solutions. This unprecedented offer gives consumers the freedom to spend their cash however they choose while making the iPhone 16 range more accessible than ever. Customers can trade-in up to 5 devices (Mac, iPad, iPhone, Apple Watch, PC or Android smartphones) to further discount their new iPhone. Calculate your device’s trade-in value here: https://www.istore.co.za/trade-in-cash-back

“Free iCarePlus and Guaranteed Buy-Back: Future-Proofing Your Investment — As part of their launch, iStore is offering even more value with free iCarePlus, valued at R1,999, for every iPhone purchase. This now includes a guaranteed buy-back, ensuring that two years from now, iStore will buy back your iPhone for a minimum of 55% of its original value, making your future upgrade even more affordable. The iCarePlus package also includes an extra year of warranty and screen repair, demonstrating iStore’s commitment to offering long-term support for iPhone users. For more information about iCare Plus, please visit https://www.istore.co.za/icare-plus.”

Chris Dodd, iStore CEO, said: “With the simultaneous launch of iPhone 16 and the innovative Contract Price Freeze, we’re ensuring that South African customers not only access the latest technology at the same time as the rest of the world but also at the same cost they’ve been used to. This offer reflects our dedication to making cutting-edge technology accessible while offering unbeatable trade-in deals and future-proof upgrades.”