Visual Intelligence Is Coming to the iPhone 15 Pro After All
Credit: Yuheng Ouyang
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This week’s launch of the iPhone 16e has brought an unexpected bonus for iPhone 15 Pro owners: the advent of Visual Intelligence on the older AI-capable devices.
When Apple announced Visual Intelligence during its iPhone 16 launch in September, it tied it directly to the Camera Control, thus making it an iPhone 16 exclusive feature. We didn’t actually see Visual Intelligence debut until iOS 18.2 in December, but when it showed up, it could indeed be triggered solely by pressing and holding the special button that was unique to Apple’s latest iPhone models.
There seemed to be no rhyme or reason for why Apple would create such an artificial limitation — other than to sell more of its newest iPhones, of course. Visual Intelligence isn’t such a demanding feature that it requires an A18 or A18 Pro chip; the A17 Pro on the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max should have been just as capable of scanning an image and sending it to Google Lens or ChatGPT. It’s a far less demanding task than AI image generation.
Unfortunately, the iPhone 15 Pro didn’t have a magic button to trigger Visual Intelligence, and Apple hadn’t at that point provided another way to access it. Many owners of Apple’s older models were left scratching their heads as to why it couldn’t just be added as a button in the new Control Center or assigned to the Action button.
Well, it turns out that’s precisely what Apple has done with the iPhone 16e. Despite the higher $599 price of entry for its latest “budget” iPhone model, the company has still had to cut quite a few corners to get it down to $200 less than the standard iPhone 16. One of those is the Camera Control.
However, Apple is also promoting the iPhone 16e as a full-fledged member of the iPhone 16 family when it comes to Apple Intelligence features, which means it wasn’t about to leave it out of the Visual Intelligence party. Apple’s solution is just what iPhone 15 Pro owners were clamoring for: using the Action button to trigger Visual Intelligence.
That’s left owners of Apple’s 2023 Pro models wondering if it will trickle down to them. While we gave that a 50-50 chance after yesterday’s launch, as Apple could still consider this a selling point for the iPhone 16 family, it turns out that the company will be magnanimous after all. In reviewing yesterday’s announcement, John Gruber shared at Daring Fireball that he’s been told it’s coming “in a future software update.”
Apple representatives also told me today that owners of the iPhone 15 Pro will soon be able to bind their Action Button to visual intelligence, “in a future software update”. I suspect that future software update is iOS 18.4, which should be launching in beta any day now, but Apple wouldn’t comment, on or off the record, when exactly this feature will come to the iPhone 15 Pro.
John Gruber
Gruber strongly suspects it will come in iOS 18.4, but Apple declined to confirm or deny that. It will also be joined by a Control Center button to launch Visual Intelligence, which makes sense as the Action button can be configured to do other things.
One thing that seems clear is that the iPhone 16e won’t have the same magical press-and-hold approach for the Action button as the other models do for the Camera Control. This means that if you want to use Visual Intelligence, you’ll have to give up whatever else you want the Action button to do.
We’re hoping that we’ll also be able to trigger Visual Intelligence via the Shortcuts app at some point, which would open up the possibility to the kind of multi-function approach that many folks are using with the Action button, presenting a menu of options instead of triggering only a single action. Even if that’s on Apple’s roadmap, it may not show up at the same time as the Control Center button.
The first beta of iOS 18.4 should show up any day now, which means iPhone 15 Pro users may not have to wait long to find out if Visual Intelligence will be in attendance. Still, we wouldn’t be too disappointed if it’s not in the first beta, as Apple often adds these little things later in the beta cycle.
