CUPERTINO, Calif. –
Apple’s ubiquitous iPhone is about to break new ground with a shift into artificial intelligence that will do everything from smartening up Siri to creating customized emojis on the fly.
The new era will dawn Monday with the unveiling of the hotly anticipated iPhone 16 in a Cupertino, Calif., auditorium named after Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, who pulled out the first iPhone in 2007 and waved it like a magic wand while predicting it would reshape society.
Apple has sold billions of iPhones since then, helping to create about US$3 trillion in shareholder wealth. But in the past decade, there have been mostly minor upgrades from one model to the next — a factor that has caused people to hold off on buying a new iPhone and led to a recent slump in sales of Apple’s marquee product.