Apple’s big announcement this year was undoubtedly Apple Intelligence. The protagonist of the opening event WWDC 2024 last June, a set of features and services based on artificial intelligence from Cupertino, represented, as we told you at the time, a technology update, after almost a year and in the medium term in a situation at a clear disadvantage against many of its competitors, who knew how to identify a trend earlier and add it to your designs.

The design of Apple Intelligence is not revolutionary, it is not disruptive, but it helped, at least in June, that Apple stopped showing so farand has some elements worth mentioning, such as private cloud computing (Private Cloud Compute), which, at the expense of controlling how it was implemented, represents a significant improvement in terms of user privacy and your data to perform a certain task based on artificial intelligence, you have to turn to a cloud service.

When the WWDC 2024 presentation ended, many of us were left with a bad taste in our mouths that a large part of its features (not all, because it was already expected at the event) will debut worldwide with the arrival of iOS 18. , in September. However, First, we learned that Apple Intelligence will not arrive, at least initially, in the European Unionand recently that the debut of the first features was delayed to iOS 18.1. So we are talking about a rather unremarkable start.

Now the delay could be the least. Because? Because as we read on 9to5Mac, Some analysts suggest that Apple could charge for Apple Intelligenceand even increase the figure, $20 a month. However, I emphasize that we are talking about analysts, not leakers, so it is not information that could have left Cupertino through the back door, but rather opinions (of course qualified) that are based on the assessment of the business model.

In that regard, I completely agree with what the article states that these views reflect, I don’t see any room for Apple to give us a bad surprise, at least initially. that it’s not enough to upgrade to the latest generation iPhone, but you’d also have to opt out every month to enjoy the full experience. It would be something absolutely insane and something that would undoubtedly turn into a purchase.

Now, if we look to the medium term and consider that some services, both Apple’s own and third-party services (such as ChatGPT and iOS integration) They have infrastructure costsand that as the scope of Apple Intelligence expands, it could make sense either for some of what is now offered for free to become paid, or for Cupertino to remove from its sleeve some subscription level (which would have a place in the Apple One) with improvements and maybe a bit of both.