Image Playground That Survey Respondents Wouldn't Use
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The addition of AI features like Apple Intelligence isn't impressive to consumers, according to a survey of Apple and Samsung smartphone owners, but the timing of the survey may have skewed the results.
Apple Intelligence is Apple’s core feature set in iOS 18, but it’s not the only company to include AI features in its devices. Other smartphone makers, including Google and Samsung, are offering their own interpretations of the AI concept, with similar image-based and suggestion-based features.
However, while they may be impressive, it appears that most consumers don’t actually care enough about smartphone AI to change their shopping habits. At least, that’s according to a survey conducted for SellCell involving Apple and Samsung smartphone owners.
One of the key findings from the survey is that consumers are dissatisfied with AI on their devices. When asked whether AI features currently add “significant value” to their experience, roughly 73% of respondents said they either care more about other features or that they add “little or no value.”
Only 11.1% said the AI features were valuable, while 15.9% thought they were “somewhat” but not significantly valuable.
By contrast, just 5.9% of Samsung users said Galaxy AI was very valuable, 7.1% said it was somewhat valuable, and 87% said it was not very valuable or of no value.
The Value of Apple Intelligence – Image Credit: SellCell
When compared to the AI features on Samsung devices, only 15.4% of Apple Intelligence users said Apple’s version was better than Galaxy AI, while 5.9% said the opposite was true. The vast majority of respondents either said neither was better (32%) or that they didn’t know enough about AI to compare.
On the other hand, only 7.8% of Samsung owners thought Galaxy AI was better than Apple Intelligence, while 3.8% said Apple Intelligence was better. Again, 13% didn’t know enough to compare, while 75.4% said neither was better.
These results at least suggest the idea that Apple owners are more brand-protected than Samsung users.
However, it also shows that users currently don't see much benefit from AI at all. Part of this is because AI is very early in its life cycle, but part of it may simply be the timing of the survey.
A Methodological Caveat
A big issue with the survey is the time period in which the data was collected. It’s a significant enough issue that it would likely have impacted the results if it had been delayed a few weeks for the release of iOS 18.2.
The methodology involved surveying over 2,000 smartphone owners in the United States aged 18 and older. The sample consisted of over 1,000 iPhone users with an AI-enabled iPhone model, including the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max, and the iPhone 16.
For the Samsung contingent, the survey involved over 1,000 people using models that also supported AI. A pre-screen question to confirm whether they had an AI-enabled iPhone or Samsung model was used to reject users who had not used AI on their smartphone before.
However, while the methodology was fairly fair, the main problem was that the survey was conducted online from November 28 to December 6, 2024.
During this period, only the Apple Intelligence features introduced in iOS 18.1 were available for use, including Siri product knowledge, writing tools, and the cleanup tool in Photos. Apple unveiled iOS 18.2 on December 11, releasing major features like Visual Intelligence, Image Playground, and Genmoji almost a week after the survey closed.
It would be easy to argue that at least Apple's respondents might have seen more value in Apple Intelligence if they had been given time to try it out. However, during this time period, only those who participated in the iOS 18.2 developer beta would have been able to try out the incoming features.
Apple Intelligence Features Used by Users – Image Credit: SellCell
When asked what respondents used of the Apple Intelligence features available at the time, 72% said they had tried Writing Tools. Some 54% had used Notification Dashboards, 44.5% had used Priority Messages in Mail, and 29.1% had looked at Clean Up in Photos.
More people had tried natural language search in Photos than used the improved conversational Siri: 13.3% versus 3.1%.
Notably absent here are Genmoji and Image Playground, as they had not been released. It’s likely that if the survey had been conducted later, when iOS 18.2 was released, these features would have been much more in demand.
By contrast, 82.1% of Samsung users had used Circle to Search, which involves users drawing a circle around an image and then using Google to search for its contents. Photo Assist, an AI-powered photo editing and generative editing tool, was used by 55.5% of respondents, while 17.4% used Note Assist transcriptions.
AI-Based Switches
When it comes to whether people would switch from Apple to Android because of Galaxy AI features, only 16.8% said they would switch if Galaxy AI was “significantly better.” Some 78.9% said they would not do so because they preferred iPhone or Apple Intelligence.
SellCell claims that this is a slight drop in brand loyalty compared to the 92% seen in 2021. However, this is not a comparable comparison, as the old result mentioned in the report is about overall brand awareness and is not based on the existence and features of Apple Intelligence.
AI-Based Switching Results for Apple Users – Image Credit: SellCell
On the other hand, a smaller share of Samsung users at 9.7% would switch to Apple if Apple Intelligence was significantly better, while 67.2% said they would not because they prefer Galaxy AI.
As for the importance of AI when buying a new smartphone, 21.1% of Apple users said AI was a “decisive factor,” while 26.5% said it was “somewhat important,” if not the most important. For Samsung, a smaller share of 14.9% rated AI as a decisive factor, while 8.8% rated it as somewhat important.
The relatively low level of importance makes sense, as consumers are still looking to get the best cameras and displays for their devices.
As for whether they would be willing to pay for an AI subscription in the future, Apple users were more willing to answer the question, with 11.6% agreeing and 1.9% saying “maybe.” Just 4% of Samsung users said they would pay, with 1.5% voting “maybe.”
This certainly doesn’t bode well for Siri ChatGPT integration, as it relies on OpenAI subscriptions when available.
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