I'm Completely Blind And Only Care about Apple Intelligence. Should I Upgrade to the iPhone Air?

Hi,
Since Siri AI is barely out of the gate, I would wait until more people get their hands on it to determine how useful it might be for you based on their feedback.
I'm not sure I would go for the Air myself, but that could just be personal preference. Remember that the more advanced Pro cameras could be an asset to you depending on your environment and other factors, while the Air's basic camera might make things a bit more challenging.
There are also some features of Apple Intelligence which I understand may be limited to the Pro/Pro Max models due to system processing constraints.
Hope this helps.

Hi Kyler,

In my opinion, unless you really need a new phone in August, I would wait until the iPhone 18 Pro/Max and iPhone Ultra (or whatever they end up calling it) are released in September. Those phones will have the A20 Pro processor and, even if you then still want to buy last year's iPhone Air, you can make that decision having all of the options in front of you.

Hi,
I know it's a bit of an obvious one, but I personally went for the Pro Max. The cameras are obviously the most bloated thing about these phones, however I have found the battery to be absolutely unmatched.
I look at it this way.
You can either spend a few hundred extra dollars on battery packs over the years, or you can spend a few hundred bucks on a phone with a solid battery life to begin with. Even as a heavy user, I only have to charge my phone once daily.

Getting a new phone in August is not a bad idea if you already know which phone you want. I did this last year. I bought my iPhone 15 in August last year and it was exactly what I wanted so I think if you already know which one you want I would go for it.

At least wait until the iPhone 18 models launch, so that you have all of your choices laid out before you, then if you still want the iPhone Air, have at it. This way you will not have any regrets, like you might if you go ahead and get the iPhone Air now, and find out later that the iPhone 18 was really what you wanted. 😊

Wait for the next pro or if you do not want to wait, go for the 17 pro max. The battery for that suppose to be great. 18 pro battery suppose to be much better. For the AI go for the pro. Make your purchase by thinking about how the AI in the future be better. LLC.

If you’re getting to 3pm with a heavily degraded 14 Pro, I’m confident you’d get through the full day with the Air.
The camera has been good for accessibility apps in my experience, and the processor and RAM match the Pro.
If you can wait for September to see what the next generation of phones has to offer, then I’d agree that’s the best strategy, but if you need to move sooner, then I reckon you’d be happy with the Air.
Also bear in mind that the rumours, to be confirmed of course, suggest that only the Pro phones will be launched in September this year, with the base 18 and the Air 2 to be in spring 2027. This may all leave me with a dilemma too.
Dave

With the next gen coming out in September, though you can't always get your hands on it until October, August is truly the worst time to make a decision and purchase. And if you find the 17 lineup or Air to be satisfactory come September, they are usually on sale for less. Patience is hard, but an be worth it. As much as Apple is pushing AI and it has a new frontier model that reportedly only runs on 17 Pro phones (Not sure about Air) I am curious to see if the 18 lineup gets another bump on Ram. I'm sure Apple would like to go to 16Gb soon, but there are a lot of RAM market constraints this year so might not happen.

People are forgetting that AI may take alot battery. Also the camera is important, the better the picture is the better AI will work on. An iPhone is an investment. Pro or pro max. Need to see if I am close to pay my 16 pro max for the 18 pro max. LLC.

The current rumors say the entire 18 line will have 12 GB RAM, so as others have said, you might want to wait for that. If the 18e also includes 12 GB RAM, that would be an excellent deal at a decent price. I personally refuse to pay more than about $500 or $600 for a smartphone and think it's utter insanity people are paying close to or even over a grand.

Sad but you get what you like. LLC.

Dear friend go for 17 Pro instead of air it gives you better battery life, better performance, stereo speakers, triple camera set up

I'm curious. I have a super old phone, and the AI stuff seems to be about as good as anybody else is getting. It generally messes up image descriptions, and sometimes reads text. QR codes work. What are triple cameras doing for us?

Please note, I'm not saying they don't do anything, I honestly don't know. I just kind of see people making claims, they're better, no they're not. Do we actually know? Have you had a situation where you tried both and more/better megapixel cameras made the difference? I mean, I can see where it might. Aren't there apps that can measure things, for example?

Maybe more/better cameras will give you more accuracy. But I never see people giving examples of where this actually helps, just some people saying more/better cameras, of course you want that! Then other people going, I'm blind, don't care about cameras, useless to me! Then people will agree, yeah one tiny camera is fine, they're all the same for our apps!

Surely this is something we can find out one way or the other.

The only thing I am aware of with the multiple camera devices, is the LiDAR systems in the pro models. LiDAR (Light Distance and Ranging) is a laser system used for measuring distance and shapes of 3D objects.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lidar

HTH.

I looked into it a while back when considering phones. The big thing I saw was that it helps you stand/follow people in lines. I'm not standing around in lines much, but it didn't seem like a particularly useful feature. But I mean, that's kind of what I'm after. What are better quality or more cameras actually doing for people? Because googling and all is less helpful than you'd think. I'll bet it's got more uses than just knowing when a line moves and distancing from people during covid.

It can supposedly help you find doors, 3D objects such as a mailbox, a garbage/rubbish bin, or a particular car in a parking lot, etc. I've never used it, so I cannot confirm whether or not any of that actually works well for the blind, but there you go.

Regarding cars, I don't think it can do colors, but it can do shapes, and such.

HTH.

需要有更多的App有无障碍操作

Any tips on using it? I think my wife's got some sort of iPhone 17, a Pro I think, for work. I bet she'll let me play with it a bit. I mean, say I wander outside and want to find my mailbox, what app am I using for that? Be useful to know if I'd want the 17 E, the Air, or a Pro too.

Pretty sure it's built into the live recognition feature. I think it's something like two or three taps on the screen with four fingers by default. I think you can also add it to the rotor, and plus find it in the main VO settings

I'm now in a similar boat as the OP, so figured I'd just comment here.

I have a 15 Pro, and my parents are trying to get me to upgrade for my birthday next month since my battery life has taken a total nosedive in the last couple months. My battery health currently sits at 81%, but only lasts around 3-4 hours before I have to plug it in. That's more than I had to charge my 12 mini, which made sense because it was a much stmaller phone. When I first got my 15P, battery life was awesome. Safari drains my battery far more than any other app and I can't figure out why. And yes, I do use an add blocker. Safari also heats up my phone like I'm playing a triple A game, even just on sites like AppleVIS, which I would think don't have a lot of fancy graphics going on.

Since I have a 15 Pro, I will already get all the Apple Intelligence features that I care about. I don't really need the new Siri Voices or the dictation improvements that 12GB ram gives you because I use BSI all the time. I was thinking about just having Apple put a new battery in my 15P, which would be way cheaper than getting a new phone, though I don't know yet how much more performance that would restore for me. IMO, a lot of people in general upgrade to a new phone when really all they need is a battery replacement.

Unlike OP, I don't think I would go for the Air. I like the design of it, but since my iPhone is my only device right now, I don't think the battery life would be enough for me. I'm considering stepping down to a 17E.

Which gets me to some of the questions posed earlier in this thread. I got my 15P before AI was announced, I got it for the potential of lidar, but am still asking how useful it actually is. Same with having more than one camera.

Whenever someone asks about the lidar sensor, people just post things about what they've read about it. Has anyone here on AppleVIS found that the lidar sensor actually is useful in day-to-day life? Does it improve the quality of OCR?Per Apple's documentation, the only live recognition things that require a lidar capable iPhone or iPad are people detection, door detection, and furnature detection. But do people actually use those? In 2022, door detection was the headline VO feature in Apple's GAAD press release, but IIRC once people started playing with it, they didn't find it all that useful. I've also never really gotten the hang of point and speak, although that one doesn't require a lidar device. Also if lidar has so much potential, why aren't there any androide phones that have it?

Then there's the cameras. What do we get out of a wide angle and telephoto lense? Yes, I know there are some blind people that want to take good pictures to share with family or post to social media, but what is our biggest use of a camera? OCR. Can you use the wide angle or telephoto lense to do that? If you can, does it make the results more accurate? IIRC, all of the cameras in modern smartphones are higher quality than many of the AT devices meant mostly for OCR. I think the second gen Orcam has an 8MP camera, and I think the HumanWare Stellar Trek (a device mostly for GPS), has 2 13MP cameras because I think it can do some detection and OCR. I could be misremembering though.

If you are not a photographer any modern camera is fine. I have had various camera setups from an iPhone SE to an iPhone mini to an iPhone 17 Pro. Seeing AI, my main OCR app, has had equal performance. LLiDAR has been more of a future proof and hope than useful to this point. VoiceOver has some built in things like door detection, but it just isn't practical for me, and seems inaccurate when I tested it. Always hoping the next big fundamental model, or some clever app, will figure it out.
The thing to monitor now, in my opinion, is what AI models Apple will have that can run on device when the device is powerful enough. It is reported that there is a foundational model that can only run on teh 17 Pro now. I'm not sure anyone is quite clear on what it does yet. But I do believe the more models can be run locally on device, the better as no matter how powerful the cloud, there is always latency. And cloud seems to have a way to invent subscriptions. It is exciting times.

IMO, there really is no reason for the blind to have a multi camera system. Yet, the trendy thing to do is to get the biggest and the brightest device out there. So, of course everybody gets a pro model phone, and everybody talks about how wonderful the cameras are, even though hardly anyone is actually taking any stellar photographs with wide angle/telephoto lenses if they are visually impaired. Personally, I've been using an iPhone SE 2022 for the last couple of years, and I find I get along with the single camera system for OCR just fine.
I also do not buy a new device every single year, just because a newer model has been released, which sadly many folks do simply because it is The, trendy, thing to do. 🙄

Just say no to the IPhone air, get the IPhone 17e

Do whatever you feel works for you. We can all give you suggestions on here but it’s ultimately up to you. If you wanna buy a new phone in August go for it if you wanna wait till September go for it if you want 17 or 17 or air or whatever do whatever you want. You’re the only one who can ultimately decide what’s best for you. As I said before this thread, I got my phone in August last year. It’s an iPhone 15. I knew exactly which one I wanted and I love it. It was a great upgrade for me. I kept my iPhone SE 2022 with my secondary device. It’s great and it’s still working perfectly fine. I got my iPhone 15 because I traded in my iPad mini six generation. So I no longer have an iPad just to iPhones. Like I said you gotta do whatever works for you. Decision you’re happy with responsibility. What matters is that you’re happy.