Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference keynote has come to a close — and the company had a whole lot to share. We got our first look at the AI features coming to Apple’s devices and some major updates across the company’s operating systems.
If you missed out on watching the keynote live, we’ve gathered all the biggest announcements that you can check out below.
With almost all of big tech getting in on the AI boom, it’s no surprise that Apple is launching an AI system of its own. Apple Intelligence is the company’s new personal intelligence system “that puts powerful generative models right at the core of your iPhone, iPad, and Mac.” That enables a ton of new capabilities across Apple’s native apps, such as the ability to generate images or summarize text.
Apple Intelligence comes with a big emphasis on security, as the system will automatically decide whether it needs to use on-device processing or contact Apple’s private cloud computing server to fulfill your request. The system will be available for free and on the iPhone 15 Pro as well as on iPads and Macs with an M1 chip and later.
Siri gets a big AI boost
Apple’s big push into AI also includes Siri. The upgraded voice assistant will now be integrated more deeply into the iPhone, appearing as a pulsating light on the edge of your device. It will give you more control over your apps, allowing you to ask the voice assistant to find information inside a particular email or even surface a photo of one of your friends. Apple is relying on LLMs to help Siri better understand what you say and keep track of follow-up requests and questions.
Apple is building ChatGPT into Siri
Siri’s big AI upgrade also includes an integration with OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot. With the new integration, Siri will automatically determine whether a query would be better suited for ChatGPT. It will then ask for your permission before sending its request to ChatGPT. You’ll be able to use ChatGPT through Siri for free and without an account.
New AI features in Mail, Messages, Photos, and more
Apple is rolling out a bunch of new AI features across its apps in iOS 18, including a way to summarize emails and generate responses. The company showed off its new Genmoji feature, letting you create custom emoji based on a text prompt, along with a new AI image generator called Image Playground.
Apple is bringing AI to the Photos app, too, giving you the ability to search for photos using natural language. You can also clean up objects in the background of your pictures, similar to Google’s Magic Eraser. Additionally, Apple is adding AI-powered transcriptions and summaries to Notes and the Phone apps.
The iPhone gets more customizable in iOS 18
Aside from all the AI, Apple is introducing a new and more customizable Control Center in iOS 18. It’s also launching a way to freely place app icons on your homescreen. The company will also let you lock certain apps with the coming update, preventing other people from using them when you hand them your phone.
Other major changes include a Photos app redesign and a new Game Mode for iPhone that minimizes background activity to optimize gameplay.
Source: https://www.theverge.com/24171190/apple-wwdc-2024-biggest-announcements