Key Highlights
- New AI tools for text and image creation with strong privacy features
- AI-Powered Siri will be able to understand personal context
- ChatGPT boosts Siri and AI functions, available for all users.
Apple made important AI announcements at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) 2024. CEO Tim Cook introduced the “intelligence” updates, focusing on Apple Intelligence, an integration of generative AI into Apple devices. Also Read | AI Magic: The Beatles’ Final Song ‘Now and Then’ Released After Decades
Apple Intelligence
Apple Intelligence is built on five pillars: powerful, integrated, intuitive, personal, and private. This new feature includes generative AI-powered Writing Tools that can summarize and rewrite text across different apps. Additionally, users can now generate artistic images in various styles based on photos in their gallery, which can be used in apps like Messages, Keynote, Freeform, and Pages.
Apple emphasizes privacy with on-device intelligence, ensuring that all processing occurs on the device using its chipset. To balance privacy and powerful AI features, Apple introduced Private Cloud Compute, an encrypted cloud solution for secure AI processing.
AI-Powered Siri
Siri has received a major AI upgrade, focusing on contextual understanding. This means Siri can now comprehend natural language and vaguely spoken sentences to find their underlying meaning. Siri will also integrate with various native Apple apps, allowing it to take actions within these apps based on verbal prompts. For instance, users can instruct Siri to “make the image glow,” and Siri will open the photo in edit mode and adjust brightness and contrast.
In a demo, Siri demonstrated its ability to answer the prompt “When will my mom’s plane land” by checking flight information from an email. The new Siri design and capabilities will be available across iPhone, iPad, and Mac devices.
In-App Apple Intelligence Features
Apple Intelligence enhances several apps:
- Photos App: The Memories feature will now automatically select the best photos and videos to create storylines. A new Clean Up tool can remove unwanted objects from photos without altering the main subject, similar to Google Pixel’s Magic Eraser and Galaxy AI’s Object Eraser.
- Mail App: New Writing Tools include Rewrite, allowing users to rephrase messages in various tonalities, and proofread, which checks grammar and sentence structure. Summarize extracts key points from long emails, and Smart Replies offers quick response suggestions.
- Messages App: Users can create custom emojis, called Genmojis, by typing text prompts. The AI generates several emoji options for users to choose from.
Also Read | Is Google’s Gemini A Better ChatGPT Alternative? Let’s Find Out!
ChatGPT Integration
Apple is integrating OpenAI’s ChatGPT into its ecosystem. Free users can access ChatGPT without logging in or sending information off the device. Paid users can link their accounts for a more personalized experience. ChatGPT will be integrated within Siri and systemwide Writing Tools, enhancing AI features across Apple platforms.
These AI features will run on Apple silicon and the Neural Engine, available in beta on the iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, and iPads and Macs with M1 or later. Siri’s new capabilities will be initially available in US English as part of iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia later this year.
