Apple isn’t just tip-toeing into AI; they’re going all in with new features that make the iPhone smarter and Siri more useful, but in a way that protects your private information.
At Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference 2024 (WWDC24), the company showed off its version of AI: Apple Intelligence.
For all of my updates from WWDC in Cupertino, check out my Instagram Stories Highlights.
It’s powerful and knows you but keeps your information private.
Apple intelligence will be included in iOS 18, which also gets some key customization options Android users have enjoyed for years, like the ability to place icons anywhere on your home screen or change their colors.
iOS 18 will let you require a passcode to unlock specific apps or hide them completely from view in a special Hidden folder that requires FaceID or a passcode to unlock. No one else using your phone will even know they’re there.
Speaking of security, the iPhone also gets a dedicated password manager called Passwords. It’s the natural evolution of iCloud Keychain, but much more robust. It will work on Windows, too.
Messages can now be sent over satellite when cellular and Wi-Fi aren’t available. RCS support means photos and videos exchanged between iPhone and Android will finally look their best. The green/blue bubble device will still be there, but the functionality between these two devices will be much better.
You can also schedule a message to send later.
Other notable announcements include the iPhone’s ability to record phone calls and provide a post-call transcript and summary of what you said. The phone will announce to both parties that the call is being recorded.
An official calculator app is coming to the iPad with a neat trick: It can solve math problems in your own handwriting. Homework will never be the same.
As for that Apple intelligence… it is seemingly baked into every corner of the iPhone. It can help you write, generate and edit images.
Siri will be able to pull useful information from your email, messages, and apps in a private way to answer your most complex questions like “What time is my flight tomorrow morning?” or “Do I have any reservations for my upcoming Hawaii trip?”
Apple says it is keeping many AI tasks on the phone for maximum privacy, but if a request must go to the cloud for processing, Apple is using its own servers and data isn’t stored or shared after the request is finished.
If Siri’s answer isn’t enough, the voice assistant will ask you if you want to send your question to ChatGPT. For privacy reasons, you’ll have to give your specific approval each time.
Apple plans to add more third-party AI assistants to the mix as time goes on; they specifically mentioned that they were talking to Google for Gemini but didn’t give a timeline.
“I think they did a very good job of narrowing down what the AI does, what Apple Intelligence can do in terms of this. [It] will help you be a better writer, it will help you communicate better with image generation in playful ways, ways that people already use,” said Zac Hall, editor at large at the website 9to5Mac.
iOS 18 launches in the fall. It will be compatible with the iPhone XR and up as well as the iPhone SE 2. But, if you want those fancy new Apple Intelligence features, you’ll need an iPhone 15 Pro and up, which means a lot of people might be eyeing a hardware upgrade in the fall.
