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Apple made several major announcements about artificial intelligence (AI) during the keynote session of its annual developer-focused event, the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) 2024, on Monday. The event was kicked off by CEO Tim Cook, who emphasized that “intelligence” updates would be announced toward the end of the event. The AI segment kicked off with Cook mentioning Apple Intelligence, which appears to be the Cupertino-based tech giant’s version of integrating generative AI into its devices.
Apple Intelligence
Highlighting the five pillars of Apple Intelligence — powerful, integrated, intuitive, personal and private — the company unveiled new generative AI-powered writing tools that can summarize content and rewrite text across app devices. The company is also adding image generation capabilities to its devices, which will be activated in apps like Messages, Keynote, Freeform and Pages. Users won’t be able to create realistic images, but they can generate artistic images in a variety of styles. These images are generated based on photos in the user’s gallery.
To explain Apple Intelligence’s focus on privacy, the company promises “on-device intelligence,” which is simply on-device processing using the device’s chipset. The company argues that large AI models require more computing power, and also unveiled Private Cloud Compute, Apple’s encrypted cloud solution to balance privacy while delivering powerful AI features.
Siri, powered by Apple Intelligence, gains new capabilities
Siri, as previously reported, is getting a major AI overhaul. At the heart of the upgrade is contextual understanding. The virtual assistant can now understand natural language and vaguely spoken phrases to find the underlying meaning behind them. Additionally, the AI-powered Siri will also be integrated with several native Apple apps. Through this integration, Siri will be able to take actions within the apps through verbal prompts. For example, Siri will be able to open a photo in edit mode and add brightness and contrast when asked to “make the image glow.”
Siri gets new Apple Intelligence capabilities
Photo Credit: Apple
Apple says Siri will be able to understand things and get things done that it’s never done before. In a demo, Siri takes the prompt “When is my mom’s plane landing?” and checks flight information from an email to provide the answer. Siri’s new design and capabilities will be available on iPhone, iPad and Mac devices.
In-app Apple Intelligence features
The Memories feature in the Photos app is now enhanced with Apple Intelligence. The AI capability automatically picks the best photos and videos based on their description and creates a storyline. There’s also a new Clean Up tool added to the Photos app, which can remove unwanted objects in the background of the photo without altering the subject. This is similar to the Magic Eraser in Google Pixel devices and Object Eraser in Galaxy AI.
New writing tools for the Mail app
Photo Credit: Apple
Another app that is getting Apple Intelligence capabilities is the Mail app. It will feature several Writing Tools, including Rewrite, which allows users to rewrite their messages in different tones, such as friendly, professional, and concise. Users can also rewrite it in different styles using manual prompts. Another Writing Tool, Proofread, checks for grammar, word choice, and sentence structure in composed emails. Summarise is another tool that highlights the most important points in long emails. Smart Replies has also been introduced.
The Messages app is also getting new Apple Intelligence features. Users will be able to create custom emoji, called Genmoji, by typing a text prompt in the Messages app. The AI will generate multiple iterations of the described emoji, and users can pick one.
ChatGPT comes to Apple devices
Apple is expanding its AI ecosystem to third-party tools, announcing integration with OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Free users can use ChatGPT without logging in or having any information leave the device. Paid users can connect their accounts to the platform. It will also be usable on Apple devices.
ChatGPT integration with Apple devices
Photo Credit: Apple
ChatGPT will be integrated into Siri and systemwide Writing Tools across all Apple platforms. It will also power the image and document processing capabilities of app-integrated tools. In essence, GPT AI models will provide their multi-modal LLM capabilities for most of the AI features announced under Apple Intelligence.
Apple Intelligence is powered by Apple silicon and its Neural Engine. These AI features are available in beta on iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, and iPad and Mac with M1 and later. In beta, Siri capabilities will be available when the device language is set to U.S. English as part of iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia later this year.
