After months of anticipation, Apple introduced Apple Intelligence at WWDC 2024 in June. This announcement followed a surge of generative AI developments from competitors like Google and OpenAI, leading to concerns that the notoriously secretive tech giant was falling behind in the latest technological trend.
However, rather than being unprepared, Apple had a dedicated team working on what turned out to be a distinctive Apple approach to artificial intelligence. While the presentations included the usual flair — Apple is known for its engaging showcases — the essence of Apple Intelligence represents a more practical interpretation of AI.
Apple Intelligence, or AI for short, is not a stand-alone feature but rather an integration into existing products. While it serves as a branding effort, the large language model (LLM)-driven technology will primarily function behind the scenes. For consumers, this technology will manifest mainly through enhanced features in current applications.
Further details were revealed at Apple’s iPhone 16 event on September 9, where the company highlighted several AI-powered capabilities set to be included in their devices. These features include translation on the Apple Watch Series 10, visual search on iPhones, and various enhancements to Siri’s functionalities. The initial rollout of Apple Intelligence is expected at the end of October, included in iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1. A second wave of features will follow in the developer betas for iOS 18.2, iPadOS 18.2, and macOS Sequoia 15.2.
Initially, these features launched in U.S. English, with subsequent additions of localizations for Australian, Canadian, New Zealand, South African, and U.K. English. Support for languages such as Chinese, English (India), English (Singapore), French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, and Vietnamese is slated for 2025. It’s important to note that users in China and the EU may face restrictions in accessing Apple Intelligence features due to regulatory challenges.
What is Apple Intelligence?
Cupertino marketing executives have dubbed Apple Intelligence as “AI for the rest of us.” This platform aims to enhance existing features by harnessing the strengths of generative AI, such as text and image generation. Similar to other platforms like ChatGPT and Google Gemini, Apple Intelligence was developed using extensive information models. These systems utilize deep learning to establish connections across various mediums, including text, images, video, and music.
Apple has introduced new writing tools that use advanced AI technology. These tools are available in several Apple apps like Mail, Messages, and Pages. They can help summarize long texts, check your writing for mistakes, and even write messages for you based on your style and tone.
Apple has also added a feature for creating images. Users can ask for custom emojis (called Genmojis) that fit Apple’s style. There’s also a separate app called Image Playground that lets you create images using prompts, which you can then use in Messages, Keynote, or share on social media.
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Additionally, Apple has revamped Siri, its voice assistant, which hadn’t seen much improvement in recent years. The new Siri is more integrated into Apple’s systems, and instead of just an icon, you’ll see a glowing light around the edge of your iPhone when Siri is active.
What’s really cool about the new Siri is that it can work across different apps. For example, you can ask Siri to edit a photo and then send it directly in a text message. This makes using Siri much smoother than before, as it now understands the context of what you’re doing to give better responses.
Who gets Apple Intelligence and when?
Apple is rolling out new smart features in October with updates for iPhones, iPads, and Macs. These updates will include helpful tools for writing, improving photos, summarizing articles, and a new way to type with Siri.
Some features will be available in the first update, and many more will come in a second update later in October and another one in early 2024. The upcoming features include things like new emojis, fun image tools, and even integration with ChatGPT.
To use these new features for free, you’ll need one of the following devices:
- All iPhone 16 models
- iPhone 15 Pro Max
- iPhone 15 Pro
- iPad Pro (M1 and newer)
- iPad Air (M1 and newer)
- iPad mini (A17 or newer)
- MacBook Air (M1 and newer)
- MacBook Pro (M1 and newer)
- iMac (M1 and newer)
- Mac mini (M1 and newer)
- Mac Studio (M1 Max and newer)
- Mac Pro (M2 Ultra)
It’s important to note that only the Pro versions of the iPhone 15 will get these features because the standard iPhone 15 doesn’t have the right hardware. However, all iPhone 16 models are expected to support these new smart features.
Private Cloud Compute
Apple has taken a targeted approach to building its AI by focusing on specific tasks instead of trying to do everything at once, like other platforms such as GPT and Gemini do. For example, they create special databases just for things like writing emails. This method has a big advantage: many tasks can be completed directly on your device without needing a lot of resources.
However, this doesn’t work for every task. More complicated questions will use Apple’s new Private Cloud Compute service. This means they have remote servers that use Apple’s own technology, which helps maintain privacy similar to what you get on your personal devices. Users won’t notice whether a task is done on their device or in the cloud, unless their device is offline. In that case, if it tries to process a request that needs internet access, it will just show an error.
Apple Intelligence with third-party apps
There was a lot of excitement about Apple possibly teaming up with OpenAI before their big conference. However, it turned out that the partnership wasn’t really about creating a new Apple Intelligence system. Instead, it seems more like Apple needed help with tasks that its own system couldn’t handle well, showing that its smaller AI system has some limits.
Apple Intelligence is free to use, just like ChatGPT, but if you pay for ChatGPT, you get extra features, like being able to ask unlimited questions.
Starting with the updates for iPhone and iPad (iOS 18.2 and iPadOS 18.2) and Mac (macOS Sequoia 15.2), ChatGPT will have two main purposes: to help improve Siri’s knowledge and to enhance writing tools.
When the new service is active, if you ask certain questions, Siri will ask if it can use ChatGPT to find the answer. For example, if you ask for recipes or travel ideas, you might see this option. You can also tell Siri directly to “ask ChatGPT” if you want to use it.
Another key feature with ChatGPT on Apple devices is called Compose. This allows users to write content based on prompts in any app that supports the new writing tools. This feature joins other tools like Style and Summary that already exist.
Lastly, Apple plans to partner with more AI services in the future, and it looks like Google’s Gemini might be the next one.
