At WWDC 24, Apple announced that it is finally joining the party andgoing all-in on AI. The company unveiled a wide range of AI-powered features which it’s calling Apple Intelligence (although I’m disappointed they didn’t go with Apple iNtelligence).
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Features that utilize machine learning were mentioned for all platforms, including iOS 18, iPadOS 18, tvOS 18, watchOS 11, macOS 15, and visionOS 2 for theVision Pro. However, the new Apple Intelligence features were only discussed in the context of iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS 15, so it doesn’t look like your Apple Watch or Apple TV will be getting AI just yet.
Some of the AI features of Apple Intelligence are things thatalready appear on competitor’s devices, but there are some useful features that are specific to your Apple devices. Here are all the AI features coming to Apple’s platforms.
1AI-powered Siri
Siri finally gets smarter
One of the biggest announcements was the updated version of Siri. This makes interacting with Siri a much more conversational experience as Siri can finally understand context over a series of interactions. However, Siri will also be able to do more, such as interacting directly with apps, or following multiple instructions from a single command, such as “rotate this photo 90 degrees and crop it to a square format”. you may also correct yourself mid-sentence, and Siri will still understand what you mean.
Siri is able to interact with apps, including third-party apps, allowing you to do more complex tasks, such as editing a photo in the Photos app and then emailing the edited photo to a contact, all with a single command. It should make using Siri to achieve your goals quicker and more intuitive.
Another powerful feature is the ability to use personal context. You can ask Siri about that recipe that your friend Clare sent you, and Siri will be able to pull up the relevant recipe even if you can’t remember whether she sent it via email or in Messages.
One of the most useful new Siri features is on-screen awareness. This allows Siri to understand the context of what is visible on the screen. For example, if you open an iMessage with an address in it, you can ask Siri to create a new contact called Steve with that address. Siri will understand that you mean the address on the screen, and will automatically create the contact using that address information.
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2Use ChatGPT via Siri
Siri can get help when she needs it
Thanks to Apple’s deal with OpenAI,ChatGPTis now built into iOS 18. If you ask Siri something that she’s unable to answer, she’ll ask you if it’s ok to ask ChatGPT to help. The response will then be generated with ChatGPT 4-o, without the need for a ChatGPT subscription. If you do have a paid subscription, you can use the additional features that you pay for from within Siri.
This makes Siri far more capable than she’s ever been before, even if she does have to use another AI chatbot to answer the questions on her behalf.
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3Prioritizing Notifications
See your most important notifications first
If you find yourself overwhelmed by notifications, this feature could really help. Using AI, your iPhone, iPad, or Mac can now show you the most important notifications at the top of the stack, even if these aren’t the most recent ones that you’ve received.
Your notifications also include summaries, too. For example, if you receive a long iMessage, the notification on your iPhone will show a summary of what the message says.
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4Apple Mail summaries
Catch up with your emails faster
Catching up with emails on Apple devices is set to get a lot quicker, thanks to new AI features that will summarize your emails. Instead of showing the first two lines of each message as it does currently, your inbox will now show a summary of the email content for each message.
You can also use summaries for individual emails. Tap on a long email and you can see a summary of the entire content. This is a useful feature, but these summaries are similar to features already announced by Google at itsI/O 2024 conferenceearlier in the year.
Mail can also use AI to sort your email by priority so that the most important emails appear at the top of your inbox instead of the ones that arrived most recently.
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5Improve your writing
Use AI to make your writing better
If you’re writing emails or any other form of text, there are some useful new writing features that can help you rewrite your content. You can select some text, for example, and have it rewritten in a more friendly or professional tone. You can make it more concise, or generate a list of key points. You can also summarize your text to add a TLDR to the end of a long email, for example.
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6Suggested Replies
AI-generated suggestions for Messages and Mail
If you ever get stuck knowing how to reply to a message or an email, then this feature may be what you’ve been waiting for. Your Apple devices will use AI to generate suggestions for replies that you’re able to quickly use in Messages or Mail with a single tap.
If the message you’re replying to contains questions, then the suggested replies will offer suggestions for potential answers to these questions. For example, if someone asked if you would be attending their wedding and if you’re bringing a guest, it might suggest a reply stating that you’d love to come, but that it would be just you attending, as well as multiple alternatives to choose from.
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7Create original images
Generative AI that can work with your contacts
There’s a new tool called Image Playground that lets you create images from concepts that are extracted from your Messages. You can then combine these concepts to create an AI-generated image that combines these concepts. It’s also possible to include your own image or the image of the person you’re messaging as one of the concepts to use when creating your images. You can even create an image directly from a description.
Another tool called Image Wand allows you to circle a hand-drawn sketch in your Notes, and open an Image Playground that includes your sketch. you may then generate an image based on your sketch and any other concepts you choose to include.
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8Custom Emojis
No more struggling to find the perfect choice with Genmoji
Sometimes it can be hard to find the perfect emoji to sum up a situation. All that will be a thing of the past, thanks to Apple’s AI-generated custom emojis, called Genmoji. This feature generates a bespoke emoji for you based on your description. You can even select someone from the Photos app and generate a Genmoji with their likeness.
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9Video Memories
Make your own memories in the Photos app
Memories in the Photos app can be really impressive. These automatically generated slideshows collect together photos and turn them into a video based around a specific theme or date, but up until now these were created by your iPhone with no input from you.
In iOS 18, you can generate your own memory movies simply by entering a prompt. Your iPhone will find the best photos, put them together, and add appropriate music, to create your own bespoke memory.
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10Photo retouching
Apple adds AI editing tools to Photos
Google went big on marketing the AI photo editing tools in the Google Pixel 8 and 8 Pro. Apple has finally added some of its own, with the ability to make edits such as removing unwanted objects from images in Photos using the Clean Up tool. It’s a useful feature, but one that’s already been around for a while on other devices.
