After months of silence, Apple has made a grand entry into the AI race. During Monday’s Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC), the tech giant unveiled its latest innovation: ‘Apple Intelligence’. This new focus on AI follows the enormous success of the ChatGPT chatbot 18 months ago.
What is Apple Intelligence?
Apple Intelligence is essentially an umbrella term for a range of AI-powered features that will be integrated across Apple’s devices and applications. This includes iPhones, iPads, and Mac computers, provided they are equipped with the upcoming iOS 18 software and an advanced AI chip.
New Features in iOS 18
With iOS 18, users can expect several AI-driven enhancements:
- AI-Generated Emoji: In the Messages app, users can type descriptions to create unique emojis.
- AI-Summarized Documents: Both the Mail and Notes apps will have the ability to summarize documents using AI.
- Image Playground: This new feature will generate images based on user inputs.
- ChatGPT Integration: Siri will leverage ChatGPT to provide more advanced language-understanding capabilities, helping users with tasks across multiple apps.
A new Clean Up tool in the Photos app will allow users to remove distracting objects from photos, similar to Google’s photo-editing technology.
The Big Announcement
At the unveiling, CEO Tim Cook emphasized that Apple Intelligence marks “a new chapter in Apple innovation” and will “transform what users can do with our products”. He highlighted that combining generative AI and personal context would deliver “truly helpful intelligence”.
Controversy and Reactions
Not everyone welcomed the announcement. Elon Musk dramatically expressed strong concerns about Apple’s alliance with OpenAI. He warned that Apple products would be banned at his companies if OpenAI’s ChatGPT is integrated at the operating system level. Musk considers this integration an “unacceptable security violation” and believes it compromises user privacy.
What devices will get Apple Intelligence?
- iPhone 15 Pro Max
- iPhone 15 Pro
- iPad Pro (M1 and later)
- iPad Air (M1 and later)
- MacBook Air (M1 and later)
- MacBook Pro (M1 and later)
- iMac (M1 and later)
- Mac mini (M1 and later)
- Mac Studio (M1 Max and later)
- Mac Pro (M2 Ultra)
Notes: Apple Intelligence needs an up-to-date AI chip in a device to run – so the A17 Pro (in iPhones) or the M1 or later (in iPads and Macs).