Apple announces Apple Intelligence, its new AI system running across your iPhone, iPad, and Mac

With the arrival of Apple Intelligence, you now have generative AI that can run across your iPhone, iPad, and Mac, at your fingertips.
#apple #wwdc #appleintelligence #ai

By Ken Wong - 11 Jun 2024

Apple Intelligence will run across iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia.

At WWDC 2024, Apple unveiled its move into the AI arena with the launch of Apple Intelligence. According to Apple, Apple Intelligence “understands personal context to deliver intelligence that is helpful and relevant for you”.

Running across your iPhone, iPad, and Mac as well as their respective just-announced updated operating systems - iOS 18, iPadOS 18 and Mac Sequoia - Apple Intelligence will be integrated into the apps we use to work, communicate and express ourselves.

Apple Intelligence capabilities

Apple Intelligence will work across languages, images and actions.

Craig Federighi, Senior Vice President of Software Engineering at Apple, said during the keynote presentation on Apple Intelligence that it would understand and create language and images, act across apps, and draw from personal context to simplify and accelerate everyday tasks. Here's a four-minute clip on everything you need to know about Apple Intelligence or skim through the highlights in our text below.

On Text

Not happy with what you've written? Let Apple Intelligence rewrite it.

For example, you can opt to rewrite the text you’ve typed out and are unhappy with the tone or language. It can rewrite, proofread and even summarise text for you to suit a review, school notes, or report for work. It will work across apps like Mail, Notes, Pages, Keynote, and third-party apps.

On Images

Create your own image from a photo to suit any occasion.

For images, Apple Intelligence allows you to express yourself in new ways with your photos, emojis and gifs. With Image Playground, you can create your own images in seconds, choosing from three styles: Animation, Illustration, or Sketch. For example, create an animated image of a person in your chat with a cake when you send them a birthday greeting. Or simply type a description or use an existing photograph of a friend or family member to create a Genmoji - a truly personalized emoji. Again, this experience is built across apps like, Messages, Notes, Freeform, Pages, and Keynote.

You can also use normal language to give commands to your apps, like searching for photos, such as “Maya skateboarding in a tie-dye shirt”. Additionally, the new Clean Up tool can identify and remove distracting objects in the background of a photo without accidentally altering the subject.

Apple Intelligence can also take action across your apps on your behalf. For example, tell it to “Show me all the photos of Mom, Olivia and me,” and Apple Intelligence will do so. The same will work on videos too.

On Personalisation

Personal context is big in Apple Intelligence.

In terms of Personal Context, Apple Intelligence can retrieve and analyse your relevant data from across your apps as well as to reference the content on your screens like an email or calendar event. For example, if you were wondering if a change in your meeting timing would make you late for your daughter’s dance recital, Apple Intelligence would be able to understand the relationship with my daughter, the dance details, my meeting location, traffic conditions and tell me if I need to leave earlier.

Keeping it private and secure

How Apple Intelligence keeps your data safe.

Federighi also spoke about security for Apple Intelligence and how “powerful intelligence went hand in hand with powerful privacy”. Using what Apple terms “on-device processing” and represents an integration of hardware and software such that Apple Intelligence is aware of your personal data without collecting your personal data.

If your device lacks the computational power to meet more complex requests, Apple has designed Private Cloud Compute.

Private Cloud Compute allows Apple Intelligence to flex and scale its computational capacity and draw on larger, server-based models for more complex requests, all while protecting your privacy. Your request will run on servers powered by Apple silicon and will send on the data relevant to the task to Apple silicon servers and provide a guarantee that your data is never retained or exposed.

Additionally, independent experts can inspect the code that runs on Apple silicon servers to verify privacy, and Private Cloud Compute cryptographically ensures that iPhone, iPad, and Mac do not talk to a server unless its software has been publicly logged for inspection to provide “intelligence you can trust” as Federighi put it.

Bringing more to Siri

Siri also works better with Apple Intelligence.

With the addition of Apple Intelligence, Apple says that Siri has become “more natural, more contextually relevant, and more personal”. It can follow along even if you stumble over words and maintain context from one request to the next. Plus, you can now type to Siri, and switch back and forth between text and voice to communicate with Siri using what feels right for you at that moment.

Siri has all of Apple's product knowledge at tis fingertips.

Lost at how to schedule an email in the Mail app? Well Siri can now give you the answers you need thanks to the extensive product knowledge of Apple devices Siri has at its disposal.

With onscreen awareness, Siri will be able to understand and take action with the content you have across more apps over time. For example, if a friend texts you their new address in Messages, you can tell Siri to, “Add this address to his contact card.”

Siri can take action on your behalf now with Apple Intelligence.

Apple added that with Apple Intelligence, Siri will be able to take hundreds of new actions in and across Apple and third-party apps including some that leverage Apple’s new writing and image generation capabilities.

ChatGPT integration

Asking a question of ChatGPT is even easier.

Apple is integrating ChatGPT access into experiences within iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia, allowing users to access its expertise and image and document understanding capabilities without needing to jump between tools or apps, all via Siri.

Siri can tap into ChatGPT’s expertise when helpful. You will be asked before any questions are sent to ChatGPT, along with any documents or photos, and Siri will then present the answer directly after confirming it is ok to share your data with ChatGPT.

Federighi added that Apple was planning to add support for other AI models in the future.

Arriving soon?

Apple Intelligence will be available on iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, and iPads and Macs with the M1 processor or later. Apple Intelligence is free for users and will be available in beta as part of iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia later this year in U.S. English.

More Updates from WWDC 2024:

Our articles may contain affiliate links. If you buy through these links, we may earn a small commission.