Apple Intelligence: the new AI features coming to the iPhone, iPad and Mac

At WWDC 2024, Apple unveiled "Apple Intelligence," a comprehensive suite of AI features designed for iPhones, Macs, and potentially other devices. This rollout, starting later in 2024, promises several advancements: more conversational Siri, the ability to generate images for you inside a variety of apps, and integrations with OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Apple Intelligence features will be available on iPhone 15 Pro and devices with M1 or newer chips

While Apple barely mentioned the word Artificial intelligence during the event, it certainly showed through its product updates that it’s not being left behind in the AI race. Let’s look at all the new AI features coming soon to the iPhone, iPad and Mac.

Meet Apple Intelligence

Apple's new AI suite, cleverly named "Apple Intelligence," tackles a wide variety of tasks. It can help with email writing and proofreading, ensuring your messages are clear and polished. Apple will also allow you to get creative with image generation in three distinct styles, like sketch or cartoon, perfect for adding a fun touch to your messages (think personalised emojis or playful avatars!).

The Math Notes feature on the Calculator app on the iPad, allows you to write down math problems and let the app solve them. This feature is powered by Apple Intelligence too. 

How’s all this possible? Apple says it's utilising on-device AI processing whenever possible because it prioritises user privacy. This keeps your data secure and avoids contributing to cloud-based model training. However, for some more demanding features, offloading to secure, private servers is necessary. That's where "Private Cloud Compute" comes in – a solution designed to balance AI capabilities with user privacy.

Apple Intelligence can generate images for you

Apple's new intelligence system lets you generate images directly within various apps like Messages, Keynote, Pages, Notes, and Freeform. It can even use your existing photos to create new images, like a fun cartoon version of a friend.

Siri gets smarter

Siri is set to become more natural in its conversations, understanding context and tailoring responses to your individual needs. This translates to a more personal and helpful assistant.

One noticeable change is the visual cue when activating Siri. A new light effect will appear around the edge of your screen, providing a clear indication that Siri is ready to listen.

Clean up your images

Apple is introducing a new "Clean Up" tool for iPhones, mirroring features found on high-end Android phones. This tool allows you to remove unwanted elements from your photos, like distracting background figures. While similar to offerings like Google Pixel's Magic Eraser or Samsung Galaxy's Object Eraser, Apple's tool seems to lack the advanced capabilities of Google's Magic Editor. Notably, Google's tool can generate new backgrounds and even use AI to reposition subjects within the photo – functionalities not yet seen in Apple's current iteration.

Apple partners with Open AI for more complex tasks

Siri will gain access to OpenAI's powerful ChatGPT 4o, acting as a backup for complex questions beyond Siri's current capabilities.

Because user privacy is paramount, before tapping into ChatGPT, Siri will always ask for your permission. This ensures you're comfortable with the interaction and allows you to control when this advanced functionality is used.

While Apple is starting with the highly regarded ChatGPT, the company hints at future support for other leading AI models. This opens the door for even more expansive capabilities for Siri in the coming years.