Apple unveils AI innovation for iPhone, iPad, & Mac

Apple has unveiled "Apple Intelligence", a new personal intelligence system designed for iPhone, iPad, and Mac. The innovation is integrated into iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia, leveraging Apple's generative models to enhance user experiences across its devices.

"Apple Intelligence" aims to deliver personalised, contextually aware intelligence that comprehends and generates language and images and automates tasks across various applications. The system is powered by Apple's proprietary silicon, which supports complex computational tasks both on-device and through dedicated Apple silicon servers. This approach promises to set new benchmarks for privacy in AI.

Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, expressed enthusiasm about the latest innovation. He highlighted the unique fusion of generative AI and personal context, which aims to deliver highly relevant and useful intelligence while ensuring privacy and security. Cook remarked, "This is AI as only Apple can deliver it, and we can’t wait for users to experience what it can do."

The new system introduces a suite of capabilities focused on understanding and creating language. Apple Intelligence incorporates systemwide Writing Tools available in iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia. These tools enhance text rewriting, proofreading, and summarising functionalities across applications such as Mail, Notes, Pages, and third-party apps. Features like "Rewrite", "Proofread", and "Summarise" aim to bolster users' confidence in their writing by offering multiple versions of texts, grammar and style suggestions, and concise summaries, respectively.

Email management has also been streamlined with Apple Intelligence. A "Priority Messages" feature in Mail highlights urgent emails at the top of the inbox, while summarised previews provide a quick overview without opening each message. A "Smart Reply" function offers quick response suggestions, and the "Priority Notifications" feature in Notifications ensures critical alerts do not get overlooked. The "Reduce Interruptions" feature helps maintain focus by surfacing only immediate attention notifications during specific times.

Beyond text, Apple Intelligence enhances audio recordings and summarisation in Notes and the Phone app. During calls, automatic notifications about recording are given, and post-call summaries are generated to capture key points.

In terms of visual communication, the "Image Playground" feature empowers users to create customised images across various styles such as Animation, Illustration, or Sketch. It integrates seamlessly with apps like Messages, Notes, Keynote, and Pages, as well as third-party apps that adopt the new API. The feature includes the ability to use personal photos to generate images, making messaging and note-taking visually engaging.

The introduction of "Genmoji" allows more personalised and expressive emoji creation. Users can type descriptions to generate custom emojis, which can be shared within messages as stickers or reactions.

Apple Intelligence extends its capabilities to the Photos app as well, offering advanced search and editing features powered by natural language understanding. Users can search for specific images or moments within videos and remove unwanted objects from photos with the "Clean Up" tool. The "Memories" feature uses AI to craft tailored stories from selected photos and videos, organising them into thematic narratives with music suggestions from Apple Music.

Siri, Apple's voice assistant, enters a new era, becoming more contextually aware and personalised through Apple Intelligence. Siri now offers richer language understanding, follows user requests more naturally and can assist with a broader range of actions across apps. Siri’s new design includes an elegant glowing light around the screen's edge when active.

Apple also announced the integration of ChatGPT within its platforms, enabling users to access the AI's expertise directly from iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia. Siri will utilise ChatGPT for more complex queries, maintaining user privacy and discretion. This integration promises seamless AI assistance without needing to switch between tools.

A cornerstone of Apple Intelligence is its commitment to user privacy through on-device processing and Private Cloud Compute, which balances on-device inference with server-based computations. Data handled by these systems remains secure, with independent experts granted the ability to inspect Apple’s server code to ensure privacy compliance.

Apple Intelligence will be available for free on supported devices, including iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, and M1 or later versions of iPad and Mac, starting with beta releases in the coming spring.