Tech giant Apple has introduced Apple Intelligence, a new personal intelligence system for iPhone, iPad and Mac devices.
Apple Intelligence, which is integrated into iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia, harnesses the power of Apple silicon to understand and create language and images, take action across apps, and simplify and accelerate everyday tasks.
“We’re thrilled to introduce a new chapter in Apple innovation. Apple Intelligence will transform what users can do with our products — and what our products can do for our users,” said Tim Cook, CEO, Apple.
“Our unique approach combines generative AI with a user’s personal context to deliver truly helpful intelligence.”
New ways to understand and create language
With brand-new Writing Tools built into the new Apple devices, users can rewrite, proofread, and summarise text in all the apps that they write, in including Mail, Notes, Pages, and third-party apps.
In Rewrite, users can choose from different versions of what they have written, adjusting the tone to suit the audience and task at hand.
Proofread checks grammar, word choice, sentence structure and can suggest edits that users can review or accept while Summarize allows users to select text and have it recapped in the form of a paragraph, bullet points, a table, or a list.
In Mail, Priority Messages, a new section at the top of the inbox shows the most urgent emails while users can also can see summaries without needing to open a message. If there are long threads, users can view pertinent details with just a tap.
Smart Reply will offer suggestions for a quick response as well as identify questions in an email to ensure everything is answered.
Priority Notifications will appear at the top of the stack to surface what’s most important while summaries allows users to scan long or stacked notifications to show key details on the Lock Screen.
To help users to stay in the present, the Reduce Interruptions feature will only allow notifications that might need immediate attention to be displayed.
In the Notes and Phone apps, users can now record, transcribe, and summarise audio. When a recording is initiated during a call, participants will get notified and after the call ends Apple Intelligence will generate a summary of the key points.
Image playground makes communication and self‑expression even more fun
Image Playground, which is built into apps but is also available as a dedicated app, allows users to create fun images, choosing from three styles:
- Animation
- Illustration
- Sketch.
With Image Playground, users can choose from different categories like themes, costumes, accessories, and places; type a description to define an image; choose someone from their picture gallery to put in their image; and pick their favourite style.
In Message, users can use Image Playground to create fun images for friends, and even see personalised suggested concepts related to their conversations.
With Notes, Image Playground allows rough sketches to be transformed into images, and users can even select empty space to create an image using context from the surrounding area.
Other apps that Image Playground is also available in include Keynote, Freeform, and Pages, as well as in third-party apps that adopt the new Image Playground API.
New features in photos give users more control
Apple Intelligence is making the process of searching for photos and videos even more convenient.
Natural language can be used to search for specific photos, such as “Maya skateboarding in a tie-dye shirt,” or “Katie with stickers on her face.”
Users can also find specific moments in clips so people can go right to the relevant segment. The new Clean Up tool can identify and remove distracting objects in the background of a photo without altering the subject.
In Memories, users can create the story they want to see by simply typing a description.
Then Apple Intelligence will use language and image understanding to pick out the best photos and videos based on the description, craft a storyline with chapters based on themes identified from the photos, and arrange them into a movie.
Users will even get song suggestions to match their memory from Apple Music. Photos and videos are kept private on the device, and will not be shared with Apple or anyone else.
Siri enters a new era
With richer language-understanding capabilities, Siri has the ability to simplify and accelerate everyday tasks.
It can follow along if users stumble over words and maintain context from one request to the next. Users can also type to Siri as well as switch between text and voice to communicate with Siri in whatever way feels right for the moment.
Siri also has a brand-new design with a glowing light that wraps around the edge of the screen when the digital assistant is active.
The digital assistant can now give users device support and answer questions about how to do something on iPhone, iPad, and Mac.
With onscreen awareness, Siri will be able to understand and take action with users’ content in more apps over time.
A new standard for privacy in AI
Apple Intelligence relies on understanding deep personal context while also protecting user privacy.
To run more complex requests that require more processing power, Private Cloud Compute extends the privacy and security of Apple devices into the cloud to unlock even more intelligence.
With Private Cloud Compute, Apple Intelligence can flex and scale its computational capacity and draw on larger, server-based models for more complex requests.
According to Apple, Private Cloud Compute ensures that iPhone, iPad, and Mac do not talk to a server unless its software has been publicly logged for inspection.
Apple Intelligence is free for users, and will be available in beta as part of iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia from the third quarter of 2024, in US English. It will also be available on iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, and iPad and Mac.
Some features, software platforms, and additional languages will become available over the course of the next year.
IOL Technology