Apple Intelligence, a smarter Siri and iOS 18 – tech giant unveils brainy new software

Apple has revealed its latest plans with a huge leap into the world of artificial intelligence (AI) plus a new and brainer Siri assistant as well as sweeping iOS 18 updates.

The developments were presented at June’s WWDC 2024 event in California and saw AI take centre stage as Apple Intelligence was announced, plus a massive AI upgrade for Siri as well as the reveal for the new iOS 18, which is likely to be launched in September.

The World Wide Developer Conference, to give it its full name, was all about the software for Apple and news on the new iPhone 16 range will have to wait until later this year, again most likely September.

Here we take a look at Apple’s latest creations and what it will mean for you and your iPhone, iPad or Mac.

Apple Intelligence – what is it and what will it do for you?

Love it, hate it or not bothered, AI is here to stay and more and more people are using it to connect up the digital elements of their lives, be more organised and help complete all manner of work, education and daily tasks.

Apple Intelligence has been described as ‘cross platform’, which means it is coming to almost every Apple platform and will be available for more recent Apple devices.

The focus is on being able to help people in their everyday lives, but Apple also says there is a strong emphasis on privacy and as little of your data as possible is shared with others, including Apple itself.

It is also ‘generative AI’, which means it can create original content for you including text and images.

Siri is also lined up to have a big AI upgrade which means ‘they’ will be able to perform far more tasks or suggest actions for you, based on your device usage.

So what will Apple Intelligence do for me?

Despite the talk of privacy, Apple is giving Apple Intelligence total access to all your device data. That sounds scary but it will essentially be a ‘closed’ system between you, your device and the AI.

This means it will be able to read all of your messages, monitor your calendar, follow your Maps and location, record your phone calls, look at your photos and understand any other personal data.

In other words it will learn to understand you, what you are doing and why. That means it can support you in multiple day-to-day tasks on your device, suggest options, give reminders and anticipate what you want.

Examples Apple gives include asking it to play a song or display content someone texted to you – which obviously means you don’t have to hunt back through dozens of text messages – or to email a message or content to someone.

That may not sound much, but think about it – all you have to say is ‘email this presentation to Sharon in accounts’ and it’s done, no faffing about composing an email.

Apple says you can ask it to flip your phone camera, add a filter to an image, move files around, open weather information for a certain day, the list goes on.

Generative AI

Many people are now using AI to assist them with blogs, posts, business or education tasks, in fact all manner of content.

Apple Intelligence is described by TechRadar as a more robust platform than ‘just’ ChatGPT and it says it will offer generative AI tools for writing and editing, image creation and organisation.

Whenever you type or input text it will offer suggestions to improve your writing. It will rewrite, proofread and summarise text for you.

It will keep tabs on your incoming mail messages and notifications and will try to prioritise them for you. There is a new Reduce Interruptions Focus mode that uses AI to only highlight urgent messages, for example.

Audio is not left out - it will summarise conversations and messages for you and it can even summarise audio recordings. You can record phone calls and have Apple Intelligence summarise the conversation.

A new Image Playground app is part of Apple Intelligence and it will use your prompts or suggest options when working with images, so you can select several different styles or even turn people in the picture into cartoon-like images.

A new emoji image generator called Genmoji is being introduced too - you type a description and an emoji appears.

There is a Magic Eraser-style tool that removes unwanted objects in photos and replaces them with a natural background.

You will also be able to use it when searching photos and videos, so to look for a specific scene in a video, for example. You can also search for a category of photos and the AI will put together a video presentation that fits. It will include photos and videos, as well as background music.

Apple Intelligence will also offer free access to ChatGPT, with a level of privacy added. TechRadar suggests other AI platforms are likely to become partners in due course.

‘Hey Siri, did you just get smarter?’

Many of us use Siri for day-to-day tasks but often the benefits are limited – that is set to change as Apple Intelligence gives your ‘assistant’ a major overhaul.

When you activate Siri, your entire home screen will ripple to show Siri has taken over.

Apple says it will have ‘richer language-understanding capabilities’, so it will be more natural and more relevant. When you start a conversation, it will remember what you were talking about when you make your next request, so you won't have to start over every time.

It will now also accept typing and not just speech, so you can use the keyboard to give Siri commands and queries.

Siri will be able to answer thousands more questions about how to do things on your Apple device. It will also know what is happening on screen and will make suggestions based on what it sees.

Siri will also know you, or get to know you and will know much more of the information you have on your device.

How? Well you could say ‘play that song John was talking about’ and it will know what you mean because it read your text conversation with John.

Or you could say ‘when does mum’s flight get into Heathrow?’ and it will know her flight details from your previous interactions with her and provide you with real-time tracking information.

That all sounds helpful – but perhaps a bit scary too?

Will all this be private?

Apple says it will and its presentation at WWDC was very focused on privacy.

The company says everything is running on your device, so while Siri will know everything that is in your text messages, it won’t share that data with anyone else, including Apple.

Cloud data is also protected, again according to Apple.

Will I get Apple Intelligence on my device?

This latest upgrade is very cutting-edge and the only iPhones Apple Intelligence will work on are the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max. It will presumably work on the new 16 range, of course.

The current iPad Pro and iPad Air devices, as well as previous iPad devices that used the Apple M1 and M2 chips, will all be supported. The base model iPad 10.9 and the iPad mini will not be supported.

If you have a Macbook Air, Macbook Pro, iMac, Mac Studio or Mac mini with an M1 chip or newer inside, you should have the new AI. Apple computers with an Intel processor on board will probably not be supported.

Devices that can upgrade to iOS 18 will not all be able to use Apple Intelligence.

Coming of age – iOS 18 is unveiled

The new iOS 18 was also revealed at the WWDC event and it is now available in ‘beta’ mode for developers, as well as a public beta option.

We would strongly advise leaving beta alone, unless you are a developer and it is an important part of your work, as the early prototype versions do not contain every feature and are likely to have some issues, hence why beta is there to help iron out any bugs.

The launch is likely to be this September so it isn’t too long to wait.

It is promising major upgrades to core iPhone apps including Mail, Messages, Photos, Maps and Wallet, while of course the new AI tools are headed to the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max.

Any iPhone newer than the iPhone XS will be compatible with iOS 18.

We will aim to bring you a more detailed look at iOS 18 when it is officially launched, but for now, here is a quick rundown on what is being promised.

Photos

Apple is touting the biggest redesign for its Photos app ever, which will see it merged into a single view, giving a photo grid and a date grid, to better search for pictures. You will be able to filter photos by categories, such as screenshots and groups.

There's also a new 'Recovered' album, which houses any photos or videos not in your main photo gallery.

Home screen

For the first time you will be able to customise your home screen by moving widgets and icons about to where you want them, leaving space for the wallpaper picture behind to be displayed. There will be a new dark mode for app icons as well as the ability to add colour tints.

Control centre

This is also being redesigned. You will be able to separate the Control Centre into distinct groups, such as Media and Home and adjust the size of the widgets too. And another first, you can edit which Control Centre widgets appear on the lock screen.

Messaging

You will be able react to messages using any emoji, as you can with WhatsApp and you'll be able to schedule messages to send at a convenient time. So for example, text someone a reminder but schedule it for after 8am when they wake up, rather than when you think of it at 2am!

New text formatting is being added to give underline, strikethrough and bold effects, as well as add new effects such as ripple effects.

There should now also be a richer messaging experience when you're messaging someone who doesn't own an Apple device.

The satellite capabilities of compatible iPhones are being expanded to allow you to send messages via satellite when normal mobile and Wi-Fi connections aren’t available.

Mail

iOS 18 will categorise emails into four folders: Primary, Transactions, Updates and Promotions, as well as give easy-to-read summaries, too, helping you to quickly scan for what’s important.

Wallet

The app is being upgraded with a new 'tap to cash' feature, which should help make paying friends easier.

ID app lock

Optional Face ID authentication will be available for all iPhone apps – not just Notes and banking. You can also hide apps in a new Hidden Apps folder.

Ditch the Calculator

If you enter a maths problem in any text field, the operating system will solve it for you.