by Joe Rossignol
iOS 18 will apparently feature a new Safari browsing assistant, according to internal code on Apple's servers discovered by Nicholas Alvarez. MacRumors contributor Aaron Perris has confirmed that the code exists, but not many details are known at this time.
Update: Alvarez has since stated that iCloud Private Relay could be is not associated with this function. Safari Browsing Assistant could be one of many new generative AI features rumored to be coming to iPhones running iOS 18 later this year. There are already several iPhone web browsers with artificial intelligence tools, such as Microsoft Edge with GPT-4-based Copilot and Arc Search, which can summarize web pages to provide at-a-glance information. Alvarez also discovered that is called an “Encrypted Visual Search” feature in the server code on Apple's servers, but specific details are unknown. MacRumors contributor Steve Moser last year discovered a new visual search feature for Apple's Vision Pro headset in VisionOS beta code that would allow users to copy and paste real-world printed text into apps and more, but the feature hasn't launched yet. It's possible that Apple plans to introduce a more secure version of this feature. However, the code could also refer to the iPhone's existing visual search feature, which can identify objects in photos and videos. Apple is set to unveil iOS 18 during its WWDC keynote on June 10, so we should look more closely at these potential New features may be revealed in a few months. Related review: iOS 18 [88 comments]
