2024 promises to be “The Year of Artificial Intelligence” for Apple, big updates are planned for iOS 18 and later. Rumors—and Tim Cook himself—make it clear that new AI features are in the works for Apple platforms. Here's everything we know about how Apple is exploring artificial intelligence…
iOS 18: new AI features in development
There have been a lot of rumors about various AI features in development inside Apple. Bloomberg reported that Apple believes iOS 18 will be one of the “biggest updates to iOS.” ever, led by a number of new artificial intelligence features.
Mark Gurman reported last July that Apple had created its own large language model (LLM) system, called AppleGPT. The project uses a platform called “Ajax” that Apple began building in 2022 to build various machine learning projects on a common foundation. This Ajax framework will serve as the foundation for Apple's future AI features across the platform.
9to5Mac found evidence of Apple working on new artificial intelligence and large language model technology in iOS 17.4. We reported that Apple is using OpenAI's ChatGPT API for internal testing to help develop its own AI models.
- iOS 17.4: Apple continues to work on AI-powered Siri and Messages features via ChatGPT
Here are some rumors about the new artificial intelligence features coming in iOS 18:
- A new version of Siri, smarter and based on big technology language model similar to platforms such as ChatGPT and Google Gemini.
- New AI features for Apple Music that allow users to automatically create playlists.
- AI integration in Pages, Keynote and Numbers for summarizing, creating content, and more.
- AI features for Xcode that can complete code blocks, help test apps, and more.
- An updated version of Spotlight Search, powered by generative AI and capable of more complex tasks.
- >AI-powered health coaching feature integrated into Apple Health and Apple Watch
- New AI features for Messages that can automatically complete messages, answer questions, and summarize incoming text messages
- New AI features for the Messages app that can automatically complete messages, answer questions, and summarize incoming text messages.
- New AI features for the Messages app
li>
Apple AI frameworks
Did you know that Apple has actually already launched a number of powerful AI frameworks and models? Here's a summary:
- Apple AI's Work Continues: Editing Photos Using Text Commands
- Apple Keyframer Generates AI Animations from a Still Image and a Text Guide
- Apple Keyframer generates AI animation from a still image and text tip
- Apple Keyframer generates AI animation from a still image and text tip
- Apple Keyframer
Announcing Apple AI this year
During Apple's latest earnings call, Tim Cook offered a rare teaser of a future product announcement. Apple spends “an enormous amount of time and effort” on software development, Cook said. on artificial intelligence technologies, and the company is “excited to share details of our ongoing work in this area later this year.”
It is extremely rare for Cook to give even remote hints about Apple's plans for future product announcements. Why did he do it this time? That's likely to ease fears among investors and analysts concerned that Apple is lagging behind companies like OpenAI, Google and Microsoft. Whether the teaser will be enough to allay these fears until the actual product announcement occurs remains to be seen.
Summary
The question now is which of the many rumors will come to fruition this year.
I'll be surprised if all these rumors about AI features are ready for it year. My guess is that Apple is working on all of this (and more), but will shorten the final list of features included in iOS 18. Features not included on this list will likely appear in a later iOS update. 18 or iOS 19 in 2025.
Where do you want Apple to focus its attention in terms of new AI features this year? Let us know in the comments.
Follow Chance: Threads, Twitter, Instagram and Mastodon.
