In summary
- Apple has finally started rolling out updates to its suite of AI-powered tools for iOS, iPadOS, and macOS, the company recently announced.
- Apple’s AI experience has been criticized for being “pretty flat” and offering “only modest improvements,” according to experts at Wired and Axios.
- The new update includes improvements to Siri, new writing tools, a “Clear” feature in Apple Photos, and real-time call transcription.
Apple has finally started rolling out updates to its suite of AI-powered tools for iOS, iPadOS, and macOS, the company recently announced.
While the world’s largest consumer technology company praised its latest improvements, reviews of Apple Intelligence have been disappointing.
The AI experience, “as it stands, is pretty flat,” said Julian Chokkattu, senior reviews editor at Wired.
Ina Fried, senior technology correspondent at Axios, said the preview version offered “only modest improvements that left me excited about the future, but also impatient for it.”
And the New York Times commented that “the much-vaunted AI-transformed future still appears far away.”
Well, now that it has met its self-imposed October deadline to come out with something AI-related, Apple has plenty of time to iterate and transform the future.
Apple announced its artificial intelligence features for its devices, following a collaboration with OpenAI, in June during its annual developer conference.
The move followed other tech giants that have been driving advances in artificial intelligence across their ecosystems, including Google and Microsoft earlier this year.
Participants in Apple’s beta program have already been able to play with the features released today for iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1 for iPhone 15 Pro and newer models.
Siri Update and ChatGPT Integration
With Apple’s new Intelligence update, the company said Siri can switch between voice and text and understand when users get stuck while speaking, all while answering more detailed questions.
The corners of a device’s screen will now glow, alerting the user that Siri is listening, the company said in a statement.
Leveraging its partnership with OpenAI, Siri can use ChatGPT for additional help, deeper insights, and answers.
Apple noted that the GPT chatbot would be available for free, with no account required, and would work in apps like Writing Tools and Camera Controls.
New Writing Tools
Monday’s soft launch introduced new writing tools, similar to a combination between Grammarly and Google Docs.
It allows users to rewrite, summarize, and proofread their work, as well as adjust the tone across platforms like Mail, Messages, Notes, Pages, and third-party apps.
Apple Photos
The Apple Photos app now includes a new “Clean Up” tool that allows users to remove unwanted objects or people from images.
Photos now also supports more advanced searches using natural language, making it easier to find specific photos by describing them.
Prioritizing emails
Update 18.1 introduces new notification summaries and “Priority Messages” in Mail, making it easier to manage emails, including email summaries without having to open them and showing the most urgent emails as same-day invitations.
The Mail app will also include a “Smart Reply” feature that suggests quick responses to emails.
Transcription of notes
Similar to transcription software like Otter.ai, Apple users can now transcribe and summarize phone calls made on the user’s devices.
Unlike Otter, Apple transcribes calls in real time while the call is in progress. According to Apple, call participants are automatically notified that the recording is taking place.
Focus on privacy
While the idea of phone calls being recorded and transcribed may make some users hesitant, Apple claims that through its “Private Cloud Computing” feature, user data is never stored or shared with Apple.
Despite having ChatGPT included in Apple Intelligence, the Cupertino, California-based firm said that user data such as IP addresses is hidden, and OpenAI does not store requests made to ChatGPT.
“Designed to protect user privacy at every step, Apple Intelligence uses on-device processing, meaning many of the models that power it run entirely on the device.”
Its AI implementation is currently available in US English, with localized English versions for Australia, Canada, South Africa and the UK launching in December.
Apple plans an update to support languages such as Chinese, French, German, Japanese, and Spanish in April 2025.
Edited by Josh Quittner and Sebastian Sinclair
Generally Intelligent Newsletter
A weekly AI journey narrated by Gen, a generative AI model.
Crypto Keynote USA
For the Latest Crypto News, Follow ©KeynoteUSA on Twitter Or Google News.