Latest rumors have held that Apple will likely be permitting chatbots to combine extra deeply into its working methods, and evidently OpenAI is getting the primary crack at that with ChatGPT. However Apple remains to be engaged on an settlement with Google to do the identical with Gemini, in response to Gurman. It’s additionally been rumored to be speaking to Anthropic. (These talks began earlier than OpenAI’s ongoing Scarlett Johansson dust-up, however they underscore why Apple would possibly need a couple of iPhone chatbot deal.) Outdoors of no matter these potential partnerships will imply, Apple’s strategy to AI will apparently give attention to being sensible.
One massive, noticeable enchancment Apple will reportedly announce may very well be a “sensible recap” characteristic that Gurman mentions. This can apparently summarize missed texts, notifications, and different issues like “internet pages, information articles, paperwork, notes and different types of media.” That is perhaps notably good relating to coping with iOS notifications, which might be overwhelming and troublesome to tame. And if you happen to squint, it vaguely echoes Microsoft’s recently-announced Recall characteristic that tracks what you do in your pc utilizing AI and basically makes your actions searchable.
The Voice Memo app might additionally get a giant enhance in AI-generated transcripts, Gurman writes. Selfishly, that will likely be key for referring to interview recordings, but it surely may be useful for, say, college students recording their classes for later reference. Apple gadgets have comparable options already, like auto-generated voicemail transcripts and system-wide captions for movies, audio, and conversations.
The corporate additionally reportedly plans to announce AI-powered enhancements to on-device Highlight search, web searches with Safari, in addition to writing options for emails and texts. And the corporate might also use AI to retouch photographs and generate emoji on the fly, based mostly on what you’re texting — a sort of characteristic that appears to persistently result in bother for these corporations. (See Meta’s gun-toting Waluigi AI stickers or Google’s inappropriately racially numerous nazi footage.)
Apple might showcase a greater, extra natural-sounding voice for Siri, based mostly on Apple’s personal massive language fashions, in addition to higher Siri performance on the Apple Watch. The place it could, Apple’s gadgets will do all of these things domestically, however for sophisticated duties, they’ll offload processing to Apple’s personal M2 Extremely-based servers, Gurman writes. On the whole, he says gadgets “launched within the final 12 months or so” will achieve many of the new on-device AI options.
Other than AI options, the corporate could announce an iOS 18 characteristic to let customers change their app icons to completely different colours, in response to Gurman. One thing comparable is feasible now, utilizing the iOS Shortcuts app, however I’d positive welcome a extra easy methodology. That’s along with the opposite upcoming rumored iPhone residence display screen change will lastly let customers put app icons wherever they’d like as an alternative of iOS forcing a top-to-bottom, left-to-right association. What’s subsequent? Customized launchers?
Replace Might twenty sixth, 2024, 11:38AM ET: Fleshed out some rumored options and added extra context.