Apple Intelligence (AI?) at WWDC

Apple’s WWDC was software-focused with no hardware, but a lot was announced.

It was a bit boring in sections, but the biggest announcement was about Apple Intelligence. Apple is ushering in the future of computing and doing it at scale. Other companies like Humane AI or Rabbit AI are doing it innovatively, but they are doing it at small scales (10,000 devices for Humane and supposedly 100,000 devices for Rabbit). Apple will roll these features out to millions of users in the next few months.

Watch the full WWDC 2024 Keynote:

Biggest announcements in no particular order:

1. Siri getting smarter with ChatGPT support too
2. Mirror an iPhone on a Mac with the ability to have notifications and drag files between devices
3. Sending messages via satellite
4. The calculator app on the iPad, now with the math note feature
5. New standalone password application
6. Apple Intelligence through their suite of apps from Mail, Photos, and other apps

Apple not having a calculator app on the iPad before was a whiff, but then adding the app and tying in the Apple Pencil with the Math Notes feature blew me away. I always think high-school me being able to use this. The ability to record, transcribe, and summarize audio with AI, too, is amazing to see. It makes voice notes a more useful feature. The Photos app with natural language search is cool to see. I often search for certain images like credit cards and it was decent before, but now I imagine it will be 10x better.

I am excited to see how these AI features will change how folks interact with and use devices. Siri’s onscreen awareness will increase how we use Siri, which has traditionally been one of the worst voice assistants around. The on-device processing allows Apple to claim that its AI features are aware of your data without collecting it. They also have the ability to process on their Private Cloud Compute servers which is as secure as the iPhone.

The Betas will get the Apple intelligence features this summer, and we will see how good they are. I hope these features are aids, not just ways to write 100% AI content or “replace” a human for a nominal task. They make us superhumans, advancing what we can do and how we ideate.