At Apple's September keynote event, on top of the announcement of the new iPhone 16 series and new additions to the Apple Watch and AirPods product lineups, all the attention is on Apple Intelligence. While Apple confirmed that the iPhone 16 series is "built from the ground up" for Apple Intelligence, the AI features will be available in beta next month and likely won't fully arrive until the first quarter of 2025.
Craig Federighi, SVP of Software Engineering at Apple, announced that Apple Intelligence will be "available as a free software update." The initial set of features will start rolling out next month with iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1, with more features to follow in subsequent months.
The update will initially support US English in most regions worldwide, with localized English versions for Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, and the UK slated for December. Additional languages, including Chinese, French, Japanese, and Spanish, are scheduled for release next year. Federighi emphasized that this launch is just the beginning, with ongoing efforts to enhance personal intelligence in users' daily experiences.
Emphasis on AI privacy
Throughout the presentation for Apple Intelligence, it is clear that Apple places a high priority on ensuring user privacy when using its AI features. A cornerstone of Apple Intelligence is on-device processing, and for more complex requests that require more computing power, Private Cloud Compute offers secure and private access to larger generative models.
Federighi highlighted three ways that Private Cloud Compute helps with user privacy. Firstly, users' data is never stored or shared with Apple. Secondly, it is used only to fulfill users' requests. Lastly, independent experts can inspect the code to verify this privacy promise. He claims this is "an extraordinary step forward for privacy in AI."
In addition, for users who choose to access third-party AI services like ChatGPT, Apple offers built-in privacy protections: IP addresses are obscured, and OpenAI won't store requests. Users can access ChatGPT for free without creating an account, and ChatGPT's data-use policies only apply to those who choose to connect their accounts. All in all, users control when third-party tools are used and what information is shared.
Visual Intelligence and Camera Control
One of the more notable upcoming features of Apple Intelligence is the so-called visual intelligence, created specifically for the iPhone 16. It utilizes the iPhone 16's new Camera Control button. Users can click and hold Camera Control and point their iPhones at their surroundings to quickly learn about them.
They can point at a restaurant they passed by to pull up its opening hours and ratings, as well as options to check out the menu or book a reservation. They can point to an event flyer to add said event to their calendar. with details like event title, time, date, and location all automatically inputted.
Camera Control will also serve as a gateway into third-party tools with specific domain expertise, like when users want to search on Google to find where to buy an item or use ChatGPT to solve problems. Reiterating the emphasis on privacy, Federighi claimed, "All of this is done privately using a combination of on-device intelligence and Apple services that never store your images."
Other upcoming AI features
There are several other Apple Intelligence features set to arrive on iPhones in the coming months, each offering different ways to enhance users' personal experience.
With Writing Tools, users can refine their words by rewriting, proofreading, and summarizing text nearly everywhere they write, including Mail, Notes, Pages, and third-party apps.
In Photos, the Memories feature now enables users to create the movies they want to see by simply typing a description. In addition, natural language can be used to search for specific photos, and searching in videos gets more powerful with the ability to find specific moments in clips.
In the Notes and Phone apps, users can record, transcribe, and summarize audio. When a recording is initiated while on a call in the Phone app, participants are automatically notified, and once the call ends, Apple Intelligence also generates a summary to help recall key points.
Apple Intelligence also helps users summarize notifications across apps and push up notifications with high priority that might need immediate attention. A similar feature will be available in Mail as well, as the content of emails is summarized and time-sensitive messages are surfaced.
The voice assistant Siri is expected to become more natural, flexible, and deeply integrated into the system experience.
